In psychotherapy, I believe that the relationship between the client and the therapist is an essential component to client change.  I utilize and integrate research based therapeutic interventions from cognitive and behavioral schools of thought. Also, the interpersonal process of therapy is the conceptual framework which guides my work. Below is a brief description of Interpersonal Process Psychotherapy. 

Interpersonal Process Therapy (IPT) has its roots in the work of Harry Stack Sullivan, one of Freud’s followers who radically broke with Freud’s biological based psychosexual stage theory. Sullivan opposed Freud’s view that human beings are motivated by sexual and aggressive urges, emphasizing instead interpersonal relations and the child’s actual experience with parents. He thought that psychopathology could best be understood by looking at the role of anxiety in the interpersonal and social processes. In addition to Sullivan’s work, IPT in its current day application incorporates several other theories--object relation, attachment, and family systems. (Teyber, 1997).

Three assumptions that are central to IPT are as follows:
· We are relational by nature and thus many problems are interpersonal in nature
· Familial experience is the central source of learning about ourselves and others
· The therapist-client relationship can help resolve problems

Teyber, E. (1997). Interpersonal process in psychotherapy. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole.