An integral analysis of the etiology and treatment of schizophrenia: Integrated pluralism in research and clinical practice.

Boxell & Marquis (2022) published “An Integral Analysis of the Etiology and Treatment of Schizophrenia: Integrated pluralism in research and clinical practice” in the Journal of Psychotherapy Integration. I tend to be drawn to work that moves beyond the battles over theory in the late 20th century that privilege competition and denigration of opposing views over integration and synthesis. 

A major difficulty in integrating approaches to psychotherapy concerns the disparate epistemologies and methodologies of the research programs from which they originate. Moreover, integrated treatment of psychopathology presupposes an integrated formulation of many diverse etiological factors and the interactions between them. The present article uses a metatheoretical framework called Integral Theory to organize varied research on the origins of schizophrenia, demonstrating how the well-known neurobiological features of the disorder relate to lesser-known biological, psychological, social, and phenomenological paradigms, among others. The article then proceeds to demonstrate how an Integral analysis of the etiology of schizophrenia directly results in an integration of its treatment options. A practical implementation of this approach is illustrated in the form of a case conceptualization and treatment plan for a client with schizophrenia. In addition to the interdisciplinary synthesis itself, this article provides a conceptual basis from which to motivate future integrative research, especially with respect to interactions between etiological factors as studied by different disciplines and the implications of such interactions for treatment. 

Boxell’s research interests include counseling interventions and psychometric assessments based on examination of deep structures of the mind utilizing the integration of psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and humanistic approaches to therapy. His work at the University of Rochester may be worth following.