Interpersonal Psychotherapy for PTSD: Treating Trauma without Exposure.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is a time-limited, diagnosis-targeted psychotherapy originally developed for the treatment of major depression. Research studies have repeatedly demonstrated its efficacy in treating mood disorders and other psychiatric disorders over the past forty years. As IPT is a life-event based treatment that focuses on improving interpersonal functioning, it seemed natural to adapt it for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a life-event based illness that affects interpersonal functioning.

Web-Based Therapist Training in Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression: Pilot Study.

Background: Training mental health professionals to deliver evidence-based therapy (EBT) is now required by most academic accreditation bodies, and evaluating the effectiveness of such training is imperative. However, shortages of time, money, and trained EBT clinician teachers make these challenges daunting. New technologies may help.

Phenotypic differences between pregnancy-onset and postpartum-onset major depressive disorder.

Objective: To compare clinical features of major depression that begins during pregnancy to clinical features of postpartum-onset depression. The hormonal environments of pregnancy and postpartum periods are quite different and therefore may promote distinct subtypes of major depression.

Method: Data were collected from medical records of 229 women who were evaluated in an academic medical center reproductive psychiatry clinic.

Pilot randomized controlled trial of interpersonal counseling for subsyndromal depression following miscarriage.

Objective: Miscarriage, which occurs in 10% to 20% of clinically recognized pregnancies, is associated with an increased risk for subsyndromal depression. We examined whether Interpersonal Counseling (IPC) was superior to treatment as usual (TAU) in reducing subsyndromal depression among miscarrying women and, secondarily, superior to TAU in improving role functioning.

Method: Nineteen of 20 eligible women participated in a randomized controlled trial of 1 to 6 weekly telephone sessions of IPC versus TAU, which consisted of whatever lay counseling or professional care women sought on their own initiative, from October 2001 to April 2002.

Solving interpersonal problems correlates with symptom improvement in interpersonal psychotherapy: preliminary findings.

Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) research has addressed outcome more than mechanism. This study used the novel Interpersonal Psychotherapy Outcome Scale (IPOS) to test the theoretical axiom that symptomatic improvement in IPT reflects resolution of interpersonal problem areas. The IPOS rates change in focal interpersonal problem areas on a 5-point scale.

A comparative trial of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for "pure" dysthymic patients.

Background: Psychotherapy of "pure" dysthymic disorder remains understudied. This article reports outcomes of an acute randomized trial of 94 subjects treated for 16 weeks with either interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), brief supportive psychotherapy (BSP), sertraline, or sertraline plus IPT.

Methods: Recruited by clinical referral and advertising, subjects met DSM-IV criteria for early onset dysthymic disorder, with no episode of major depression in the prior six months.

A pilot study of interpersonal psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder.

Objective: This article describes pilot testing of interpersonal psychotherapy adapted for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Unlike most psychotherapies for PTSD, interpersonal psychotherapy is not exposure-based, focusing instead on interpersonal sequelae of trauma.

Method: Fourteen consecutively enrolled subjects with chronic PTSD (DSM-IV) from various traumas received an open, 14-week interpersonal psychotherapy trial.

A survey of sexual side effects among severely mentally ill patients taking psychotropic medications: impact on compliance.

Few studies have addressed the effects that iatrogenic sexual side effects have on compliance in the severely mentally ill. The objective of this survey was to assess the levels of self-reported iatrogenic sexual dysfunction within a sample of 51 severely mentally ill outpatients taking a variety of psychiatric medications and to assess the impact of sexual side effects on medication compliance. We found that 62.