PI-E: An empathy skills training package to enhance therapeutic skills of IAPT and other therapists

This paper describes a condensed version of psychodynamic interpersonal therapy (PIT), Psychodynamic Interpersonal-Empathy (PI-E), which consists of the first level of competencies of the PIT model. The intention is to use basic psychodynamic principles and skills to enhance delivery of manualised, cognitive therapy based treatments. The intervention is designed to improve two common factors of therapy: the bond between client and therapist, and the ability of the therapist to create positive expectations through an explanation and understanding of the person’s problems. Both of these so-called common factors are consistently associated with clinical outcomes.

Training has been developed specifically for low-intensity therapists who are employed in the Improving Access to Psychological Treatment programme. Training focuses upon 5 basic components of PI: negotiation; picking up cues;using statements rather than questions; focusing on feelings and understanding hypotheses. When used skilfully together, these simple components, offer a powerful way of empathizing with and deepening the collaborative work with the client. They all help the therapist to focus upon how the client is feeling ‘here and now’ in the session. Training in the model has the potential to improve outcomes and reduce drop-out rates by enabling therapists to manage problem scenarios in an empathic way.