Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Adolescents and Young Adults

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is a psychotherapeutic treatment originally developed for treating depression in adults. It is a brief, structured treatment based on the idea of mobilizing the patient's social network, increasing his/her capacity to accept and seek support from others, and to process interpersonal difficulties, in order to improve depressive symptoms. Interpersonal psychotherapy for adolescents (IPT-A) is a version of IPT designed for young people between the age of 12-18 years with depression (Mufson, 2004), and is in many respects similar to IPT although with some modifications (e.g., a few scheduled meetings with parents during the course of treatment).