All the rivers of psychodynamic therapy combine

I hold to the belief of all therapy having one common theme to it. There is one expectation from therapy and that is too work. And sometimes not to work but do the least bit of damage. To explain all the intricate manifestation of human behavior, all theories come fairly close to each other. Yes they differ also on some key elements but then again if a therapist cannot practice being all inclusive, he or she runs the danger of trying to see everything in the world as all squares or as all circles.
The discussion of Beck about modes of cognition which exist in our minds and how they become activated through cognitive reactivity brings back some memories of archetypes that Jung talks about.
My psychotherapy supervisor, who i just started with believes in thinking in psycho dynamic terms but making plans keeping in mind behavioral or interpersonal principles. I found his approach as somewhat unique. He believes that initially the problem needs to clarified. One should be clear whether one is dealing with problem of libidinal drives, problem of function of the ego (like reality testing, impulse control etc), problem with how the person perceives the world around it or how the person recognizes itself. By this he is combining all the schools of psycho dynamics and giving each of them a place to help formulate each case.
The four schools broadly being drive theory, self psychology, object relations and ego psychology.

I think every good therapist tries to unite all these things in the mind and clinical practice. It is informative trying to see what every one's picture of unity looks like.

My previous psychotherapy supervisor who is a man held in awe by many including myself, was a minimalist. He was the king of brevity. Actually still is. He saw all therapy and condensed it into the very basic rudimentary dynamic. On those basic framework of dynamics he would plan the clinical dance to take some very interesting forms.