Interpersonal Therapy

 I had not previously heard of IPT (or at least aware that what I was hearing was IPT) so it was helpful to learn the ins and outs of this theory. To me, IPT presents itself as a unique type of therapy, but it is both broad and specific. IPT is specific in the way that there are clear guidelines of what you are addressing in therapy and what it can treat. There is a pretty specific emphasis on the social context surrounding a person. Other therapies may address a person's context, but it is not the emphasis of treatment. IPT is also not a therapy for anyone or anything- it is specific in who it treats. A person could become a very good IPT therapist for treating depression, but they may not apply the same principles to treating a person with a substance use disorder. With that in mind, IPT may be a very useful framework if the population you are working with consists of people who are moderately well-adjusted and have depression. On the other hand, IPT is very broad in the sense that the mechanisms of change that are proposed of common mechanisms throughout different theoretical frameworks. Many other frameworks likely aim to enhance social support, decrease stress, process emotions, and improve interpersonal skills, but they do it differently. However, I don't think of this "broadness" as a weakness. I think you could shrink down any number of things and find commonalities. Again with the path analogy, we are all working toward the same endpoint or peak, but we take different paths to get there. 

As discussed in class, I found the quote "If treatment doesn't help, who cares how it works" to be an interesting statement. I think this statement is very broad and is an easy answer to give but is not very helpful. There are disorders listed in the papers that IPT including anorexia and substance abuse. The author (Markowitz) tries to play off IPT's ineffectiveness by saying that IPT is "in good company with other psychotherapies" because they can't treat substance use. To me, the ineffectiveness makes for an interesting line of research rather than an area of failure. Why doesn't IPT work for substance use? What can that tell us about substance use and IPT? I think there can be a lot of value in insignificant findings. For example, I have a study looking at treatment progression differences between male and female justice-involved individuals using three-time points. There were no significant differences in their mental health throughout treatment, but there were differences in their criminal thinking. So, though insignificant, it is important to know males and females benefit from treatment for mental illness at similar rates. Whereas with criminal thinking, men tend to improve more in the first two months or treatment and females make the most change in the last two months of treatment. The means of criminal thinking at the end of treatment are not different for men and women so it would be easy to write it off as insignificant and that men and women are the same. However, when you take a closer look at why there are no differences, you start to see a new story that can better address differences between men and women. In my head, it makes sense to evaluate why IPT (or other therapies) are not effective. Who are they not effective for? It is only effective after so many sessions? Is it effective in ways we are not measuring? Of course, I don't know if the researchers have looked into reasons why IPT may be so narrow, but I just think it would be an interesting line of research. 

Overall, I feel like I understand the IPT principles and agree with them within the IPT context, but I am not sure how quick I would implement them in my own work. I am not naturally oriented to conceptualizing clients within interpersonal relationships so looking at clients through that lens would be a challenge to begin with. I also don't think IPT would be applicable within a correctional setting given that most of the clients are likely not "suitable," there are limits on their ability to address interpersonal issues, and there is a more effective treatment for treating co-occurring mental illness and criminalness that allow for a broader framework. I do think, however, that it is important to emphasize interpersonal relationships within therapy and for specific clients- I just may take another path to the peak. 

23/25 (without late deduction)