[1][2] The treatment was developed by Gerald Klerman and Myrna Weissman in order to treat major depression in the 1970s and has since been adapted for other mental disorders.
[4] Originally named "high contact" therapy, IPT was first developed in 1969 at Yale University as part of a study designed by Gerald Klerman, Myrna Weissman and colleagues to test the efficacy of an antidepressant with and without psychotherapy as maintenance treatment of depression.
[9] The content of IPT's therapy was inspired by Attachment theory and Harry Stack Sullivan's Interpersonal psychoanalysis.
[11][12] The aim of IPT is to help the patient to improve interpersonal and intrapersonal communication skills within relationships and to develop social support network with realistic expectations to deal with the crises precipitated in distress and to weather 'interpersonal storms'.
[17] A shorter, 6-week therapy suited to primary care settings called Interpersonal counselling (IPC) has been derived from IPT.
[22] A review that analyzed different therapeutic approaches and their benefits to bipolar patients concluded that IPT exhibited clinical effectiveness for subsyndromal symptoms.
The framework proposes that interpersonal hardships cause low self-esteem and negative affect which then lead to behaviors seen in bulimic patients.
[24][25] However, researchers discovered that one year after both of these trials, there was no clinically significant difference between patients who received IPT compared to CBT.
[26] When an individual is depressed, they can experience the following symptoms: social isolation, excessive fatigue, lack of motivation, loss of joy, and more.
Depressive symptoms were also decreased in women who have experienced sexual abuse trauma after 16 individualized IPT sessions.
Interpersonal therapy has been thought to be a good potential treatment for postpartum depression because it is short-term and focused on present life events and relationships.
Results of a similar study also showed that 12 weekly sessions of interpersonal therapy ceased depressive episodes in postpartum mothers.
A majority of other studies conducted found that the average amount of time it took for mothers to completely recover was 28.60 weeks.
[19] IPT for children is based on the premise that depression occurs in the context of an individual's relationships regardless of its origins in biology or genetics.
[31] IPT has been adapted for the treatment of depressed adolescents (IPT-A) to address developmental issues most common to teenagers such as separation from parents, development of romantic relationships, and initial experience with death of a relative or friend.
[31] IPT-A helps the adolescent identify and develop more adaptive methods for dealing with the interpersonal issues associated with the onset or maintenance of their depression.
Older adults have been found to work effectively towards their goals in treatment due to the natural conversational style of IPT.
[35] Dynamic interpersonal therapy was developed due to the lack of modern psychodynamic approaches used as forms of brief interventions for mental health conditions.