Linköping University Relational and Interpersonal Psychotherapy Project
Linköping University Relational and Interpersonal Psychotherapy Project
The study investigates the relative efficacy of Interpersonal Psychotherapy and Brief
 Relational Therapy for Major Depressive Disorder. The primary hypothesis is that there will
 be no mean difference in efficacy between treatments, but that Brief Relational Therapy will
 be more efficacious for more self-critical patients and Interpersonal Psychotherapy will be
 more efficacious for less self-critical patients.
Interventions Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT; Klerman et. al., 1984) is an evidence-based,
 time-limited treatment originally developed for treating Major Depressive Disorder, although
 it has been extended and developed for Bulimia Nervosa and recently also for Post-Traumatic
 Stress Disorder. The treatment is structured and focuses on relieving depressive symptoms by
 targeting interpersonal problems in the patients' current life situation. In the first four
 sessions an interpersonal problem area is identified that is asssumed to maintain the
 patient's depression and this problem is agreed upon as a therapy focus. Four types of focus
 areas are used in IPT: grief, role transitions, conflicts, and interpersonal deficits. In the
 middle phase of therapy the agreed upon focus area is worked with in a problem-solving
 fashion, and the patient is also encouraged to seek interpersonal support from his or her
 environment. IPT has been established as an evidence-based treatment for Major Depression
 (Roth & Fonagy, 2005), and a recent meta-analysis concluded that it was slightly superior to
 other established treatments for MDD including Cognitive Behavior Therapy (Cuijpers, van
 Straaten, Andersson & van Oppen, 2008).

 Brief Relational Therapy (BRT; Safran & Muran, 2000) is a relatively new version of
 Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, based on relational psychoanalytic theory in
 combination with research on processes of rupture and repair of the therapeutic alliance. The
 therapeutic alliance, operationalized as the positive bond between patient and therapist in
 combination with agreement on tasks and goals of treatment, is the single most robust
 predictor of good outcome in psychotherapy research (Lambert & Ogles, 2004). BRT was
 developed to help patients who had previously failed in psychotherapeutic treatment(s),
 presumably because of trouble in establishing a working therapeutic alliance with their
 therapist(s). Therapists are trained to be highly attentive to the therapeutic relationship
 and to signs of ruptures in the alliance, and to use self-disclosure and meta-communication
 about ruptures in order to repair the therapy alliance and at the same time help patients to
 develop a generalized capacity for observing self and others (mentalization). BRT has shown
 preliminary evidence for efficacy with patients who are at risk of negative outcome in
 psychotherapy (Safran, Muran, Samstag & Winston, 2005) and with patients diagnosed with
 DSM-IV axis II personality disorders (Muran, Safran, Samstag & Winston, 2005). A specific
 manual for BRT in Major Depressive Disorder is currently under development (Holmqvist, in
 preparation).

 Both treatments consist of 16 therapy sessions which are all video-taped for adherence
 checks. The same therapists will provide both treatments, in randomized order.

 Objectives The objectives of the study are to compare the new treatment BRT with the
 established treatment IPT in the alleviation of Major Depressive Disorder. The hypothesis of
 the trial is that BRT will be superior for patients who have more difficulty establishing a
 therapeutic alliance, while IPT will be superior for patients with less difficulty
 establishing a therapeutic alliance. Previous research indicates that baseline self-critical
 perfectionism negatively predicts outcome in IPT as well as several other brief
 psychotherapeutic treatments for depression, and that this is because self-critical
 perfectionism will cause problems in the therapeutic alliance (Luyten, Corveleyn & Blatt,
 2005). The primary hypothesis is thus that baseline self-cricial perfectionism moderates the
 relationship between treatment and outcome. Secondary exploratory objectives are to conduct
 in depth process research on the mechanisms of change in these treatments, as well as
 interaction effects between treatment modality and other patient characteristics.
Inclusion Criteria:

 -  Major Depressive Disorder (DSM-IV)

 -  Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (17-item version) score 20 or greater

 Exclusion Criteria:

 -  Any psychotic disorder

 -  Substance abuse

 -  Organic brain disorder