Paula Ravitz

Dr. Paula Ravitz is a Professor, Morgan Firestone Psychotherapy Chair. Her research, scholarship and publications have focused on the process and outcome of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) and its adaptation for use in Ethiopia, the measurement of attachment and patterns of relating, the doctor-patient relationship and communication competence, use of simulation and standardized patients in teaching therapeutic communication, and knowledge translation of evidence-supported psychotherapies. She was Head of the Interpersonal Psychotherapy Clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health where she conducted outcome and process research between 2000-2007. She currently leads IPT clinical services at the Mt. Sinai Hospital Department of Psychiatry, directs the Mt. Sinai Psychotherapy Institute, trains trainers in IPT, and has taught IPT in CME workshops and in post-graduate settings across Canada, in the United States, at international conferences and in Ethiopia with the Toronto Addis Ababa Psychiatric Project. Currently she is a co-investigator in a CIHR funded national RCT of IPT for treatment of post-partum depression with Cindylee Dennis and colleagues. She recently completed an educational outreach project with Robert Cooke and colleagues co-sponsored by the Psychiatric Outreach Program at CAMH, the Canadian Mental Health Association and the Ontario Psychiatric Outreach Program. The project took place in rural northern underserviced community mental health clinics and its goals were to build capacity through multi-modal accredited skills-based teaching of psychotherapies with front-line health workers. She is currently co-editing with Robert Maunder a series of multimodal teaching modules, authored with faculty at the UToronto Department of Psychiatry on several evidence supported psychotherapeutic models.

Research Synopsis

Psychotherapy; Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT); Medical Education; Knowledge Translation