Interpersonal Therapy, commonly referred to as IPT, was developed as a brief psychodynamic therapeutic approach by Gerald L. Klerman and Myrna M. Weissman in 1969. Originally designed to treat major depression, IPT focuses on how interpersonal relationships, life transitions, grief, and role disputes contribute to emotional distress. It is a structured, time-limited model that helps clients improve communication patterns, strengthen social support, and reduce symptoms by addressing current relationship challenges rather than exploring the distant past. Keep reading to learn 10 Interpersonal Therapy activities & exercises to do with your clients.
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Interpersonal Therapy recognizes the importance of childhood experiences with later distress in life. Because of this, it is believed that individuals who experience a loss of a parent, death or other disruption to their parental relationship, have an increased vulnerability for developing depression later in life (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010). This means that an individual with this childhood experience, stressful events and experiences in adulthood has a higher risk of leading to the onset of depressive symptoms (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010).
As a brief psychodynamic approach, IPT is not intended to be used on a long-term basis. Interpersonal Therapy occurs over a range of 14 to 18 weekly individual sessions (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010). IPT focuses on interpersonal deficits, role expectations and disputes, role transitions, and grief (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010).
There are three phases used during Interpersonal Therapy sessions:
- Initial sessions focus on assessing the client’s symptoms and exploring the client’s experience with the different focuses of IPT listed above (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010). Counselors also work to provide psychoeducation about Interpersonal Therapy, and that depression is a mental health concern that can be effectively treated with IPT (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010).
- The intermediate phase forces the clients to present problems or interpersonal difficulties that were identified in the initial sessions (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010). The counselor works with the client to develop goals and discuss how they can really work to achieve these goals (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010). Counselors encourage their clients to take responsibility for their sessions as much as possible (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010).
- The termination phase occurs over the final 2-4 sessions and is thoughtfully planned (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010). Any feelings of anger, sadness, loss, and grief are explored and accepted during this phase of treatment (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010). At the conclusion of working together, counselors work to ensure that clients know and believe that they are capable of managing distressing emotions and moving forward on their own (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2010).
Interpersonal Therapy Activities
Interpersonal Therapy activities can be used during the various phases of IPT to enhance the client’s experience and to promote psychoeducation. IPT activities can incorporate worksheets and handouts, or be guided by the counselor.
Below is a list providing examples of Interpersonal Therapy Activities that can be used during sessions:
1. Exploring Interpersonal Communication Patterns
A large component of Interpersonal Therapy is exploring and working through interpersonal difficulties. These can be present in family relationships, romantic relationships, parent-child relationships, and workplace relationships. TherapyByPro offers an Interpersonal Worksheet that focuses on feeling heard. By improving and better understanding communication patterns, clients can experience a decrease in the occurrence of interpersonal conflict.
This activity focuses on identifying communication breakdowns that contribute to ongoing interpersonal distress.
What Is It: A structured exploration of communication patterns within key relationships, often guided by a worksheet.
How It Helps Clients: Improves awareness of how communication styles contribute to conflict and helps reduce misunderstandings in relationships.
How To Do It: Use an interpersonal worksheet focused on feeling heard to explore recent conflicts, identify patterns, and discuss alternative communication approaches.
2. Coping With Emotional Distress Using Skills
Learning to cope with emotional distress can also be an important focus of IPT exercises. Spend time providing your client with psychoeducation about DBT skills, such as distress tolerance and emotion regulation. Allow for time to practice skills and behaviors that can be used in response to distress and encourage your client to practice using these skills in real-life situations outside of the session when they find themselves struggling. Allow for time to follow up about the effects that DBT skills had on their level of distress, and explore how continued practice would benefit your client.
Learning how to tolerate distress and regulate emotions can support interpersonal stability.
What Is It: A psychoeducational and skills-based activity introducing distress tolerance and emotion regulation strategies.
How It Helps Clients: Reduces emotional reactivity and improves clients’ ability to respond effectively in interpersonal situations.
How To Do It: Teach DBT-based skills, practice them in session, and assign real-life practice with follow-up discussion in later sessions.
3. Practicing Self-Validation and Validation of Others
Teaching clients about what they can do to provide themselves with validation can be an important skill to include in an IPT activity. TherapyByPro has developed a Validating Self Worksheet that can be used to explore how clients can show themselves validation, and the effects that they have experienced from these behaviors. This worksheet can also be a helpful tool for clients who are unsure how to show themselves validation by listing different behaviors that can be done. Additionally, TherapyByPro has developed a Validating Others Worksheet which can be used to improve interpersonal effectiveness within relatinoships.
Validation plays a critical role in strengthening interpersonal relationships.
What Is It: An exercise focused on identifying and practicing validating behaviors toward oneself and others.
How It Helps Clients: Enhances emotional self-awareness, improves self-compassion, and increases interpersonal effectiveness.
How To Do It: Use self-validation and validating-others worksheets to identify validating behaviors and reflect on their emotional and relational impact.
4. Meditation for Emotion Regulation
Meditation can be introduced as an emotion regulation skill for clients who find themselves struggling to manage their emotional distress. Meditation is an example of an emotion regulation skill that your clients can benefit from. Introduce the concept of meditation to your client, and explore any preconceived expectations or beliefs that they have about it. Once they have an accurate understanding of meditation, take time to introduce them to various forms of meditation including breathing exercises, visualization, guided imagery, and progressive muscle relaxation. Process your client’s experience with these practices, and encourage them to use meditation outside of the session. Allow for time to follow up about their ability to do so in later sessions.
Meditation can be used as a grounding tool to support emotional regulation within IPT.
What Is It: An emotion regulation exercise that introduces mindfulness and meditation practices.
How It Helps Clients: Improves emotional awareness, reduces distress, and increases present-moment focus.
How To Do It: Explore beliefs about meditation, practice techniques such as breathing or guided imagery in session, and encourage continued use between sessions.
5. Interpersonal Effectiveness Troubleshooting
Clients who find themselves living with interpersonal struggles may have a hard time recognizing where their difficulty is stemming from. When this occurs, our job is to explore aspects of our client’s relationship that may be causing damage. TherapyByPro offers an Interpersonal Effectiveness Troubleshooting Worksheet which can be used as a guide when exploring this aspect of relationships with clients. Maintaining a safe and non-judgmental environment can promote client engagement when exploring their own behaviors.
This activity helps clients identify behaviors that may be contributing to interpersonal difficulties.
What Is It: A guided evaluation of relationship challenges using a structured worksheet.
How It Helps Clients: Increases insight into relational dynamics and supports behavior change within relationships.
How To Do It: Use an Interpersonal Effectiveness Troubleshooting Worksheet to explore problematic interactions in a safe, nonjudgmental manner.
6. Exploring Role Transitions
Clients who find themselves struggling with role transitions may benefit from a discussion that explores both of the roles in their life. As an example, if a Woman has recently decided to pause her career to stay home with her children, she may find herself struggling with this transition. Exploring the value of her work, and aspects of her career that she enjoyed can help you understand why this shift is challenging for her. This can also be an opportunity to explore the values and meaning of the new role and validate the client’s struggle with this shift.
Role transitions are a core focus of Interpersonal Therapy.
What Is It: A reflective discussion examining changes in life roles and identity.
How It Helps Clients: Supports adjustment, validates emotional responses, and helps clients integrate new roles meaningfully.
How To Do It: Explore both the old and new roles, discuss associated values and losses, and validate the client’s emotional experience.
7. Assessing Intimacy and Closeness in Relationships
Learning about challenges that our clients experience with intimacy can help improve their interpersonal relationships. A piece of this puzzle is gaining insight and understanding about the different relationships our clients have, and the level of intimacy present within these relationships. TherapyByPro has developed an Interpersonal Closeness Circle Worksheet that provides clients with a visual representation of the level of intimacy within their relationships that can provide a different perspective for viewing reltionships. You can use this worksheet to further explore their understanding of intimacy and any challenges that impact their interpersonal relationships.
Understanding intimacy levels can clarify interpersonal challenges.
What Is It: A visual mapping exercise that examines closeness across relationships.
How It Helps Clients: Increases awareness of intimacy patterns and relational boundaries.
How To Do It: Use an Interpersonal Closeness Circle Worksheet to map relationships and explore satisfaction, distance, and challenges.
8. Journaling for Emotional and Interpersonal Insight
Journaling can be an effective tool for clients to verbalize their thoughts and emotions, as well as to keep track of their own progress. Clients who are struggling with depressive symptoms, or the other concerns addressed with Interpersonal Therapy, may find this to be a healthy coping skill for their day-to-day lives. Journaling can be a structured activity where they are asked to write about something similar each day, or a free-form opportunity to write about whatever is coming up for them. Holding onto previous journal entries provides clients with an opportunity to reflect on challenges and successes they have had which can increase their confidence about their ability to cope with their distress.
Journaling allows clients to track emotional patterns and relational experiences over time.
What Is It: A written reflection exercise that may be structured or free-form.
How It Helps Clients: Enhances emotional processing, self-reflection, and confidence in coping skills.
How To Do It: Encourage regular journaling focused on emotions or relationships and review entries periodically in session.
9. Learning Assertive Communication Skills
Helping our clients learn healthy and effective communication can be a valuable Interpersonal Therapy activity. Healthy communication can improve interpersonal relationships, and allow our clients to establish and maintain healthy boundaries within their relationships. TherapyByPro offers a DBT worksheet that aims to improve our client’s communication, the DEARMAN Assertive Worksheet. Following a DBT approach, this worksheet can help clients improve their communications pattern with the use of a simple acronym. Encourage your clients to use the DEARMAN strategy outside of the session, and allow for time to process their experience in session.
Assertive communication is essential for healthy relationships and boundary setting.
What Is It: A skills-based communication exercise using structured techniques.
How It Helps Clients: Improves clarity, boundary-setting, and interpersonal effectiveness.
How To Do It: Introduce the DEARMAN assertiveness framework, practice it in session, and assign real-life application between sessions.
10. Role-Playing Interpersonal Scenarios
After talking to clients about healthy communication patterns, such as DEARMAN and I-statements, clients can benefit from a role-playing exercise that allows them to practice the skill they were just introduced to. Role-playing exercises provide Counselors with an opportunity to see what our client has taken away from related psychoeducation topics and provide feedback that can be used to improve their communication patterns. This can be an effective IPT exercise for clients who are working to establish and maintain boundaries, improve communication, and improve their validation skills.
Role-playing provides experiential learning for new communication skills.
What Is It: A simulated interaction that allows clients to practice interpersonal skills.
How It Helps Clients: Builds confidence, reinforces skills, and improves real-world communication.
How To Do It: Role-play challenging scenarios using techniques like DEARMAN or I-statements, then provide feedback and reflection.
Frequently Asked Questions About Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) Activities
Below are the practical questions clinicians ask when facilitating Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) exercises and experiential activities to help clients navigate role transitions, resolve interpersonal disputes, and improve relational communication styles.
How should a clinician select the right IPT activity based on the client’s primary interpersonal problem area?
Before introducing any experiential exercise, the therapist should explicitly categorize the client’s primary relational distress into one of the four core IPT focal points: complicated bereavement, role disputes, role transitions, or interpersonal deficits. For instance, if a client is navigating a role dispute, the clinician might prioritize a structured communication analysis to deconstruct a recent argument and clarify unexpressed expectations. Conversely, for role transitions, exercises that contrast the losses of an old identity with the demands of a new life stage are typically more clinically appropriate to foster adaptive coping.
What clinical adjustments should a therapist make if role-playing exercises cause a client acute emotional distress?
If a simulated relational interaction triggers overwhelming affect or anxiety, the clinician should temporarily pause the exercise to implement affect clarification and somatic grounding. Role-playing high-stakes interpersonal conflicts can accidentally re-traumatize a client if their emotional processing capacity is exceeded. The therapist can modify the exercise by downshifting the intensity, adjusting the script to a less threatening interaction, or stepping out of the role-play to process the client’s immediate internal reactions before attempting to resume the experiential rehearsal.
How do IPT activities fundamentally differ from CBT homework assignments regarding clinical focus?
While Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) activities focus on tracking individual thought distortions and testing cognitive schemas, IPT activities explicitly target the interpersonal space between the client and their social environment. IPT exercises emphasize immediate communication patterns, emotional expression within relationships, and the resolution of social friction. Rather than assigning generic behavioral activation worksheets, an IPT clinician utilizes targeted communication logs or interpersonal incident reviews to help clients explore how their affective states directly influence, and are influenced by, their daily relational interactions.
Can interpersonal therapy activities be effectively applied when treating conditions outside of major depression?
Yes. Although IPT was originally designed as a time-limited intervention for major depressive disorder, its experiential activities are highly adaptable for managing anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and relational trauma. Because interpersonal conflict and social isolation frequently co-occur with various psychiatric complaints, exercises like role-playing boundary setting or exploring intimacy circles remain effective cross-diagnostically. The primary requirement is that the target condition must manifest through clear relationship dysfunction or major life transitions that can be systematically addressed in treatment.
How can a therapist objectively measure clinical progress when utilizing relational exercises and communication analysis?
Clinicians can track therapeutic progress by monitoring the client’s behavioral capacity to initiate adaptive communication changes outside the session container. Progress is evidenced when a client transitions from passive or aggressive relationship habits to assertive, direct expressions of their needs, as logged in an interpersonal interaction worksheet. Additionally, therapists can track qualitative milestones, such as a measurable reduction in the frequency of relational disputes, an expanded social support network, or an increased capacity to process grief without experiencing an escalation in overall distress levels.
Final Thoughts on Choosing Interpersonal Therapy Activities for your Clients
Thank you for reading this resource on 10 Interpersonal Therapy activities and exercises to do with your clients. The National Institute of Mental Health has identified major depression as one of the most common mental health concerns among adults living in the United States. The impact that depression symptoms can have on a person’s level of functioning varies for each individual. Some may find that they struggle with finding motivation, while other may experience suicidal concerns. There are several therapeutic interventions that can be effective in the treatment of major depression, however, with personal differences among clients there is no “cookie-cutter” approach for the treatment of depression.
Interpersonal Therapy can be an effective treatment option for individuals who have not responded to other treatment modalities, and those who may have limited time to devote to therapy. IPT exercises and activities can be used to effectively reinforce skills needed to improve our client’s ability to cope with their distress and work to improve the belief that they are capable of managing their mental health concerns.
If you are interested in learning more about Interpersonal Therapy, we encourage you to explore continuing education opportunities and specialized training workshops that can help you develop the skills and knowledge to develop your competency in using this therapeutic approach.
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Resources:
- Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L.W. (2010). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: Systems, strategies, and skills (3rd Edition, pp 120-121). Pearson Education, Inc.