Interpersonal Psychotherapy - History

History

Interpersonal therapy began in 1969 at Yale University, where Dr. Gerald Klerman was joined by Dr. Eugene Paykel from London to design a study to test the relative efficacy of an antidepressant alone and both with and without psychotherapy as maintenance treatment of ambulatory nonbipolar depression.

IPT takes structure from psychodynamic psychotherapy, but also from contemporary Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) approaches in that it is time-limited and employs homework, structured interviews, and assessment tools.

Over the past 20 years, IPT has been carefully studied in many research protocols, has been demonstrated to successfully treat patients with depression, and has been modified to treat other psychiatric disorders (substance abuse, dysthymia, bulimia) and patient populations (adolescents, late-life, primary medical care). It has primarily been utilized as a short-term (approximately 16 week) therapy, but has also been modified for use as a maintenance therapy for patients with recurrent depression.

From the beginning, IPT has been tested in various clinical trials and found to be effective in treating acute episodes of depression and preventing or delaying the onset of subsequent episodes. A large multicenter collaborative study was conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), comparing IPT, CBT, imipramine and placebo. Results of the Collaborative Study were published in 1989, demonstrating that IPT was quite effective in treating acute symptoms of depression during the first 6–8 weeks, with improvement in psychosocial function continuing after 16 weeks. Frank and her colleagues in Pittsburgh have demonstrated the efficacy of IPT as a maintenance treatment and have delineated some contributing factors.