About ECA
European Association For Constructivism and Integrative Approach (ECA) is an umbrella organization devoted to fostering connecting and dialogue between European organizations interested in scientific and educational advancement and promotion of constructivist psychology and its practical application in psychotherapy, counseling and coaching.
ECA is devoted to further advancing constructivism as a prominent direction in psychology and psychotherapy.
We develop educational initiatives from the constructivist and integrative approach to psychotherapy, counseling and coaching
Through publications, online presentations, lectures, and video materials we are devoted to promoting different constructivist views.
ECA is open to collaboration with organizations and individuals interested in the wide field of constructivism.
MISSION
ECA and its constitutive members, both organizations and individual members, share the following mission:
- To develop the highest standard of clinical practice through training, supervision and continuing professional development of its members.
To use evidence-based strategies and techniques when they are available and to strive to improve and expand on accepted practice in order to further the theoretical and practical possibilities of various psychotherapies under ECA’s umbrella. - To respect their clients’ autonomy and personal agency
- To accept and respect the diverse worldviews and lived experiences of their clients
To support the right of clients to get the best possible therapy for their psychological problems - To seek supervision, further training and/or peer guidance when necessary.
ECA supports these efforts and wants to contribute to them.
Furthermore, all member organizations and individual members of ECA will make an effort to continuously work on the following two goals:
- To establish and maintain the recognition of constructivist, constructionist and other related psychotherapeutic approaches as well as their status with the European Association for Psychotherapy.
- To contribute, to the best of their ability, to dialogue between different “flavors” of psychotherapies included in the ECA. The facilitation of dialogue and interchange is meant to improve communication, intellectual exchange and further development, practical and theoretical.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND VALUES
The core values of the ECA are:
- Honesty and decency
- Equality and respect of the individual and their autonomy
- Diversity, respect for dignity and human rights
- Collaborative decision making through dialogue.
ECA and all its members respect human rights as defined in the United Nations Universal Human Rights Declaration. This includes promoting practices in mental health that are respectful of human dignity and rights and denouncing any practice that is contrary to human dignity and rights.
As ECA members we recognize that respecting the specificities of every client’s lived experience contributes to an overall more tolerant and caring society. All ECA’s members respect the unique worth and inherent dignity of all human beings and diversity among peoples, as well as customs of different cultures and aim to practice in accordance with these principles.
The principle of respect for diversity of opinions and customs is to be limited only when a custom or a belief seriously negates or opposes the principle of respect for the dignity of persons or causes serious harm to their well-being or is in contradiction with the universal declaration of human rights. All ECA MAs always stand against attitudes and behaviors that lead to human suffering and destruction.
ORGANIZATIONAL FLEXIBILITY
As an umbrella organization for a variety of approaches to personal growth and psychological change, ECA is obligated to show structural and organizational flexibility that will be needed to accommodate new members and their specific circumstances, as well as to better work to achieve its mission and stated goals, while upholding, without compromise, its ethical obligations.
Respect for diverse perspectives is a common feature across all constructivist and constructionist approaches and it shall be reflected in the structure and personnel changes within the ECA itself, without compromising its position as the umbrella organization and a guarantee of the status of different psychologies in appropriate national and international regulatory bodies.
This flexibility is to be reflected in subsequent revisions of this charter to reflect the growing status of ECA. In his Psychology of Personal Constructs (Volume I), George Kelly states that every person is a form of motion, one that changes and retells its own story depending on the action it takes and the context in which it exists. ECA is best seen as yet another form of motion, one that will grow and adapt to its members and the dynamic, changing landscape of psychotherapy, counseling and coaching in Europe.