Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) was introduced to China during a period of rapid modernization in mental health care in the 1990s and early 2000s.  As China began expanding beyond a primarily biomedical model of psychiatry, interest grew in structured, evidence-based psychotherapies that could be standardized and taught at scale.  IPT, particularly the flexible clinical model described by Stuart and Robertson’s IPT: A Clinician’s Guide,  attracted attention because of its relatively brief, manualized format and its focus on current interpersonal relationships—features that made it both culturally relevant and adaptable to China’s evolving clinical and community mental health settings.

The major driver of IPT’s development in China has been the collaboration between the IPT Institute International and IPT China.  Training in China began in 2016 through a collaboration coordinated by Lujia Zhang, who has been instrumental in training in IPT for over a decade.  More recently, she helped to establish the IPT Institute China Clinical and Training Center in 2024 in direct collaboration with the IPT Institute International.  The IPT Institute China has led training and dissemination in China, and is the only Institute in China with clear pathways for certification, supervisor training, and certification of IPT trainers.

The first IPT training in China was a collaboration between the IPT Institute and Tongji University and Shanghai East Hospital.  Subsequent courses were conducted in Shanghai and Kunming in 2018, and Tianjin (Tianjin University), Kunming, Shenzhen, and Shanghai in 2019 including three Level A courses and an Advanced IPT course at Shanghai East Hospital.

Because of the Covid pandemic, training was shifted to on-line Level A and Group IPT courses in 2020, and continued with on-line Level A courses and an IPT for Adolescent course in affiliation with Tongji University in 2021.  IPT for Adolescents and for Family courses have been extremely popular and well attended, as they address many of the social issues driving mental health problems in China.

IPT Training was expanded in 2022 with a collaboration with Renji Hospital (Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine).  Based on the IPT for Groups training in 2020, researchers at Renji developed and tested a group IPT intervention for patients with anxiety, the first use of group IPT for this population.  Several innovative adaptations for homework assignments and group session structure were developed and published.

Level A and Advanced courses were also conducted in collaboration with Healthy Growth, an intensive day program facility in Shanghai for depressed and anxious adolescents.  Collaboration was also established in 2024 with the Oriental Institute in Wuhan, with additional courses in Shanghai also conducted.

Training was further expanded in 2025 with in -person IPT courses for groups, families, adolescents, and IPSRT in Shanghai.  Additional courses are planned for May 2026 in Beijing, as well as in the fall of 2026 in Shanghai and other cities. 

To date, the IPT Institute International and IPT China have trained over a thousand clinicians in China as well as IPT supervisors and trainers.  It has been a wonderful collaboration illustrating how to build lasting bridges between cultures and countries for the benefit of patients around the world.