Infant Parent Psychotherapy (IPP) is a treatment model of early intervention developed by two psychoanalytically trained senior clinical members (Elizabeth Tuters and Sally Doulis) of CAPCT while working at a Children’s Mental Health Agency in Toronto.  The training of this Model has continued to be offered to mental health professionals for over 30 years and is provided by CAPCT, Extension Programme.

The CAPCT Extension Programme offers an Introductory Course and two Advanced Seminars (see Extension Programme for details). 

The philosophy for designing the IPP Model was to create an effective intervention that would address the needs of the youngest children within families who were expressing emotional and attachment dysregulation leading to behavioural difficulties and to create a model that would focus on the importance of observation, understanding and reflection while working together as a system with the family to enhance emotional growth and development.  The IPP model’s primary focus is on following the infant/child’s lead, within the context of the parent/s/child’s relationship.  The theoretical underpinnings of the model are influenced by attachment theory (Bowlby 1977, 1982) Infant research (Beebe & Lachmann, 1988, 2014) and psychoanalytic theories (Freud, 1914); Fonagy et al. 2002; Winnicott 1971), to name a few.