Brief Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT-B): Overview and Review of Evidence

Brief Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT-B) is an eight-session adaption of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), an evidence-based psychotherapy for depression. The rationale for developing a briefer form of IPT rests on the paucity of empirical evidence linking increased therapy “dose” to enhanced therapeutic effects. The goal of IPT-B is to allow individuals who are unlikely to attend 16 sessions of psychotherapy—because of external or internal constraints—to receive the full benefits of IPT in fewer sessions. We provide an overview of IPT-B and describe the modifications made to standard IPT to adjust for the truncated time course. We then review the empirical evidence supporting this briefer model of IPT, including four open studies, one matched case-control study, and three randomized controlled trials. We conclude that IPT-B offers the dual advantages of rapid relief from suffering and decreased resource utilization.