Counseling and Wellness Services offers short-term individual counseling services with a licensed clinician. Short-term or brief counseling is where one’s issues are addressed over a few sessions in a solution-focused manner. Counseling and Wellness utilizes this model to assist in the reduction of emotional distress and help foster resiliency so you can pursue their academic, career, and personal goals. Students who present with persistent and chronic psychological concerns and require continuous long-term treatment are best served by community providers who can offer uninterrupted treatment and care.
What types of services do you provide?
Counseling and Wellness offers short-term individual counseling services with a licensed clinician. During your first session, the clinician will talk with you to gather some information so they can briefly assess your needs and make treatment recommendation(s) based on their professional opinion and in collaboration with you.
Who provides the counseling services?
What types of issues or concerns can you help me with?
Our counselors are trained to intervene or provide support for a countless number of issues, far too many to list in any comprehensive way. While counseling might be helpful in numerous situations, there are some conditions in which we would strongly encourage you to seek counseling services:
- You are unhappy on most days or feel a sense of hopelessness
- You worry excessively or are constantly on edge
- You are unable to concentrate on your schoolwork or other activities
- You are unable to sleep at night or constantly feel tired
- You have experienced a change in your appetite or your weight
- You have experienced a loss (e.g., a relationship breakup, a parent’s death)
- You have increased your use of alcohol or other drugs (including cigarettes)
- You feel overwhelmed by what is going on in your life
- You are having thoughts about hurting yourself or someone else
What happens during my first appointment?
Your clinician will obtain information about your current concerns, relevant history, and goals in addition to providing you with Counseling and Wellness’ policies and procedures, such as confidentiality and your rights and responsibilities. If you and your clinician determine that working together utilizing short-term individual counseling, is the treatment recommendation that best meets your needs, a goal-oriented treatment plan will be made, outlining the plan for follow-up sessions and/or assistance to community-based services
What can I do to get the most impact out of my sessions?
Define your goals. Think about what you would like to get out of counseling. It might be helpful to write a list of events, relationship issues, or feelings that you think are contributing to your distress. Take time before each session to consider your expectations for that session. Self-exploration and change involve hard work, and sometimes painful feelings are stirred up in the process of healing. Clinicians are trained to pay close attention to these issues and will probably encourage you to discuss these feelings openly.
Be an active participant. This is your counseling experience, so be as active as you can in deciding how to use the time. Be honest with the clinician and give her or him feedback about how you see the sessions progressing.
Be patient with yourself. Growth takes time, effort, and patience. All of your coping skills, behavior patterns, and self-perceptions have been learned and reinforced over a long period of time, so change can be difficult and slow at times.
Ask questions. Ask questions about the counseling process, any methods used by the clinician, or about any other services at CRS. Your clinician is there to assist you.
Follow your counselor’s recommendations. Take the time between sessions to complete any activities suggested by your clinician. Counseling is intended to improve your life in the “real world,” so making efforts to try out and practice new behaviors, approaches, or ways of thinking could be a crucial element to the success of your counseling experience.