Interpersonal Therapy (IPT Therapy) is a short-term, focused treatment for depression and other mental health disorders. IPT Therapy is based on the idea that social issues play a significant role in the development and maintenance of psychological symptoms. In my practice, I use Interpersonal Therapy for depression, anxiety, life transitions, and other challenges in combination with other humanistic methods and techniques. I also do Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy, which is closely related.
What is Interpersonal Therapy?
If you want to discuss how interpersonal therapy might work for you or a loved one, I’d be happy to talk to you at any time. Feel free to schedule a consultation or contact me anytime. First, here is an overview of IPT therapy, and then some specific information and a case example about interpersonal therapy for depression.
Origins, Theory, and Research
IPT was developed in the 1970s by Gerald Klerman and Myrna Weissman as a treatment for major depressive disorder. It has since been adapted for other mental health conditions, including bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is grounded in the belief that psychological symptoms often respond to difficulties in relationships and social roles. The underlying philosophy is that improving interpersonal functioning and addressing problematic relationships can help reduce psychological symptoms.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of interpersonal therapy for depression and other mental health conditions. This approach is as effective as cognitive-behavioral (CBT) and medication for depression, with some evidence suggesting it may be particularly beneficial for people experiencing relationship-related issues.
What is Interpersonal Therapy in Practice
This approach aims to improve relationships and social functioning that affect mental health by identifying and addressing problems in these areas. It typically involves exploring four key areas:
1. Social disputes
This area involves addressing conflicts or misunderstandings in relationships that may contribute to the individual’s distress. Most often, these struggles have a current component, but IPT therapy can also be used to resolve challenges and barriers related to former relationships. We may also explore the past as it relates to how you overcame challenges, and if there are ways you can learn to manage today’s stressors.
2. Interpersonal Therapy and Role Transitions
Life transitions such as marriage, divorce, job loss, or retirement can disrupt social roles and lead to emotional difficulties. IPT therapy helps individuals adjust to these changes. It is not uncommon for a couple who is planning to get married to come in for this type of treatment or even to pursue it separately so they can work out their own issues and not bring them into the marriage.
3. IPT Therapy and Grief
Interpersonal therapy helps individuals cope with the loss of a loved one or other significant losses, which can often trigger or exacerbate depressive symptoms. Using these methods, you can work on unresolved conflicts and issues in your relationship with the person you lost or work on related difficulties that arise with people in your life.
4. Interpersonal deficits
Some people may struggle with social skills or have difficulty forming and maintaining relationships. Interpersonal therapy helps them develop more effective social skills. This can be a perfect adjunct to other types of treatment.
Interpersonal Therapy Techniques
This type of treatment is typically structured, time-limited, and collaborative. As with many humanistic therapies I provide, the focus is on the here and now rather than delving deeply into past experiences too deeply. It starts with identifying specific social problems or patterns that may contribute to challenges. This involves exploring past and present relationships, communication styles, and social interactions to understand how these factors impact the client’s mood.
Once interpersonal issues are identified, we collaboratively set treatment goals to improve interpersonal functioning, such as resolving conflicts, adjusting to life transitions, or enhancing social support. This method can have powerful and lasting results, as it addresses longstanding challenges and barriers.
Here are some examples of the specific interpersonal therapy techniques I use:
Social Inventory
This method involves examining the client’s current and past relationships to identify key themes and patterns. By gaining insight into your history, I can better understand the factors contributing to your depression and tailor treatment accordingly. Sometimes, I suggest IPT after getting to know a client’s social history, even when we are also using another therapeutic method.
Role-playing and Communication Skills Training
This method often incorporates role-playing exercises and communication skills training to help clients improve their ability to express themselves assertively, set boundaries, and navigate interactions more effectively. This sometimes leads to homework outside of sessions.
Interpersonal Therapy and Problem Solving
IPT helps clients develop problem-solving skills to address conflicts and challenges. This may involve breaking down problems into manageable steps, generating potential solutions, and evaluating the pros and cons of each option.
IPT Therapy and Role Transitions
Interpersonal therapy helps clients adjust to significant life transitions, such as starting a new job, ending a relationship, or becoming a parent. This may involve exploring your feelings about the transition, identifying sources of support, and developing coping strategies. This method often involves homework as you try out new communication and coping strategies to determine their effectiveness.
Improving Social Support
IPT focuses on enhancing the client’s social support network by identifying supportive individuals in their lives, strengthening existing relationships, and building new connections. This may involve exploring barriers to social support and finding ways to overcome them. This is why interpersonal therapy is such a popular group treatment approach: It can be used in real time to address social challenges.
Ending Interpersonal Therapy and Relapse Prevention
Toward the end of treatment, these methods help clients develop strategies to maintain their progress and prevent relapse. This may involve identifying warning signs of depression recurrence, practicing coping skills, and accessing ongoing support as needed.
These interpersonal therapy techniques are typically implemented within a structured and time-limited framework. We work together to achieve treatment goals and improve social contentment and functioning.
Interpersonal Therapy for Depression
Interpersonal therapy is widely used as a treatment for depression. It’s grounded in the understanding that relationships and social context greatly influence one’s emotional state. Here’s how I borrow from the strategies of interpersonal therapy for depression:
Assessment
I begin by conducting a thorough assessment of my client’s current social functioning and relationships, as well as their symptoms of depression. This assessment helps identify patterns of interaction and areas of difficulty in relationships that may be contributing to the depression. We often use other third-wave treatment methods, such as CBT or ACT, at first. Then, when it becomes clear that interpersonal issues are also playing a role, we layer on IPT therapy to address those issues.
Setting Goals in Interpersonal Therapy for Depression
Based on the assessment, we collaboratively set treatment goals. These goals often revolve around improving social functioning, such as resolving conflicts, adjusting to life transitions, or improving communication skills. In an integrative practice, your treatment plan may have different methods for different goals, and interpersonal therapy for depression may be chosen for the contributing social factors.
Identifying Issues
I help clients identify specific social issues contributing to their depression. These issues could include unresolved conflicts, grief and loss, role transitions, or social isolation. It is not uncommon for social issues to underlie challenges such as depression and anxiety, and thus, this approach can be helpful in many circumstances.
Working Through Problems
Once the issues are identified, we work together to address them. This may involve learning new communication skills, practicing assertiveness, or exploring ways to navigate difficult relationships. Interpersonal therapy also focuses on enhancing each client’s social support network. This may involve identifying supportive individuals in their lives, strengthening existing relationships, and building new connections.
Grieving and Processing Losses
For clients who are dealing with grief or loss, I often use interpersonal therapy techniques within a supportive environment to help them express their feelings and work through the grieving process. This may involve revisiting memories, exploring the significance of the loss, and finding ways to cope with the pain.
Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy
While Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) and Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) sound similar and focus on social relationships, they come from different theoretical backgrounds and have distinct approaches. Here’s a clear comparison to help you differentiate them:
Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy vs. Interpersonal Therapy
| Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) | Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) | |
| Theoretical Base | Psychodynamic (object relations, attachment) | Biopsychosocial model, with roots in psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral theory |
| Focus | Unconscious patterns rooted in early relationships | Current social problems contributing to mood disorders |
| Treatment Goal | Insight into repeating patterns and emotional conflicts | Symptom reduction by improving social functioning in the present |
| Length | Brief (typically 16 sessions) | Brief (12–16 sessions) |
| Developed For | Depression, but adapted for other issues | Originally for depression, now also used for grief, eating disorders, etc. |
Core Differences in Practice
| Dynamic interpersonal therapy techniques | Interpersonal therapy techniques | |
| Exploration of the past | Strong emphasis on how early attachment relationships shape current patterns | Past is only explored as it relates to current issues |
| Use of transference | Yes – the therapeutic relationship is used to explore patterns | No – therapist remains more neutral and focused on external relationships |
| Intervention style | Interpretive and insight-oriented | More structured and problem-solving |
| Focus area | One central interpersonal affective focus (IPAF) that drives the formulation | One of four focus areas: grief, role transitions, disputes, deficits |
Example Focus Areas
- DIT: “I withdraw when I feel rejected because I expect others will abandon me like my father did.”
- IPT: “I’m struggling to adjust after moving schools and losing my social network.”
Ideal Client Fit
| DIT | IPT | |
| Best for clients who… | Have recurring relational issues rooted in early attachment; benefit from insight. | Need support navigating current life changes and interpersonal stressors |
| May not suit clients who… | Prefer structured, solution-focused approaches | Need deeper exploration of long-term emotional patterns |
Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy Summary
| If you want to… | Go with… |
| Understand deep-rooted emotional patterns in relationships. | DIT |
| Improve current interpersonal functioning and reduce depressive symptoms | IPT |
Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy for Depression: A Case Example
Here’s a case example of Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) for an adolescent girl.
“Sara” – A 16-Year-Old Girl with Depression
Presenting Problem: Sara, a 16-year-old girl, is referred by her school counselor due to persistent low mood, irritability, social withdrawal, and declining academic performance. She reports feeling “numb” and often worthless. She has also started skipping classes and avoiding her friends.
Assessment and Formulation: During the dynamic interpersonal therapy assessment phase, Sara shares that her parents recently divorced, and she now lives with her mother. She describes her father as emotionally distant and critical. Her relationship with her mother is strained; Sara feels smothered and misunderstood. Her core interpersonal affective focus (IPAF) is identified as: “Fear of being rejected or unloved if she expresses her true feelings.”
DIT formulation identifies a repeating interpersonal pattern:
- Experience: Sara feels hurt and dismissed when others don’t understand her.
- Expectation: She believes others will reject or criticize her if she expresses vulnerability.
- Response: She withdraws emotionally, leading to further isolation and reinforcing her belief that she is unlovable.
Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy for Depression Goals:
- Help Sara recognize and understand this pattern.
- Explore how this dynamic originated in early relationships (especially with her father).
- Develop new ways of relating and expressing her needs.
Key Sessions in the 16-Session DIT Framework
Session 1–4 (Engagement & Focus): I build rapport and help Sara feel safe in the space. Together, we identify her IPAF. Through guided discussion, Sara begins to see the link between her current relationships and past patterns with her father.
Session 5–10 (Working Through): Sara is encouraged to notice her emotional reactions in the office. When she starts withdrawing from me after discussing a painful memory, so we explore this as a reenactment of her fear of rejection. With my support, she practices staying present and expressing her feelings.
In parallel, she discusses a recent falling out with a friend. We identify how her pattern—expecting rejection and pulling away—played out. She tries a new approach by talking to her friend honestly about her feelings, which leads to a positive response.
Session 11–15 (Consolidation): Sara becomes more aware of her emotions and can better express them. She reports feeling closer to her mother after having a conversation about feeling overwhelmed. I help reinforce her new, more adaptive relational strategies.
Session 16 (Ending): Sara reflects on her growth, particularly her increased emotional insight and improved communication. The ending is used to process the loss of the therapeutic relationship and to solidify her ability to use what she’s learned.
Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy for Depression Outcome
Sara reports feeling less depressed and more connected to her peers and family. She continues seeing the school counselor monthly for check-ins. Her academic performance improves, and she re-engages in extracurricular activities.
DIT, IPT, and My Work
Interpersonal Psychotherapy and Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy are well-established, structured forms of treatment that focus on the relational aspects of mental health. By improving social functioning and addressing specific challenges, IPT therapy helps alleviate psychological symptoms and enhance overall quality of life. In my integrative psychological practice, I use interpersonal therapy for depression, social anxiety, and other diagnoses, often as an adjunct to other methods.
What is Interpersonal Therapy in Practice
I use interpersonal therapy in the following ways:
- Adult individual: The most common form is IPT therapy for individual adults who want to work on emotional challenges, social anxieties, or just general contentment
- Adolescent IPT Therapy (IPT-A): This method addresses teenagers’ developmental needs and social challenges. It is specifically designed to be developmentally appropriate for adolescents. I use a similar approach in my young adult groups.
- Group Treatment: In my fear of public speaking groups, for example, I use these methods to leverage peer support and shared experiences.
- Couples Therapy: Often couples can work on the issues that affect their relationship, even if they have their roots in prior relationships
- Maintenance Interpersonal therapy for depression: I use this approach to prevent relapse in individuals with recurrent depression.
- Brief IPT: This approach is a shorter version for use when long-term is not feasible, or there are specific long-term goals.
Please feel free to contact me or schedule a consultation anytime to discuss how IPT therapy might be helpful for you or if you generally want more information.
