A SERVICE FOR STUDENTS
A regular visit for some and a nightmare for others, mental health counseling has recently become more accepted and acknowledged for its help with struggling individuals.
Standing at the top of a hill on the south side of campus, the University of Idaho Counseling and Testing Center schedules over 10,000 appointments annually. Student need for mental health services has grown by roughly 72% over the past several years, according to CTC Director Greg Lambeth, while the number of clinicians remains difficult to increase.
“The total number of students that we serve has increased, the total number of appointments that we’re providing has increased, the types of mental health concerns of many of the students that we’re providing to has increased, and that makes us just like every other counseling center,” Lambeth said.
Despite the difficulties, Lambeth said the clinicians at the CTC are dedicated and attempt to meet as much student need as possible, running an after-hours crisis hotline and beginning a group therapy program.
“One of the things our counseling center has always tried to do is provide as much as possible comprehensive mental health services for students,” Lambeth said.
Still, appointments are often scheduled three to four weeks away, causing students to create memes making fun of the problem. Many students around campus are discouraged from attempting to make appointments at all because of the long wait.
“I’ve seen so many people post things about how they don’t want to go get the help from the CTC because what’s the point if it’s going to be a month,” sophomore student Maddie Domka said. “I have a lot of friends who feel like their problem isn’t valid enough compared to the people who are struggling so much.”
While the CTC recognizes the growing need, Lambeth said finding clinicians to hire in the Moscow-Pullman area is an especially tricky issue to solve. Mental health professionals are often recruited to more densely populated, metropolitan areas rather than in more rural areas.
“There’s not enough mental health practitioners to meet the mental health needs in our communities,” Lambeth said.
Braden Claflin expresses the
stress he experiences as a
student at UI.
A GROWING NEED
For many college students, their time at school is their first time away from home and their first time having to make their own appointments.
Domka said she would not have scheduled an appointment had she not been taken to the center by her Student Support Services-TRIO counselor.
“I wasn’t going to do it until someone literally made me go do it,” Domka said.
Like many other students, she had anxiety surrounding the call to make an appointment, preventing her from scheduling one.
“There wasn’t an option for an online form,” Domka said, “You’re (the CTC) helping students who are struggling with anxiety or depression and you’re making them come in person or be on the phone — which is a common stress factor in what I’ve found in a lot of my peers.”
After scheduling and attending that first appointment, she said the process was less intimidating.
Even for students that had been seen earlier in the school year, scheduling appointments later in the semester has proved difficult.
Students like sophomore Braden Claflin, have had to move their appointment frequency to only being seen once a month. Claflin, a regular CTC visitor since August, decided to visit the CTC because of recently developed anxiety and depression issues. After participating in a mental health seminar before the semester began, he realized the possibility that he could need counseling in his own life.
“I was nervous about calling, because I’ve always had that mentality that if you need a therapist or a counselor, there’s something wrong,” Claflin said. “I don’t have that mentality anymore.”
Despite the raised awareness of mental health, a stigma surrounding therapy and treatment still exists. Claflin said he lost a close friend after revealing he was visiting a counselor. Others simply choose not to go.
Sophomore Izze Booth chooses not to utilize the CTC because of her own stigma and experience towards counseling.
“I feel like I just don’t put myself out there to maybe get help I need because I feel like nobody will understand,” Booth said. “I know how I feel, and I know how I feel about it, so why do I need somebody else to ask me how I feel that way?”
MEETING THE NEED
The steady rise of students seeking mental health treatment presents a challenge not only for the University of Idaho’s CTC, but for centers across the country, according to Lambeth.
“All counseling centers have seen huge increases in the number of students that they’re providing services to,” Lambeth said. “It does challenge the types of services you’re able to provide, the scope of services that you’re able to provide.”
Although there is a high request of services, the clinicians at the CTC all have schedules filled with as many student appointments as possible, said Karla Blanco.
Blanco, a clinician and Interim Director for Outreach for the CTC, gestured to her color-coded schedule completely full of appointments to demonstrate the effort put forward to see as many students as possible.
“It’s not like we’re not seeing anybody,” Blanco said. “It’s not like we’re not putting in the work on this side.”
Model Madi Thurston
demonstrates the stress and
frustration many students
experience on a daily basis.
Even with the increase of mental health services needed, the CTC is in a hiring freeze. This is due to psychologist licensing taking a considerable amount of time, hirable clinicians not necessarily seeking smaller communities, and budget issues with the university.
“Moscow is a really hard area to hire into,” Blanco said.
Having more clinicians would not necessarily solve the problem, Blanco said. Scheduling an appointment with a private practitioner would likely present the same scheduling difficulty, planning an appointment three to four weeks from the date.
“Private practitioners can just say ‘I’m full,’” Lambeth said. “One of the things that happens is we continue to see students for first time appointments even though our schedules are incredibly full.”
To meet the growing needs of student mental health services, Lambeth and the team at the CTC have adjusted their schedules, shortening sessions and seeing students less frequently in order to fit in more appointments. In the process of adjusting routine, Lambeth said that the staff at the CTC is attempting to think about their responsibility to be accessible to all students.
A SUPPORT FOR ADVOCACY
Other administrative entities around UI have also noticed the significant rise in student mental health need. Terrance Grieb, a professor of finance and the Chair of Faculty Senate, said that the members of Faculty Senate noted mental health for both faculty and students as one of the first concerns for the following semester. Grieb said he has noticed the additional level of stress that students are now taking on.
“Students have always struggled with the stress of a college degree,” Grieb said. “What’s different is the nature of how students interact with the college environment.”
Grieb said the Faculty Senate is attempting to explore mental health from an advocacy role. From a professor’s standpoint, being an informal support for students is an advocacy role he can adapt into.
“Sometimes you need to sit down with somebody clinically, and sometimes you just need to have a cup of coffee. Sometimes just sharing your troubles and being heard is enough of a release to get you back on track,” Grieb said.
To help teach and promote those advocacy roles, Vandal Health Education is focused on enhancing mental wellbeing as a whole, Amanda Ferstead said. Ferstead, VHE’s mental health program director, said she has noticed that students are more willing to speak up about their stressors, making it more necessary than ever to encourage people to learn a mental wellbeing routine.
Braden Claflin reflects on his
experiences with mental
health and his mentality
surrounding it.
“We have a stress management workshop,” she said. “We talk about a couple of different stress management resources, like breathing, gratitude, progressive muscle relaxation.”
By coordinating and facilitating workshops like these, Ferstead said, she works to make sure the programs meet the needs of students. Offering workshops and programs, she said, offers a space to learn and talk about mental health and stressors, supporting an advocacy role for nonprofessionals that wish to help.
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
With conversations about mental health becoming more common, more and more students are seeking treatment. While the increase in the openness of mental health has the potential to decrease stigma surrounding the topic, the increase of student need has caused elongated scheduling of CTC appointments.
Many students have tried to find coping mechanisms that help when the CTC cannot, with Booth writing out her troubles and Domka utilizing an app that provides breathing meditations between counseling appointments.
“It’s up to students to find out what works,” Ferstead said.
Story by Mary Phipps
Photos by Brianna Finnegan & Leslie Kiebert
Design by Hagen Hunsaker