Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT): a short introduction

Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology 2013; 23: Supplement S2-S2
Read: 580 Published: 21 March 2021

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is an Evidence-Based Psychotherapy for adults and adolescents. It has demonstrated efficacy for affective disorders, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, PTSD and perinatal depression. IPT has also been demonstrated to be efficacious as a maintenance treatment to prevent relapse of depression. IPT has been demonstrated to be effective when delivered in a variety of settings, including mental health clinics and school-based clinics. IPT is based on an attachment model, in which distress is tied to difficulty in interpersonal relationships. The targets of IPT are not only symptoms, but also improvement in interpersonal functioning and relationships as well as improved social support. Therapy focuses on one or more interpersonal problem areas, including Interpersonal Disputes, Role Transitions, and Grief and Loss Issues. IPT is time-limited, and typical courses of therapy last from 8-20 sessions, which are tapered over time. IPT has several advantages in addition to its well-established efficacy. It is intuitively appealing both to clients and therapists. This is largely because interpersonal problems are nearly always what lead people to seek or be referred to treatment. Having a therapy that addresses these issues directly is a strength of IPT. The evidence base for IPT is vastly more extensive than any treatment except for CBT, with over 250 published studies now demonstrating IPT’s efficacy. IPT is efficacious for the ages ranging from 9 to the very elderly; there is more data and literature demonstrating the efficacy of IPT with geriatric patients than any other psychotherapy. Early in its development, IPT was largely confined to research settings. An extensive effort to disseminate IPT for clinical use opens new possibilities as clinicians use it extensively in their real world practices. IPT’s unique interpersonal focus enriches the toolbox of clinicians who are trained in other psychotherapy methods. During this panel, we will present the theoretical basis of IPT and its techniques, in comparison with other psychotherapies. In another panel during the congress, we will present the use of IPT in pregnant and postnatal women, for whom it is an empirically validated treatment of choice for depression.

EISSN 2475-0581