Hope Through Strengths

The Hope Through Strengths (HTS) program, through the University of Kansas Counseling Psychology Programs, provides nine free teletherapy sessions to adults living in Kansas. The clinic’s primary focus is to reduce anxiety, depression, and general life stress by using the principles of positive psychology to enhance well-being.

There is evidence that positive emotions, strengths, and positive relationships protect clients from environmental stressors and provide mechanisms for change in therapy. Positive psychology suggests that treatment should focus on reducing symptom distress while enhancing well-being, building enduring resources, and amplifying strengths.

In the summer of 2020 student clinicians provided these services to 40 adults from around the state, many of whom had insurance and transportation barriers to seeking services. Dr. Brian Cole, Assistant Professor and Director of Training in the Department of Educational Psychology, is using an MRI grant to examine this 2020 data to assess the effectiveness of the Hope Through Strengths intervention. Dr. Cole aims to answer the following questions: Does HTS promote enhanced subjective, social, and psychological well-being? Does HTS relieve psychological symptom distress such as reduced anxiety and depression? Which positive psychological interventions best predict improvements to symptom distress, well-being, and therapeutic alliance? Does HTS promote strengths-based competency, empathy, hope, and reduced burnout of student clinicians?

This project will be used to make adjustments to the delivery of HTS and make it more accessible and beneficial to clients across the state of Kansas. It will fill the gaps in the literature on empirically supported positive psychological interventions. Future studies will be able to use the findings from this study to develop group and couples’ interventions that are grounded in positive psychology.