Interpersonal psychotherapy is a form of therapy that focuses on improving a person's relationships with others. It helps people understand and address problems they may be having in their interactions with others, and teaches them healthy ways to communicate and solve relationship issues.
Full definition
Evidence indicates that optimal treatment of depression
includes interpersonal psychotherapy.4 Family physicians routinely provide encouragement and supportive therapy to their patients, and some provide more formal psychotherapy.
In a study of 120 depressed postpartum women [78],
interpersonal psychotherapy reduced depressive symptoms and improved social adjustment in the subjects compared with the control group on the waiting list.
The study tested the effectiveness
of interpersonal psychotherapy, a short - term depression treatment that has worked with more advantaged populations.
The latter finding is in accordance with the efficacy of
group interpersonal psychotherapy for adolescent girl survivors of war and displacement in Northern Uganda.13
A practical update
on Interpersonal Psychotherapy in the managed care environment (CME course), Managed Care and Briefer Therapies: Clinical and Economic Issues, San Francisco, California.
This study examined whether reductions in depression symptoms at different time points over the course of therapy predict remission for depressed adolescents treated
with Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depressed Adolescents (IPT - A) or treatment as usual (TAU) delivered in school - based health clinics.
Donker, T., Bennett, K., Bennett, A., Mackinnon, A., van Straten, A., Cuijpers, P., Christensen, H., Griffiths, K.M. Internet -
Delivered Interpersonal Psychotherapy Versus Internet - Delivered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adults With Depressive Symptoms: Randomized Controlled Noninferiority Trial.
«These findings provide strong support for Family
Based Interpersonal Psychotherapy as an effective treatment for depression in children between the ages of 7 - 12,» said Laura J. Dietz, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and principal investigator of the study.
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations) This study compared a group
receiving Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) for antepartum depression to a parenting education control program.
Frank, E., et al., Randomized Trial of Weekly, Twice - Monthly, and Monthly
Interpersonal Psychotherapy as Maintenance Treatment for Women With Recurrent Depression.
Similarly, in a study of
Interpersonal Psychotherapy approaches to preventing youth depression, Young and colleagues found that teens who participated in a skills - based intervention targeting interpersonal role disputes, role transitions and interpersonal deficits reported fewer depressive symptoms at six - months follow - up than teens who were assigned to a school counseling control group.
Wilfley, D.E., Frank, M.A., Welch, R., Spurrell, E.B., Rounsaville, B.J. (1998);
Adapting Interpersonal Psychotherapy to a group format (IPT - G) for binge eating disorder: Toward a model for adapting empirically supported treatment; Psychotherapy Research; 8 (4); 379 - 391
Since Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depressed Adolescents (IPT - A) is rated on the Scientific Rating Scale, information was requested from the program representative on available pre-implementation assessments, implementation tools, and / or fidelity measures.
In one study of depressed patients taking medication, 70 % of the patients who also received intensive
interpersonal psychotherapy experienced a significant reduction in symptoms after five weeks, compared to just 51 % of the patients who received only 20 - minute support sessions.
She is a member of the Berkeley Psychotherapy Research Group in the department of clinical psychology at UC Berkeley, where she is doing process - outcome research on differences in the handling of emotion in Cognitive - Behavioral Therapy, and
Interpersonal Psychotherapy using the NIMH Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program data.
When their maintenance study [1] demonstrated the efficacy of «high contact» counseling, the treatment was more fully developed and was subsequently
renamed Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT).