Recent Doctoral Grad's Dissertation Research Published in Journal of Counseling & Development

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Julia Conroy

U of A instructor Julia Conroy's dissertation research about the coregulatory effects of Emotionally Focused Therapy was recently published in the Journal of Counseling & Development.

Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT, is a framework for couples' therapy founded on adult attachment science. Previous research indicates that this therapy increases secure attachments between couples by emphasizing responsiveness to partners' moments of distress.

Conroy earned a doctorate in counselor education and supervision in 2021 and is now on the U of A faculty. The article describes her research, which involved measuring the heart rate of a couple during their counseling sessions with a Northwest Arkansas EFT-certified therapist.

Conroy and her co-authors, which included several other faculty members in the College of Education and Health Professions, coded the topics of conversation to see which ones during counseling were correlated with synchronized measurements between the couple.

"The project was a great collaboration between the counselor education program, the mathematics program, the exercise science program and a local clinician," Conroy said.

The article noted that "significant heart rate synchrony" was more likely during sessions that focused on clients sharing "attachment injuries, bonds and longings" with their partner than sessions more focused on cognitive processing of the relationship.

"Additionally, there were delays in heart rate synchrony that occurred between the couple, which may be indicative of the emotional processing speed of the empathic response of each partner. Understanding the physiological synchrony patterns between dyads in treatment could clarify the potential of coregulation in the therapeutic process," the article states.

Four of the eight sessions revealed significant heart rate synchrony between the Northwest Arkansas couple. Seventy-five percent of these significantly synchronous sessions occurred during the final four sessions. "This trend suggests that there was more heart rate synchrony between the couple over time," the article states.

Emotional regulation in relationships was first studied among infants and caregivers. But new research indicates that emotionally regulating experiences can occur in adult romantic relationships.

The purpose of Conroy's study was to examine how physiologically synchronous experiences might be facilitated during therapy session to promote more coregulation and eventual emotional regulation for couples outside of sessions.

Kristi Perryman, an associate professor and director of the U of A Office of Play Therapy Research and Training and chair of Conroy's dissertation, said it's the only study of its kind to date and is already making a difference in the counseling field. Perryman said Conroy's determination while working on her dissertation was impressive.

"She took an additional class through exercise science to be able to understand the data and sought committee members from both the counseling and exercise science fields to help best understand the neurological impact as well as the physiological data," she said. "Most students aren't willing to take the extra time and coursework to accomplish something like this. I'm so proud of her hard work and that it has been published in the premier journal in our field."

Conroy's co-authors included Perryman, Samantha Robinson, Ryan Rana, Paul Blisard and Michelle Gray.