KU Positive Psychotherapy Clinic doubles number of clinicians, provides service across Kansas

LAWRENCE — What started as a way to give counseling psychology graduate students experience by seeing clients at the University of Kansas has grown to a telehealth clinic powerhouse helping people across the state address anxiety, depression, stress and mental health by focusing on their strengths and what is right in life.

The KU Positive Psychotherapy Clinic has doubled the number of clinicians providing service to people across the state, all while seeing improvements in clients as early as the first session. Data shows clients experience significant gains sooner and at higher percentages than the national average.

Origins of the KU Positive Psychotherapy Clinic

In 2020, the Positive Psychotherapy Clinic was set to open in KU’s School of Education & Human Sciences. But the COVID-19 pandemic forced operations to go online. Within two years, clinic leaders not only learned providing the counseling virtually was a viable option, they had successfully provided more than 800 hours of counseling.

“Since we started in 2020, we have worked with over 400 clients in 48 counties in Kansas. Our reach has become much greater than we originally imagined it could be,” said Brian Cole, associate professor of educational psychology and director of training in the counseling psychology doctoral program. “We’re finding, across the board, that this approach works. When we check in with folks after they’ve completed the protocol, they have maintained their gains.”

In the last six months alone, 79 clients have completed the clinic’s nine-week protocol. About 70% saw significant improvement in their symptoms. That rate is higher than the national average, and at nine weeks, comes at a faster pace than the national average as well, Cole said.

What is positive psychotherapy?

Traditional psychotherapy focuses on deficits, or the problems in a person’s life that may be causing symptoms like depression. Positive psychology instead focuses on a person’s strengths, what they do well and what is going right in their life to address situations that may be causing the issues. The approach was pioneered by the late Rick Snyder and the late Shane Lopez, both former faculty members at KU. Clinicians help clients focus on strengths and positive aspects of their lives, set goals for improvement and learn and practice skills to work toward improvement.

Cole and Kristen Hensley, associate professor of the practice and training director of the counseling psychology master’s program, have analyzed data from 166 clients who completed the nine-week therapy protocol between 2023 and 2025. 

Results showed depression, anxiety, general symptom distress, relationship distress and school/work distress were significantly lower after session eight than at the beginning. Clinicians also perform a follow-up session with clients one month after completion, and data showed the gains were maintained after the program. 

Analysis also showed that throughout the program, anxiety started to improve by session two, depression started to improve by session three and the comprehensive symptom distress measurement saw improvement after the very first session. The latter measure also showed improvement each week of therapy.

In addition to helping individuals make improvements, the clinic has boosted its numbers. This year, clinicians saw clients from 27 Kansas counties, bringing the total to 48 counties from which the clinic has served clients. Residents from more than 300 miles away from KU’s Lawrence campus have received services, and some reside near borders with Nebraska, Colorado and Oklahoma and many rural areas in between. Many people who have completed the clinic’s programming have recommended it to others, Cole said.

“Folks are finding us in all sorts of ways,” Cole said. “At first, it was mostly social media, but now people are sharing this resource all over the state. In 2020, most were folks in Lawrence who saw a post on Reddit, but now we have people from all over, which is great because these are people we would not have reached otherwise, and the majority of Kansans live in a mental health desert.”

Increasing services across Kansas and beyond

The clinic has been able to serve more Kansans by expanding its numbers. Hensley doubled the size of the counseling psychology masters program, and students are now providing services in both the spring and summer, where originally they were only able to see clients in the summer. Twenty clinicians will provide services again this spring, beginning just after spring break in March. So far, 55 graduate students have trained in the clinic and provided therapy while gaining their required 280 hours of service. 

Those graduates have gone on to careers across the state, taking their positive psychology experience to community hospitals, private practice, VA hospitals and correctional facilities, Cole said.

Cole, Hensley and students presented data on the clinic’s success at the American Psychological Association convention in August, the third consecutive year they have presented. They are also in the process of publishing research on the clinic’s work.

In the future, clinic leaders hope to grow to about 200 clients a year, expand into offering group sessions and continue to grow in providing service to rural Kansas, in part by hiring a work-study student to recruit in those areas. In the meantime, anyone interested can learn more and sign up for the clinic online. Clients must be an adult living in Kansas.

“The clinicians have done amazing work,” Cole said. “I think there are a lot of different ways we can go from here. When we started, we thought we’d see low to moderate levels of stress in clients, but it’s actually been moderate to high. Fortunately, we’ve had great success dealing with that and helping people reduce those levels. It’s been very encouraging, seeing students find out they are capable of a lot, and that positive psychology can address serious issues.”