The Response of Interpersonal Problems to Varying Doses of Psychotherapy

This investigation reports changes in interpersonal problems over the course of outpatient psychotherapy. Endorsement patterns for distress related to interpersonal problems for patient and non-patient samples were compared. For the patient sample, a 26-item version of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems was administered at intake and at selected sessions of psychotherapy. Three factors were identified: (1) Control (e.g., It is hard to accept another person's authority over me); (2) Detached (e.g., I keep other people at a distance too much), and; (3) Self-effacing (e.g., I worry too much about disappointing other people). Using session 2 as a base, the dose-response curve for the Control scale inflected at session 10 and was followed by a monotonic increase in improvement. For the Detached scale, there was an inflection at session 17 followed by a monotonic increase. The Self-effacing scale did not show any response to treatment.