Role Transitions (IPT)
An IPT worksheet for working through a role transition: mourning what has been lost in the old role, seeing the new role clearly, identifying the skills and supports it requires, and finding what is possible within it.
About this resource
In Interpersonal Psychotherapy, a role transition is any life change that requires the person to give up one role and take on another: a new job or the loss of one, becoming a parent, retirement, a move, the end of a relationship, a diagnosis, children leaving home. Depression in the context of a role transition is understood as the result of difficulty letting go of the old role, feeling unprepared for or unhappy with the new one, and losing the relationships and sense of self that went with the old life.
IPT's approach follows a consistent sequence: help the client mourn the old role realistically, including both what was good and what was not; examine the new role with the same balance, since clients often see it only in negative terms; identify the practical, emotional and social demands of the new role; develop the skills and supports needed to meet those demands; and find sources of satisfaction and meaning within it. This worksheet gives that sequence a written structure for use in and between sessions.
The professional version adds guidance on transitions the client did not choose, on transitions that carry stigma or shame, on managing the pull to simply reverse the transition, and on the relationship between this focus area and grief work when a transition follows a death.
How to use it
- Use once the interpersonal inventory has identified a role transition as the primary focus area and the client has agreed to work on it. Link the change explicitly to the onset or worsening of depressive symptoms.
- Begin with the old role. Encourage a full account, including the parts the client did not like, since idealising the old role keeps the new one from ever measuring up.
- Move to the new role with the same balance. Help the client separate what is genuinely difficult from what is unfamiliar, and what is permanent from what will change as they settle in.
- Use the skills and supports section to generate concrete between-session tasks: a conversation to have, a group to join, a skill to practise, a person to ask for help.
- Return to the worksheet across sessions as the client's view of the transition shifts. Track symptom change alongside progress in the new role.
References
- Cuijpers, P., Geraedts, A. S., van Oppen, P., Andersson, G., Markowitz, J. C., & van Straten, A. (2011). Interpersonal psychotherapy for depression: A meta-analysis. American Journal of Psychiatry, 168(6), 581-592.
- Klerman, G. L., Weissman, M. M., Rounsaville, B. J., & Chevron, E. S. (1984). Interpersonal Psychotherapy of Depression. Basic Books.
- Weissman, M. M., Markowitz, J. C., & Klerman, G. L. (2018). The Guide to Interpersonal Psychotherapy (Updated and expanded ed.). Oxford University Press.
