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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

physiological stress, responsiveness, psychotherapy, red responders

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Research conducted by Michael Lambert et al. has found that a substantial minority of psychotherapy clients (about 10%) get worse over the course of therapy. They call these clients ‘red responders’ because they are of particular concern for the therapists and require additional focused treatment. Interestingly, at the other end of the spectrum, Lambert et al. note that there are ‘blue responders,’ clients that not only respond very well to therapy but also respond very quickly (within a few sessions) and also do very well over time. There are no studies to date that have determined what predicts who will be a red responder and who will be a blue responder. We hypothesize that a clients’ ability to handle stress will play a key role in differentiating between red and blue responders, with reds showing an increased stress response relative to blues. To test this hypothesis, clients identified as ‘red’ and ‘blue responders’ will be recruited at the BYU Counseling Center (we have received permission to conduct the study there) to participate in a blood pressure stress test, an EEG stress test, and collect saliva to assay stress hormones. We will also collect a sample of clients from the Counseling Center who are neither red nor blue responders and a matched sample of students not in therapy as control groups.

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