{"id":194,"date":"2015-12-08T17:53:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T17:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/?p=194"},"modified":"2015-12-08T17:53:45","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T17:53:45","slug":"interpersonal-psychotherapy-works-proof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/interpersonal-psychotherapy-works-proof\/","title":{"rendered":"interpersonal psychotherapy works. Proof."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week<\/a> I wrote about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). \u00a0I quoted research showing that the cure – and even\u00a0the preventative – may be found in relationships. \u00a0This is a basic fact well known in my field but it gets lost in the public and insurance company clamor for quicker fixes – medication, or simplistic approaches such as “exposure therapy” wherein you have someone think about or in some more active way re-live their trauma.<\/p>\n

Well, I found more data. \u00a0A few months ago, the\u00a0American Journal of Psychiatry published a study comparing relaxation therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, and the “gold standard” PTSD treatment – exposure therapy in its various forms, including as used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. \u00a0Turns out an interpersonal approach – what the world thinks of as rather traditional psychotherapy – works as well, as fast, as by some measures better than exposure therapy.<\/p>\n

Furthermore: \u00a01) There was lower attrition – fewer people dropping out of treatment – with interpersonal psychotherapy as compared with the treatment that included exposure therapy. \u00a02) patients who were also depressed – as many with PTSD are – were nine time<\/span> as likely to drop out of exposure treatment as compared with interpersonal psychotherapy. \u00a0 3) Both exposure therapy and interpersonal psychotherapy produced better results – more symptom relief – than did simple relaxation therapy.<\/p>\n

(You can read an abstract of the journal article – or pay a fee\u00a0and read the whole thing – here: \u00a0http:\/\/ajp.psychiatryonline.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1176\/appi.ajp.2014.14070908.)<\/p>\n

And what’s this got to do with \u00a0my book<\/a>?<\/p>\n

1) Interpersonal psychotherapy is probably the closest to what I (and many others) do. \u00a0It works, and here’s some research confirming that. \u00a0And let’s be clear what they mean by “Interpersonal psychotherapy”: \u00a0Writing about the study in the New York Times, John Friedman, professor of clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, describes it as “a treatment which\u00a0focuses on patients\u2019 emotional responses to interpersonal relationships and helps them to solve problems and improve these relationships”. \u00a0Yet this mushy-sounding, emotion-focused, sit-on-a-couch-and-talk treatment\u00a0did the job.<\/p>\n

2) It would be wonderful if, as more often has happened in\u00a0medicine, new discoveries revolutionized psychological treatments,\u00a0but this\u00a0 just\u00a0doesn’t happen much. \u00a0So many\u00a0of the new treatments I’ve studied over the years turned out upon closer scrutiny to be glorification of treatment components many\u00a0of us, sometimes even a hundred years ago, were already using\u00a0in our work. \u00a0Cognitive-behavioral techniques and concepts, for example, were around long ago, but it’s only in the past 40 years or so that it\u00a0has\u00a0been elevated into\u00a0a new\u00a0kind\u00a0of therapy, complete with new terminology for mostly old ideas. \u00a0People call and ask “Do you do\u00a0Cognitive\u00a0Behavior Therapy”. \u00a0The answer is yes, and I do a lot more. \u00a0So do most of\u00a0the competent therapists I know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I wrote about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). \u00a0I quoted research showing that the cure – and even\u00a0the preventative – may be found in relationships. \u00a0This is a basic fact well known in my field but it gets lost … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aboutpsychotherapy.com\/aboutpsych-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}