IPT Essentials (Interpersonal Psychotherapy Training)

Executive Summary:

Interpersonal psychotherapy is a brief psychological therapy for depression, which has now been applied to other areas of mental health. Its goals are simple and practical, namely to reduce symptomatology and to improve social functioning.

Interpersonal psychotherapy is recommended in NICE guidelines, notably for the treatment of depression. This is only as it should be because IPT hit the headlines as long ago as 1989 in Elkin et al's massive NIMH study which demonstrated the IPT was the only psychological therapy to effect severe depression (in spite of the inclusion of CBT in the study). In spite of this, and in spite of its strong evidence base, IPT is not as widely practiced as perhaps it should be.

This course therefore focuses primarily on teaching delegates how to deliver IPT or, more precisely, how to incorporate the ideas and methods of IPT into their practice, to the degree they wish to. It also covers a little on the background and the evidence base, but its prime focus is to familiarise mental health practitioners with the ideas and methods of IPT.

Who should attend?

People who attend this course normally fall into one of two categories:

• Professionals who see patients in 1:1 treatment settings, have a significant degree of clinical skill, and wish to add IPT techniques to their repertoire.
• 'Whole teams' (either in inpatient or community settings) seeking to develop a common approach.

The professional affiliations of people attending this course should include: mental health/psychiatric nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, probation officers and others working in a variety of settings including: Adult Mental Health, Children and Adolescents, Older People, Substance Misuse, and Forensic.

The IPT Essentials course covers a great deal:

• Gerald Klerman and the development of IPT.

• The evidence for IPT: NICE guidelines and major studies.

• The application of IPT: originally and primarily for depression, what other areas of relevance are there?

• How interpersonal issues contribute to depression: formulating clients' problems in IPT terms.

• Role transitions: coping with the loss associated with changes in role such as: being a dependent child to being an independent adult; being independent to being married; being young and married to having dependent children; children leaving home; losing you job or retiring; losing a partner through separation.

• Disputes. Using communication analysis to reconstruct unsatisfactory exchanges, reviewing what was said and how it was said and to what extent the communication achieved the desired outcome. People rarely provide this level of detail spontaneously and can learn to do so through repeated practice.

• Disputes 2. Practice in direct and empathic approaches. When it may be appropriate to invite the other party in the dispute into therapy. How to look for other examples of the prime dispute under focus, which may be causing additional problems.

• Grief. It is best to focus on grief if depression following bereavement creates an obstacle to mourning or to sustaining relationships in the remaining network. Encouraging the patient to describe the relationship they had with the deceased, starting with the preoccupying memories and working towards a balanced review of the whole relationship.

• Sensitivities / deficits. Where patients have a long history of interpersonal relationship difficulties or isolation, it is often best to focus on this area. This distinguishes them from many other patients, as this isn't a prolonged period of good interpersonal functioning o which they wish to return.

• Teaching the model to patients. Teaching how symptoms and interpersonal difficulties interact with each other and how each can exacerbate the other. Teaching how to break this pattern and achieve both a reduction in symptoms and improvement in interpersonal functioning. Teaching how to engage with their existing interpersonal network through improved communication.

• The process of therapy and the appropriate use of the therapeutic relationship in gaining insight into, exploring and developing external relationships.

• The therapeutic relationship. Using the therapeutic relationship to support and encourage focus on relationships beyond the therapy room.

• Termination. Addressing the end of the therapy relationship and relapse prevention. It is important to provide information to help the patient normalise their response to ending and distinguish an appropriate emotional response from a depressive one.

What this Interpersonal Psychotherapy course will do for you:

• You will have the feeling of knowing what IPT is all about, and understanding it.

• You will know why it is important to know about IPT.

• You will know when it is – and is not – good to utilise IPT concepts.

• You will know the four major areas you can focus on in interpersonal work, and how to address each.

• You will have a thorough enough knowledge that you can apply it usefully to your patients, and also to yourself if you wish.

• You will be able to describe the relevance of the techniques to your own patients.

• You will have the chance to begin practising IPT.

What you receive as a result of attending the training:

You will be registered as having attended the course, thereby gaining APT's Level 1 accreditation, and receive a certificate to this effect. The accreditation gives you access to online resources associated with the course and access to the online exam if you wish to uprate your APT accreditation to Level 2.

Your registration lasts indefinitely, and your accreditation lasts for 3 years and is renewable by sitting an online refresher which also upgrades your accreditation to APT Level 2 if you are successful in the associated online exam.

Your accreditation is given value by the fact of over 150,000 people having attended APT training.