Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

participation in significant activities” occurs in social settings. Prime 
DSM- IV
  
examples of a perceived foreshortened future are social: “career, marriage, 
children” (APA, 1994, p. 428). The 
DSM-5
 (5
th
 ed.) revision has retained many 
of these interpersonal descriptions, despite a growing emphasis on cognitive 
factors in its text (APA, 2013, pp. 274– 279).
The PTSD clinical literature describes a variety of associated interpersonal 
features. Patients become withdrawn, mistrustful, affect- dysregulated, and 
“interpersonally hypervigilant” (Bleiberg & Markowitz, 2005)  in social cir-
cumstances: they mistrust not only their environment, but the people in it. 
PTSD compromises emotional and social intimacy with others (Riggs et al., 
1998), burdens the significant others surrounding individuals with PTSD 
(Beckham et al., 1996), and impairs social and marital functioning (Cloitre 
et al., 1997; Amaya- Jackson et al., 1999; North et al., 1999; Liang et al., 2006, 
pp. 26– 29). Individuals with PTSD may fall into maladaptive interpersonal 
patterns that increase the risk of revictimization (Davidson et al., 1991; Cloitre 
et al., 1997; Liang et al., 2006).
What Do the Data Show?
Although interpersonal aspects are prominent features of PTSD, this does not 
necessarily mean that focusing on them in therapy will benefit patients with 
PTSD. Nonetheless, a sparse (if growing) body of research has begun to test 
the effects of an interpersonal approach (Markowitz, Lipsitz, & Milrod, 2014). 
A few small open trials of IPT have mostly suggested some benefits to patients 
(see  Table 1. 1).
Yet open trials carry limited weight: they do not control for the passage 
of time or for the non- specific effects of meeting with a caring therapist. 
Randomized clinical trials control for such factors, and there have now been 
two randomized controlled trials of IPT for patients with chronic PTSD.