Applied Clinical Integration in Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents: A Look Ahead

Abstract

In this article, I briefly review the integration movement beginning with the early 1970's. Early integration efforts focused on interdisciplinary integration. Beginning in the mid 1990's, integrative scholarship has moved increasingly from interdisciplinary integration to applied clinical integration. Applied clinical integration with children and adolescents is an area of clinical practice in its infancy. I discuss the future of applied clinical integration with children and teens. In doing so, I advocate for the development of developmentally sensitive measures of religion and spirituality with children and teens. I then discuss promising spiritually oriented interventions with children and suggest areas for research in trauma focused therapy with children. I also suggest areas of research and practice related to training Christian therapists.