Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is an evidence based psychotherapy that is time-limited and structured approach to the treatment of depression. The fundamental clinical task of IPT is to help patients to learn to link mood with interpersonal contacts, and to recognise that by appropriately addressing interpersonal situations they may simultaneously improve both their relationships and depressive state. Typically, IPT focuses on one of four areas of difficulty that are having a significant impact on the patient’s depression symptoms, namely conflict with another person, life changes that affect how you feel about yourself and others, unresolved grief and difficulty in starting or keeping relationships going in a satisfying way.
A course of IPT may involve 8-16 sessions. Its overall aims are to reduce the symptoms of depression and to improve the quality of the patient’s social and interpersonal functioning. By appropriately addressing interpersonal situations improvements to both relationships and depressive mood can be found.
(Acknowledgement: Information adapted from www.iptuk.org)
