Abstract
The psychological impact of current military operations on service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan iswell established. A number of recent studies have also demonstrated high rates of mental health difficulties,especially depression and anxiety, in spouses of deployed service members. This paper describes the adaptation ofinterpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), an evidence-based treatment for depression, to target depression in militaryspouses. The principles of IPT are outlined, and the ways in which the structure and content of the treatment lendthemselves to the military context are described. Finally, a study currently underway to adapt and evaluate thetreatment is presented and aspects of the treatment are illustrated.
Highlights
The psychological toll of current military operations on service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan is well established (American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force, 2007)
Depression severity will be measured with the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD; Hamilton, 1960), a widely used clinician-administered interview that assesses the presence and severity of 17 symptoms of depression experienced over the past week
Our team is in the process of adapting and testing IPT-GMS, a group interpersonal psychotherapy for depressed military spouses
Summary
The psychological toll of current military operations on service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan is well established (American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force, 2007). The few programs designed for military spouses are aimed at providing psychoeducation on the mental health impact of deployment on service members and their families (Makin-Byrd, Gifford, McCutcheon, & Glynn, 2011), improving spousal communication (Gottman, Gottman, & Atkins, 2011; Sautter, Armelie, Glynn, & Wielt, 2011), and fostering resilience (Gewirtz et al, 2011; Lester et al, 2011) While these programs address important issues related to the deployment cycle, they have not been developed to target clinical depression in military spouses. Depressed spouses who have been successfully treated may be better equipped to provide a protective home environment for service members during the post-deployment phase, when the latter may be suffering from posttraumatic stress symptoms and other adjustment issues (Verdeli et al, 2011)
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