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Outstanding ISIPT conference so far

Yesterday we had an excellent first day at the ISIPT Conference. The Conference was official opened by a Welcome speech from Myrna Weissman and a barnstorming speech with the Keynote Speker Vikram Patel, Harvard Medical School. His work has focused on the burden of global mental health problems, their association with social disadvantage, and the use of community resources for their prevention and treatment. It was inspiring! He talked about the importance of psychological treatment and that so few in the world receive any help at all. He pin pointed some challenges to scaling up and to spread the access to psychotherapy: *Biomedical hierarchies *Professional resistance *Expensive training and supervision approaches *Commercial backing and *Cultural relativism

-“What If a pharmacological treatment, for a somatic illness, had the same effect as psychotherapy” … 

Like Myrna, who also stated that IPT now exists all over the world, he argued for trainings to laymen, learning Interpersonal counseling (IPC), so people all over the world can receive Interpersonal treatment. “After all – he showed a picture of a grandmother, a mother and a child – IPT is about communication, sharing and to facilitate support from others”. #traintheworldtobecomeinterpersonal

To mention something from the program from the first day, you could listen to topics such as IPT-PTSD, different adaptations for adolescents and introductory skills when delivering IPSRT. (Above you can se a model of the social anchor/ social Zeitgeber and a protocol fort social rhythm). As for me, working in a psychiatric Clinique, I think IPSRT may work as a trans diagnostic treatment for several conditions.

In the end of the day (at least for me) we had the oral presentations. For example I presented preliminary results from a Swedish project INDIGO, trying to deliver IPT in a more self guided way over internet. If you are interested, you can watch my “general rehearsals” below. They are in English with a Swedish touch 😉

Now we are all looking forward to Day 2 at the conference – See you there!!