Positioning oneself within an epistemology: refining our thinking about integrative approaches

Integrative approaches seem to be paramount in the current climate of family therapy and other psychotherapies. However, integration between and among theories and practices can only occur within a specific epistemology. This article makes a distinction between three different epistemologies: individualizing, systems, and poststructural. It then makes the argument that one can integrate theories within epistemologies and one can adopt practices and some theoretical concepts across theories and across epistemologies, but that it is impossible to integrate theories across epistemologies. It further states that although social constructionism has influenced much of contemporary psychological thinking, because of the divergence between a structural and a poststructural approach, constructionism looks different depending upon one's epistemological stance. Examples of integration within epistemologies and of what looks like integration across epistemologies (but is not) further illustrate these important distinctions. The conclusions reached here are crucial to our philosophical considerations, our pedagogical assumptions, and implications for both research and a reflexive clinical practice.