An Introduction: Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) for adults with Depression and ADHD

Developed by Certified IPT clinicians and one of Canada's leading ADHD Psychotherapists. Eligible for CE hours. Certificate issued on completion.

Adults with ADHD and depression are some of the most treatment-burdened people clinicians see. They carry a diagnosis history that grew from years of being called resistant, dramatic or non-compliant. They show up motivated, forget their appointments, reconnect hard, and then disengage again just when momentum was building. They are not failing therapy. Therapy, as it was designed, was not built around how their nervous system actually works.


Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) has always been at it's core, one of the most ADHD-friendly frameworks available. It is relational rather than cognitive. It is here-and-now focused rather than historical. It gives structure to something that feels deeply overwhelming, and it builds skills that compound long after the session ends.

This course will show you why that fit is not accidental, and how to make it explicit and intentional in your clinical work.

This Course Was Built for You If...

Your ADHD clients make real progress in session but cannot hold it when they get back into their lives,

You have tried adapting CBT for ADHD and found the protocols get stretched in ways that feel unmoored,

You screen for ADHD in clients presenting with anxiety or depression but are not sure what to do differently once you find it,

You watch clients absorb shame from their relationships and their own histories in ways that generic psychoeducation does not reach,

Your case complexity has outpaced your training and you want clinical confidence, not just vocabulary.



This Course Is For

  • Registered Psychotherapists and Counsellors working with adults in individual or group settings,
  • Social workers, Psychologists and mental health nurses who regularly see complex presentations with mood and attentional components,
  • Graduate students and supervised interns building a neurodivergent-affirming clinical identity,
  • Clinicians who are curious about IPT and want a grounded, practice-based introduction to the model,
  • Therapists who already work with ADHD clients and want to be more deliberate about treating the co-occurring depression.


If you are interested in purchasing multiple seats for a group practice or other group setting, please contact us for a discount rate (more than 3 seats). 


What Makes IPT for Depression + ADHD Different

  • Most ADHD training for clinicians covers symptom profiles, psychoeducation scripts and accommodation checklists. This course does not.

  • This is a clinical training that takes you inside a specific evidence-based modality, interpersonal psychotherapy, and shows you exactly how its mechanisms align with the relational, emotional and attentional challenges your ADHD and depression clients bring to your office. You will leave with a framework, not a folder of handouts.

  • IPT has one of the lowest dropout rates of any psychotherapy modality. It is here-and-now focused, time-limited, structured without being rigid, and it targets relationships rather than cognition. For clients who have spent years being told their problems live in their thinking, that is a fundamentally different clinical experience. And it works.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this introductory course, you will be better able to:

  • 1.

    Identify how executive dysfunction, social disconnection and invalidation contribute to depression in adults with ADHD.

  • 2.

    Apply IPT principles to ADHD presentations, with attention to emotional impulsivity and attentional variability.

  • 3.

    Integrate ADHD-friendly IPT strategies, ethically navigate AI-assisted communication tools and apply externalized self-reflection techniques in session.

A Peak Inside the Course

What you can expect


A clinically grounded explanation of why ADHD drives depression

Stop guessing which disorder to treat first and understand the bidirectional cycle linking executive dysfunction, invalidation and social disconnection to depressive episodes, so you can make more confident, targeted treatment decisions.

A framework for stratifying your ADHD and depression caseload

Learn how to differentiate between clients already receiving first-line ADHD treatment and those who are not, and adapt your therapeutic role accordingly, without overstepping or underdelivering.

Practical application of IPT focal areas to ADHD presentations

Identify and map rejection sensitivity, emotional impulsivity and role transition to specific IPT focal areas, so your sessions are purposeful, structured and moving toward a concrete goal.


ADHD-friendly communication strategies including handy tools and externalized self-reflections

Leave with usable, in-session techniques your clients can apply when their executive function is offline, so the work you do together does not disappear the moment they walk out the door.

Ethical guidance on select AI-assisted communication support

Understand when and how handy tools and select AI prompts can scaffold real-time communication for clients, and how to introduce them responsibly without compromising the therapeutic frame.

Neurodivergent-affirming clinical framing throughout

Offer care that does not over-pathologize the person while still taking the condition seriously. That balance is rare. Your clients will notice it immediately.

Clinical insight from two practitioners with decades of combined experience

Get the kind of case-informed clinical wisdom that does not appear in textbooks yet. This is real practice, shared honestly, and you can apply it the week you finish the course.


Instructor(s)

Cindy Goodman Stulberg, C.Psych.

Supervising Psychologist, Co-Director of the Institute for Interpersonal Psychotherapy

Cindy Stulberg is one of North America's foremost IPT trainers and is the co-founder of the Institute for Interpersonal Psychotherapy. She has been training, supervising and certifying clinicians in IPT for nearly 50 years and is the co-author of Feeling Better, a client-facing resource on IPT skills widely used across clinical and lay settings. Cindy brings the depth of the original IPT model together with a warm, practical teaching style that makes advanced clinical content immediately usable.

Christina Crowe, RP

Registered Psychotherapist, Certified IPT Therapist, Ontario Validated Clinical Supervisor

Christina Crowe is the creator of The Dig Deeper School. Christina is a neurodivergent-affirming Registered Psychotherapist, Certified IPT Therapist and Validated Clinical Supervisor, specialized in treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who also has lived experience with late-diagnosed ADHD. Christina specializes in the treatment of youth, adult, couple and family ADHD, which inspired the first DIY*ADHD online course in 2017. Christina has been treating ADHD for over a decade, with a special interest in late-diagnosed ADHD, couples with ADHD, parents trying to do it differently, and Clinical Supervision and Consultation and keynote presentations around neurodivergent-affirming practice. There are essential nuances that shift when a neurodivergent lens is applied to psychosocial interventions, and Christina has been describing these approaches as 'ADHD-Adapted Psychotherapy' since 2016. Christina is a current member of CADDRA (Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance), services on the CADDRA Advocacy & Awareness sub-committee, is an Ontario Validated Clinical Supervisor (OVCS), a Certified Mental Health Professional (CMHP) and a member of the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO). Christina is also the host of an ADHD specific podcast, The Christina Crowe Podcast: making the invisible VISIBLE, and considers herself to be a relentless mental health advocate.

Course curriculum

Format

    1. Welcome to IPT for Depression and ADHD

    2. Your Trainers

    3. Background

    4. Learning objectives

    5. Introduction to IPT for Depression and ADHD

    1. Lesson overview

    2. Depression in an adult with ADHD

    3. The Current Treatment Landscape

    4. First, do no harm

    1. Lesson overview

    2. An Overview of Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), briefly

    3. Adapting IPT for ADHD brains, Part 1

    4. Adapting IPT for ADHD brains, Part 2

    5. A Case Study

    6. ADHD Friendly Strategies

    1. Key Takeaways and Closing Thoughts

    2. Reference and Resources

About this course

  • 17 lessons
  • 2 hours of video content
  • Downloadable resources in each module
  • Community discussion enabled for course members

FAQ's

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Do I need to know IPT already?

    No. This is an introductory course. It is designed to make IPT accessible and clinically compelling for therapists who are curious about the model, regardless of prior training. If you already have IPT training, this course will deepen your ability to personalize it for ADHD and depressive presentations specifically.

  • Do I need to specialize in ADHD?

    No. If you regularly see adults with depression, anxiety or complex presentations, you are almost certainly seeing undiagnosed or undertreated ADHD. This course will help you recognize and respond to those presentations more effectively regardless of your primary specialty.

  • Is this course eligible for continuing education credits?

    Address common questions ahead of time to save yourself an email.

  • How long is the course?

    The main module runs just under 2 hours. Resources are downloadable and the course is self-paced, so you can move through it in a single session or across several.

  • Is this an ADHD-affirming approach?

    Yes, explicitly. The clinical framing throughout this course treats ADHD as a neurobiological condition that creates real functional challenges, not a character flaw or an excuse. Neurodivergent-affirming care is not about minimizing the hard parts. It is about making sure your clients never feel othered for having a brain that works differently.

  • What happens after I complete this course?

    You will receive an automatic certificate of completion. You will also have access to information about Cindy's full IPT certification training, which runs twice per year, and ongoing work from Dig A Little Deeper in ADHD-specialized clinical practice, including ADHD in-services, clinical supervision and consultation.

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Ready to treat the whole picture?

This course will change what happens in your sessions the week you finish it.

Your ADHD clients do not need a gentler version of the same approach. They need a clinician who understands how their brain processes relationships, emotion and change, and has the tools to work with that directly.
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