Counseling Information for Students
What is personal counseling?
People sometime confuse our services with academic advising or career counseling. Personal counseling is focused on emotional, psychological, or interpersonal issues. Counselors listen carefully to your concerns and help you reach specific goals. Reaching those goals sometimes means learning new skills, changing behaviors, or learning to view situations differently.
What is short-term counseling?
The Counseling Center works from a brief treatment modality. This means that students will work collaboratively with their counselor to identify one to two concrete goals which will center and guide the counseling process. If while engaged in the counseling process, a student and/or the counselor believes that this treatment model is not the best fit for the student, the counselor will work carefully to refer the student to appropriate outside resources that can better meet her needs.
Why do people come for counseling?
People typically come to counseling because they are experiencing emotional pain or wish to improve their lives in some way. While people seek counseling for many reasons, some of the common issues addressed in counseling include:
- Coping with stress
- Improving mood and overcoming depression
- Enhancing self-esteem
- Managing anxiety
- Surviving grief and loss
- Adjusting to college
- Improving relationships with partners or roommates
- Dealing with emotional trauma (e.g. abuse, assault)
- Understanding sexual orientation and identity
- Coping with family and childhood issues
- Ending substance abuse or eating problems
What is confidentiality?
Due to the sensitive and personal nature of counseling, all counseling services are confidential. This means that nothing you share with your counselor is revealed to anyone outside of the Counseling Center without your consent. We do not disclose names of clients to anyone, including family or college officials, without client consent. There are some situations in which we are required by law to breach confidentiality (e.g. client threatening to harm self or others). We encourage you to learn more about about how we handle client information and about the limitations of confidentiality, by visiting out Confidentiality page,
How do I make an appointment?
Learn more about making an appointment on our Contact Us page.