Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Group (IPT-G)

Chapter 20 discusses adapting IPT to the group format (IPT-G), which has been applied more broadly and is currently used to treat a range of patient populations and disorders. It shows comparision between IPT-G and other group therapy models, as well as techniques, timelines, phases, and structures, and the roles and phases within IPT-G.

Maintenance Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT-M)

Chapter 19 covers maintenance interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-M), and that while effective psychotherapeutic and pharmacotherapeutic acute treatments for depression are well known, the problem of how to prevent relapse and recurrence has been a vexing one. It describes some of the studies designed to test the protective effects of maintenance pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy against relapse and recurrence, how with pharmacotherapy, judging long-term efficacy simply requires monitoring patients on a given dose of medication over time, but how psychotherapeutic interventions raise other issues. It covers IPT-M for late-life mood disorders, personality pathology, optimal frequency of IPT-M, research in this area, and a case example.

Treatment of Adolescent Depression with Interpersonal Psychotherapy

Chapter 12 discusses the adaptation of IPT for depressed adolescents (IPT-A), and the hopes of building upon the research demonstrating its efficacy with depressed adults. It examines how the interpersonal model seemed appropriate for adolescents given their focus on interpersonal relationships and the significant developmental changes that occur in these relationships, such as separation and individuation from parents and increased focus on peer and romantic relationships. It also covers how IPT-A strategies help adolescents to bolster self-confidence and make steps toward increasing independence while also helping them to understand how they still depend on others and how they can negotiate their relationships more successfully.

Major Depressive Disorder

Chapter 5 provides a case that illustrates many of the difficulties of working with an individual whose key problem area is interpersonal deficits, and the case illustrates the complexities of defining and exploring interpersonal deficits with a patient whose depressive symptoms had accented a unique personality style. It examines the history, formulation, process of therapy, and the difficulties and successes in working with such a patient, and provides an example of using the therapeutic relationship to advance the treatment, and issues taken to supervision are also outlined.

Using Interpersonal Psychotherapy with Older Individuals

Chapter 14 discusses using IPT with older individuals, and covers how IPT can help with role transitions, relocation, increasing medical burden, awareness of cognitive decline, caregiving burdens, depression, or waning mental and physical capabilities.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder

Chapter 11 discusses ITP for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and covers adaptations, and a case example that investigates the phases and termination of therapy, and a case discussion.

Major Depressive Disorder

Chapter 4 describes a case of IPT treatment of major depressive disorder with a focus on role transitions, and how social roles are central to our sense of identity, how all individuals may hold numerous roles (partner, child, parent, sibling, neighbor, community member, etc.), besides having vocational roles (colleague, employee, employer, or professional). It looks at how social roles determine the ‘rules of engagement’ (around communication, sharing of responsibilities) and expectations we have of one another, and how a change in one’s social role (losing a job, moving to another city, becoming partnered, ending a spousal or long-term romantic relationship, adjusting to a disabling or disfiguring medical condition, becoming a new parent) can generate a shift in or loss of one’s sense of self. It examines how these role transitions also evoke changes in one’s needs for or access to social supports and how a role change can be stressful enough to provoke an episode of major depression, especially in individuals with limited social support, insecure or disorganized attachment, or a history of or genetic vulnerability to depression.

Complicated Grief

Chapter 2 discusses complicated grief, and how the IPT therapist selects grief as an interpersonal focus when the onset of the patient’s symptoms is associated with the death of a significant other and manifests in a bereavement-related depression. It covers how this reaction differs from the predictable sorrow associated with bereavement – the experience of deprivation and desolation. It examines how the DSM-IV echoes this distinction by excluding immediate bereavement reactions in making the diagnosis of major depression, and how clinicians may diagnose major depression only if symptoms persist for more than 2 months after the death or are characterized by marked functional impairment, morbid preoccupation with worthlessness, suicidal ideation, psychotic symptoms, or psychomotor retardation.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Inpatients with Depression

Chapter 21 discusses IPT for inpatients with depression, and covers rationale, development of the concept, modifications, pilot study, comparisons with standard treatment, and a case example.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Women with Depression Living on Low Incomes

Chapter 17 reviews the effectiveness of IPT for depressed women on low incomes and highlights the multiple chronic stressors and barriers to care they face, as well as describes adaptations and additions to IPT made via work with depressed, low-income women who face practical, psychological, and cultural barriers to treatment engagement and retention. A case example demonstrates these modifications in the delivery of IPT.