Pluralistic therapy is a new approach that prioritises flexibility and collaboration between you and your therapist. It does not dictate a specific set of procedures. Instead, think of it as a ‘stance,’ a therapeutic attitude towards you as a client. The aim is to tailor therapy as best as reasonably possible to each individual person. We do this to seek what co-founder John McLeod describes as ‘the right therapy for the right person, at the right time.’ What follows here are some defining characteristics of this stance that matter to you as a client.
Encouraging your engagement with therapy
Firstly, with pluralistic therapy, you are seen as an active participant in your own treatment. Some will go so far as to describe you as the co-therapist! You are strongly encouraged to express preferences throughout. For example, we can explore the types of activities or ways of working that feel like they’d be most helpful. Maybe you feel compelled to make a playlist of important songs for you and discuss them, let’s do it! In this way, we connect with your skills, strengths, and current resources and capacities. So, a pluralistic therapist strives to offer you creative choices for ways of working, provide opportunity for stretching yourself and exploring new ways of being.
Working to meet your preferences
This collaboration, flexibility, and transparency in decision-making in what happens is empowering. It helps you feel more ownership over your therapy. Pluralistic therapists will utilise therapeutic exercises from person-centered therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, existential therapy, Gestalt, and more. Each of these different approaches to therapy have their own theoretical understandings of how therapeutic change occurs, and why. There is great respect held towards all established and research-informed approaches to therapy. A pluralistic therapist will have theoretical knowledge of these change processes, and aim to draw on an appropriate task at the right time.
Meeting the needs of a diverse society
A core reason for aiming to provide you with an individualised experience is acceptance of diversity in society, of clients themselves and of the problems they bring to the room. We live in a time when phenomena like cultural diversity and neurodivergence have earned rightful respect and recognition. What works therapeutically for you may not work for the next person. Pluralistic therapy acknowledges this by broadening its scope and imagination. If one method doesn’t resonate with you or proves ineffective as we try it, let’s seek out another. Perhaps simple talking therapy is right for you, that’s wonderful. But, perhaps it would be more comfortable and would feel safer for you to write, to diarise, to draw, to dream, to move, to use images or music… let’s collaborate on what you need.
Connecting effectively with your therapist
Countless research studies and reviews show a primary, strong predictor for helpful therapy. A strong working relationship between client and therapist appears more important than how we do therapy (Wampold and Imel, 2015). But, what might make that relationship effective? Some factors include a shared understanding of what you are in therapy to work through, and how to tackle it. Your therapist will routinely help you review progress on how far you have journeyed. You tweak how you work and what you focus on as you go. It is also important to allow a degree of trust in the therapist develop, in their ability to help you. Trust takes time and we should never take it for granted. On a personal note here, I understand your trust as a privilege to be earned as we get to know each other.
Keeping an open mind on the source of problems
One final important thing is that pluralistic therapists keep an open mind on the causes of problems in living. Some types of therapy look to one particular place as the site of problems. As a result, these types might create a more limited space for action. Pluralists accept that your problems, the distress you’re experiencing, can be understood in a number of different ways (Smith and de la Prida, 2021). They might be physiological problems (i.e., physical). Or, they could be developmental (i.e., related to the past, or to formative childhood experiences), or cognitive (i.e., related to thoughts and beliefs). Perhaps they’re spiritual or cultural. It might be society’s problem, and something you are having to deal with as a result. Really listening in to your world means keeping the mind open to where your distress might originate.
In closing
To finish, if you’d like to continue reading more about pluralistic therapy you can do so here from an article by Mick Cooper, a co-founder of pluralism alongside John McLeod. If you are ready to work with a pluralistic therapist, I welcome you to be in touch.
