Summary Of ITP
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Richard's Summary of ITP
Sunday, 28 May 2006
I am only a beginner, but here a few thoughts on IPT I jotted down a while ago:
IPT owes its theoretical framework to many authors, including Bowlby’s emphasis of the importance of early social relationships in psychological development. Harry Stack Sullivan and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann (1960) were some of its earliest proponents.
Important for today's practice are Gerald Klerman’s publications, originating from Adolf Meyer’s teachings.
IPT is a focused, short-term intervention that is not open-ended. It focuses on one specific problem area and does not aim to change the patient’s whole personality.
It is based not on past intrapsychic processes, memories, fantasies and conflicts but on present interpersonal problems and endeavours to enhance the patient’s interpersonal functioning.
Like CBT it is concerned with the patient’s distorted thinking patterns that need to change, but is does not aim at changing them for their own sake. IPT identifies and explores the undesired attitudes and behaviours.
IPT uses neither a manual nor any ‘ homework’, unlike CBT.
Additionally, IPT is designed to be combined with medications.
Four problems can be tackled with IPT:
1. Grief
2. Interpersonal disputes,
3. Role transitions and
4. Interpersonal deficits
Unlike classical psychodynamic therapies, IPT requires the therapist, who often is psychodynamically trained, to be more active in exploring the patient’ s social interactions and their roles in the past and present.
IPT will thus take past experiences and conflicts into account, but only insofar they are applicable on the social relationships focused upon.
Transference in the sessions is not interpreted. It can be noted by the therapist and used to understand the patient’s personality, but only as long as it focuses on the issue focused upon, and not the character.
My summary is probably quite simplistic but I find it an interesting approach.
Richard Baker