Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT)

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What is it?

IPT is a brief and highly structured manual based psychotherapy and it targets problems with the persons relationships and social networks that occur as a result of psychiatric symptoms.

Although it was originally developed to treat depression in the 1970s it has now been modified to treat all sorts of psychiatric disorders with great success including dysthymia, bulimia nervosa, substance misuse, somatisation, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and some anxiety disorders.

Like CBT it works on current symptoms and functioning so is based in the here and now which many patients like.

When unwell, individuals tend to have difficulties that fall within one or more of the four typical interpersonal problem areas.

Typical Interpersonal Problem Areas

Interpersonal disputes - where there may be obvious arguments or grumbling dissatisfaction within relationships. This can newly occur within a relationship during the postpartum period or may intensify already existing marital dissatisfaction as the couple struggles with a newborn baby. Relationship difficulties may also occur more widely with one or more of the couples own parents, other children in the family, friends or employers.
Role transitions - where there is difficulty adjusting to a new role the period during pregnancy and postnatal is a typical example of this where women have to adjust to a new baby, a change in their work role, and their intimate role to name a few.
Grief - where there has been a death or serious injury of a close one. This may include grieving for the loss of a baby, or the birth of an unwell or special needs baby.
Interpersonal deficits/sensitivity - where someone becomes lonely and socially isolated or more avoidant of social relationships than they usually are. This may occur in the postpartum period as the focus on the baby becomes more and more important to the exclusion of other relationships.

IPT works very simply by helping the patient deal with the issues in their problem area/s and as a result of learning new ways of addressing these, the symptoms resolve.

How long does it take?

IPT usually runs for 12 to 16 one hour sessions that occur weekly.

In the initial sessions, information is gathered to try and work out which of the four problem areas shown above are relevant for you.

In the middle sessions - from about sessions 5 to 14 - the problematic areas are addressed.

In the final sessions there is a focus on ending therapy, which is a bit like ending an interpersonal relationship.

How effective is it?

There are several large clinical trials that show that IPT is very effective for depression and works as well as CBT and medication in mild to moderately severe forms of illness.

In some cases using a combination of medication for depression and IPT is even more effective than either alone, and may be used when the person is more severely unwell.

Finding an IPT therapist

IPT is used worldwide by lots of different types of mental health professionals including nurses, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

In New Zealand all psychiatrists have to treat at least one person with IPT as part of their training. Some private therapists are offering IPT as an option.

See Support section for help in your area.

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