IPT: Reducing Symptomology by Improving Clients’ Relationship Skills
- The interpersonal context of clients’ mental health
- The impact of early attachment experiences and family dynamics on interpersonal functioning
- Overview of IPT’s history, development, and theoretical underpinnings
- Key features of IPT and evidence base
- Problem areas targeted: role disputes, role transitions, interpersonal deficits and grief
- Treatment limitations and risks
- Inclusion/Exclusion criteria for discerning when to use IPT techniques in groups or individual work
Assessment and Treatment Planning
- Clinical IPT interview outline
- Assessing interpersonal functioning and identifying relevant problem areas
- Steps for conducting the interpersonal inventory with clients
- Communication styles, attachment patterns, and role expectations
- Review of helpful self-report measures
- Treatment considerations when comorbid issues are present
- Cultural and diversity considerations and adapting to specific populations
Getting Started with IPT: How to Conduct the Initial Phase
- Psychoeducation on social support, interpersonal relationships, and mental health
- Completing the interpersonal inventory
- Formulating a treatment strategy with clients
Intermediate Phase of Treatment: IPT Techniques and Strategies to Jumpstart Interpersonal Change
- Communication analysis to identify problematic communication patterns
- Using decisions analysis to clarify values, priorities, and options
- Role play exercises for practicing confident effective communication
- Interpersonal skills building
- How to use IPT to address grief, role disputes, role transitions, and interpersonal deficits
- Develop and reinforce new interpersonal skills and patterns
Phase Three: Termination and Maintenance
- Identifying past treatment trends
- Summarizing progress and reviewing treatment goals
- Consolidating gains and preparing for termination
- Strategies for maintaining new interpersonal patterns
IPT as an Adjunctive Treatment for Trauma
- Addressing trauma in the context of interpersonal relationships
- Conducting an interpersonal assessment in clients with trauma histories
- Coping strategies to manage triggers in the context of interpersonal relationships
- Targeting interpersonal problems that have arisen as a result of the trauma or loss
- Research limitations of IPT for trauma
IPT for Anxiety and Depression
- Interpersonal factors in the development of anxiety and depression
- The role of social support, attachment, and communication patterns
- Specific interventions for fears related to change and loss, resolving conflicts and misunderstandings, and enhancing social support networks
- IPT as an adjunctive treatment for anxiety


