Basic Counseling Skills for Higher Education Professionals

David Merriman Author

08/10/2023 Added

19 Plays

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2023 NECPA Statewide Convening

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[00:00:04.020]Okay, perfect.
[00:00:05.550]So thank you for coming.
[00:00:07.020]We really appreciate it.
[00:00:08.728]Maureen and I have been doing some presentations
[00:00:11.820]for the last, gosh, six, seven months, I guess,
[00:00:15.360]at this point,
[00:00:16.800]because we both feel so passionate about this area,
[00:00:20.758]and I can't really say, and Maureen probably too,
[00:00:24.120]how many times, just even in casual conversation,
[00:00:27.060]we talk about this with friends, with family,
[00:00:29.310]with people that we know,
[00:00:31.344]my son plays hockey, and I talk about this
[00:00:34.320]at the ice skating, at the rink
[00:00:36.360]with parents or with my daughter at the,
[00:00:39.084]activities that we do or things that we're at.
[00:00:43.045]Just where this stuff just comes up in casual conversation,
[00:00:45.690]not even within our academic work,
[00:00:48.390]because this is stuff that is just affecting people
[00:00:51.030]at all levels of life.
[00:00:53.580]So I will say that this continues to come up
[00:00:56.528]even when I'm traveling.
[00:00:57.960]I was in Europe for a few weeks for my husband,
[00:01:00.944]we were working and living kind of abroad,
[00:01:02.140]and it came up there too,
[00:01:02.973]with just casual conversation with people on a tour bus.
[00:01:05.344]So every time, wherever I go, whatever I do,
[00:01:08.730]I feel like these issues continue to pervade.
[00:01:11.820]Like really even in London or Scotland or wherever I am,
[00:01:15.728]people are talking about these issues of mental health
[00:01:19.260]and how it's affecting them and their families
[00:01:22.140]and the people they work with, and the people they're doing,
[00:01:24.802]and then they hear what I do and they're like, oh my gosh,
[00:01:27.840]that's so important and what you're doing is so necessary,
[00:01:32.070]and I wish I could get you to come here, there
[00:01:33.870]and everywhere.
[00:01:35.648]So, and I'm not saying that to show like,
[00:01:38.304]oh, what we do is so great,
[00:01:39.744]but that the point being that these issues are continuing
[00:01:42.060]to pervade people's lives in every area
[00:01:47.341]that touches what we do.
[00:01:48.448]So I think that we're really grateful
[00:01:51.420]and thankful that you've asked us to come
[00:01:53.220]and present because we think
[00:01:54.750]that it's really valuable information for people
[00:01:57.900]as you see here, sort of basic counseling skills
[00:02:01.080]because not everybody is a clinically trained counselor.
[00:02:05.250]And I think many people sort of shy away
[00:02:08.310]from having these conversations
[00:02:10.290]because they are not clinically trained.
[00:02:12.480]I am not clinically trained.
[00:02:13.890]Maureen is, and that's why we sort of do this together,
[00:02:16.784]because I don't wanna be the only one
[00:02:19.620]having these conversations
[00:02:20.885]because I don't have that clinical background.
[00:02:22.800]But I also feel much more empowered to do things
[00:02:26.250]because I'm able to have these conversations.
[00:02:29.850]So, just by way of a brief introduction,
[00:02:31.560]that's what what we're trying to do here
[00:02:33.120]is help people feel empowered
[00:02:36.150]to have these basic level conversations
[00:02:38.400]and respond to people when they're starting
[00:02:40.560]to be in a crisis so that you do feel you can
[00:02:43.320]sort of move this needle a little bit.
[00:02:44.790]So that's just sort of a brief introduction,
[00:02:46.830]then we'll get into things.
[00:02:47.700]But Maureen, I don't know if you wanna
[00:02:49.866]just say kind of a quick introduction about what we do
[00:02:52.064]and why we're doing this?
[00:02:53.580]Yeah well, good morning everyone.
[00:02:56.160]I haven't been to Nebraska,
[00:02:57.900]but I'm gonna consider this my visit to the state.
[00:03:00.586]So I'm marking it off on my US map.
[00:03:05.104]So anyway, so happy to be with you this morning.
[00:03:07.950]Just to kind of echo what Rebekah said with the,
[00:03:10.590]our brainchild for this was,
[00:03:13.680]I was directing a graduate counselor education program
[00:03:17.220]at the time
[00:03:18.053]and Rebekah and I are in the same college.
[00:03:19.626]And she was interested in putting together a skills class
[00:03:23.645]for her higher education students.
[00:03:26.130]They had been taking our counseling skills class
[00:03:28.890]for the mental health counselors,
[00:03:30.762]and it wasn't a fit for either,
[00:03:33.120]we were covering more intense kind of counseling skills
[00:03:36.450]and obviously teaching students
[00:03:38.130]who are gonna be licensed mental health counselors,
[00:03:40.440]much more kind of advanced skills.
[00:03:42.630]And so then the idea was born like, hey,
[00:03:45.240]let's make a class specifically for the higher ed students
[00:03:49.290]to give them the kind of basic,
[00:03:51.420]again, our name, basic counseling skills that they need.
[00:03:54.690]And we worked on that course together.
[00:03:57.150]And in that process, Rebekah's like, there's no book,
[00:04:00.405]I kept recommending books to her,
[00:04:02.130]but they weren't, they were sort of too in depth
[00:04:04.890]and went too clinical.
[00:04:07.410]So that's kind of how we got started on this journey.
[00:04:09.441]And we're just trying to equip people with skills
[00:04:15.330]that they can use as Rebekah said,
[00:04:17.430]to move the needle along to not be afraid.
[00:04:19.984]One of the things we'll talk about
[00:04:22.080]is the worst thing you can do is not talk about the issues,
[00:04:25.110]is have somebody come to you who's in pain, who's hurting
[00:04:29.760]and you kind of gloss over that.
[00:04:32.048]So we want to try to empower people to do some basic,
[00:04:36.986]almost triage in a counseling sense,
[00:04:39.960]and then determine what sort of services might be needed
[00:04:43.365]to move on.
[00:04:44.490]So we're not looking to add to anybody's workload, right?
[00:04:46.860]Everybody's already got enough to do,
[00:04:48.750]but we're looking to kind of help people feel less fearful
[00:04:52.620]when they encounter these situations
[00:04:53.726]and to have some idea of things to say.
[00:04:56.880]So, okay.
[00:05:00.660]So we thought we'd start with,
[00:05:04.569]if you can go to menti.com and enter this code,
[00:05:10.500]if you've ever done that before, you don't need an account.
[00:05:13.170]You just go there.
[00:05:14.190]And once you put this code in,
[00:05:16.440]what we wanted to begin with was just kind of a,
[00:05:19.848]what are the common issues you see on your campus?
[00:05:23.187]What are the things that you're concerned about?
[00:05:25.410]What are students coming to you for?
[00:05:27.300]And we'll kind of examine that.
[00:05:30.240]Everybody's got the code there.
[00:05:34.860]And then we'll see what you're dealing with,
[00:05:37.617]and what you think is the most common issue that you see.
[00:05:42.480]And then we'll chat a little bit about that.
[00:05:47.130]You can enter up to three words or three issues.
[00:05:51.120]What three entries.
[00:06:02.070]I know we've got people virtually,
[00:06:03.570]so I'm gonna give everyone a minute and try to,
[00:06:07.530]I'm gonna move over to that screen,
[00:06:16.890]which I just.
[00:06:21.870]I would also say, Maureen,
[00:06:22.980]if you don't mind me jumping in too,
[00:06:24.868]if people can pop into the chat, what their roles are too,
[00:06:28.530]that would be really helpful.
[00:06:30.290]So we see who's in, kind of who's here.
[00:06:34.800]That would be helpful if people can do that.
[00:06:37.740]Can they do that?
[00:06:39.326]Can they access the, oh no, I guess they can't.
[00:06:40.620]'cause people are live.
[00:06:43.218]Maybe we can't do that.
[00:06:46.170]That's okay.
[00:06:48.426]But we can see on this menti what people have.
[00:06:51.420]So.
[00:06:52.253]Hey real quick, if you would like me to,
[00:06:54.420]I could pass the microphone around and they can introduce.
[00:06:57.549]Yeah.
[00:06:58.551]Oh, that'd be great, yeah.
[00:06:59.384]That would be awesome.
[00:07:00.690]Thank you.
[00:07:01.523]Because then it helps us sort of guide
[00:07:03.810]what we're talking about with, we don't wanna go all one way
[00:07:06.109]if nobody's in the room that deals with any of that.
[00:07:07.771]So that would be really helpful.
[00:07:09.000]That'd be great.
[00:07:09.833]Well, let's start it off.
[00:07:11.375]I'm Kelly Slagel.
[00:07:14.010]I'm the director of counseling services
[00:07:15.840]at Midland University.
[00:07:19.500]Elena Smith,
[00:07:20.333]I'm the senior director of Residential Student Initiatives
[00:07:22.800]at Belle University, and I work with admissions,
[00:07:24.900]advising and residents and student life.
[00:07:28.710]My name's Rachel Holm.
[00:07:29.910]I am the Academic Travel Admission Administrator
[00:07:32.571]at Clarkson College, which sounds like I don't fit,
[00:07:35.490]but I'm a part of the student support team on campus
[00:07:37.867]because I'm a social worker
[00:07:39.613]and licensed mental health practitioner by trade.
[00:07:45.210]My name is Alison Wolf-Nelson.
[00:07:46.470]I'm the counselor and prevention education coordinator
[00:07:48.960]for Central Community College in Hastings.
[00:07:54.930]That is everyone in the room.
[00:07:58.860]Great, thank you.
[00:07:59.760]Got a variety of roles and settings.
[00:08:03.240]Some of you are telling us
[00:08:04.800]you kind of have this skillset through professional training
[00:08:08.850]and others seem like they're in positions
[00:08:10.860]where you're likely to encounter
[00:08:12.390]some of the things we're gonna talk about today.
[00:08:15.120]Great, thank you.
[00:08:17.670]So, yeah, so I mean, if we look at the sort of menti
[00:08:20.301]what you see is what you're basically dealing with
[00:08:23.910]and the biggest one that sort of jumps up
[00:08:26.430]are depression and anxiety, which makes sense.
[00:08:29.400]And that's what the research tells us,
[00:08:31.380]that those are the main and biggest things
[00:08:33.240]that are coming up with our students.
[00:08:35.640]And then financial challenges and suicide.
[00:08:39.330]So it makes some sense.
[00:08:41.720]Loneliness and lack of coping skills.
[00:08:43.950]So what you're saying is, makes a lot of sense.
[00:08:46.890]If we ask our students, if we ask people around us,
[00:08:49.619]that's what we see.
[00:08:50.840]And I think what you're talking about is very common.
[00:08:55.530]You said what we would've expected you to say
[00:08:57.240]and what we often talk about and focus on.
[00:08:59.730]So thank you for going through that.
[00:09:02.340]Right and it's interesting, some of 'em,
[00:09:04.140]like loneliness sometimes it's hard to believe a student
[00:09:08.031]could be on campus.
[00:09:09.616]Particularly at maybe a larger school
[00:09:11.970]where there's tons of students and yet feel,
[00:09:15.075]have feelings of isolation and loneliness.
[00:09:17.490]So sometimes what we have to train people to
[00:09:20.040]is to kind of believe the student report.
[00:09:23.079]Like it could be sort of incredulous,
[00:09:25.320]but it's like, yeah, these are the feelings that are having,
[00:09:28.650]even though it might seem sort of strange to us.
[00:09:32.310]Like, how could you feel that way.
[00:09:34.518]And that's actually something
[00:09:36.420]in one of the chapters of the book
[00:09:38.580]that I remember specifically looking up
[00:09:40.620]like a loneliness index and it was surprisingly high.
[00:09:43.203]And I talked about that in the chapter.
[00:09:45.420]So yeah, it's surprising and people
[00:09:48.750]probably don't wanna show that
[00:09:49.800]or explain that to their friends 'cause people are like,
[00:09:51.690]how can, like Maureen just said, how can you feel that way?
[00:09:54.301]So yeah, definitely.
[00:10:00.300]We have a case to show you.
[00:10:02.910]I'm hoping, I know that in when we share we have
[00:10:07.740]to also do the voice.
[00:10:09.267]So I'm just gonna make sure that you got, can you,
[00:10:15.600]did you hear that at all?
[00:10:16.770]No.
[00:10:18.060]Okay. I have to go to.
[00:10:24.930]I think there's something you have to do
[00:10:26.340]with the video.
[00:10:28.020]Yep.
[00:10:28.853]I just got the, here lemme just pop outta here for a second
[00:10:42.690]and try it again.
[00:10:54.330]Just so you know, when we've done this live,
[00:10:56.070]it hasn't worked either.
[00:11:02.960]So here add the share sound, there it is.
[00:11:06.720]I think this will be it now, let's see.
[00:11:11.610]Slide her back.
[00:11:13.500]Hi, I am Julia.
[00:11:14.610]I'm a freshman in college.
[00:11:15.930]I recently went out of state for college
[00:11:18.000]to try something new, but it's just been really hard.
[00:11:21.000]I haven't been making a lot of friends,
[00:11:22.680]so it makes going to the dining hall really awkward.
[00:11:24.570]Everybody has friend groups and it's staying together
[00:11:27.720]and it just makes me nervous.
[00:11:29.550]So I haven't been going out
[00:11:30.780]and just staying in my dorm a lot.
[00:11:34.719]And I just feel like I look different now.
[00:11:36.399]But even when I look in the mirror,
[00:11:37.940]I still feel like I look like,
[00:11:39.356]I don't mean it's like a bad way, but kinda fat.
[00:11:40.800]Even my roommates asked me to go to the dining hall
[00:11:42.360]with them.
[00:11:43.961]I just avoid it and just stay in my dorm.
[00:11:45.060]And I noticed I probably lost a lot of weight by now.
[00:11:47.700]And when I went home for this past break,
[00:11:49.210]my parents were talking about it,
[00:11:51.030]saying I look skinny and lost a lot of weight,
[00:11:52.500]but I just, I don't know what to do.
[00:11:54.270]It's scary.
[00:11:55.103]It's just too much for me and I'm dealing with a lot.
[00:11:57.333]There's so much school work and it's just like,
[00:11:58.260]it's really hard.
[00:12:00.660]Hi.
[00:12:06.540]Rebekah, you wanna.
[00:12:08.383]Yeah, so we just kind of wanted
[00:12:10.830]to get your reactions to that.
[00:12:12.210]So maybe with the microphone in the room,
[00:12:14.400]if you could let us know sort of
[00:12:15.930]what your reactions are to that,
[00:12:17.700]what you are seeing, how you might respond.
[00:12:20.155]So what are some reactions?
[00:12:28.580]I feel like I hear this a lot.
[00:12:30.473]I mean, I feel like it's a pretty common theme
[00:12:32.910]and we see this pattern.
[00:12:35.340]I know losing weight's just one of the results,
[00:12:37.410]but there's a lot of students that report
[00:12:40.200]feeling the same way with even more drastic results
[00:12:44.040]than just kind of losing weight.
[00:12:46.023]It's pretty common from what I can tell.
[00:12:49.770]Yeah.
[00:12:51.540]And how might you, or how might you advise people,
[00:12:54.690]like on your staff to talk to the student?
[00:12:57.060]Or what would you, what do you think are common ways
[00:12:59.910]to sort of help a student like this?
[00:13:01.890]What would you do?
[00:13:03.549]We have what's called a CARES team.
[00:13:06.300]So a staff from arts, a staff from athletics,
[00:13:09.690]a staff composed of about 10 people.
[00:13:13.110]And so we kind of put out alerts.
[00:13:15.073]We put out alerts to staff to make sure
[00:13:17.400]that we're tracking how often are they coming to class,
[00:13:20.250]are they missing class.
[00:13:22.200]To RAs to make sure are they coming out of their dorm
[00:13:24.840]to do more dorm checks, to do more check-ins.
[00:13:27.330]So we kind of just put alerts on our Aviso system
[00:13:30.120]so that everybody's just aware, not necessarily,
[00:13:33.480]I mean, trying to engage.
[00:13:35.100]So if you see her, hey try to have a conversation,
[00:13:38.610]just keep 'em engaged as much as possible.
[00:13:40.980]And then I'll do a reach out to see if they're willing
[00:13:44.280]to come in for a conversation.
[00:13:45.900]But we put just sort of alerts out to the people
[00:13:50.400]that we know that he or she is connected with.
[00:13:55.020]So we try to try to do a wrap around the campus
[00:13:58.110]for that person.
[00:13:59.679]Yeah, and I think that's really common model.
[00:14:00.870]I think the sort of the care teams
[00:14:03.699]and looking out that's really, really important.
[00:14:07.308]Other reactions or things that you're hearing
[00:14:09.660]from this student that you might think about or respond to?
[00:14:15.030]Anything else jump out?
[00:14:16.950]Our care team works a little bit different
[00:14:19.020]that instead of sending out a notification to the people
[00:14:21.843]that the student is involved with,
[00:14:23.880]they send it to a specific person on our team
[00:14:26.550]that connects with that student and then gets the student
[00:14:28.650]to our various resources.
[00:14:30.180]So it might be counseling, it might be getting involved
[00:14:33.240]with this certain group.
[00:14:34.110]It might be like the food and hygiene pantry
[00:14:37.846]at their classes are scheduled over when that cafeteria
[00:14:39.382]is open, whatever that resource might be.
[00:14:40.806]So it's a little bit more one-on-one
[00:14:44.700]instead of spreading the word.
[00:14:46.563]Okay, great.
[00:14:52.680]Yeah, we also wanna let you know
[00:14:54.270]that this isn't a real case, we used some students
[00:14:56.696]to act for us.
[00:14:58.387]So we weren't going
[00:15:01.708]to jeopardize the student's mental health
[00:15:04.830]by having them share their story.
[00:15:07.350]So I think--
[00:15:09.240]I think we're just.
[00:15:10.297]Oh that's okay.
[00:15:11.550]Trying to show that you wanna sort of just listen
[00:15:14.880]and we're gonna kind of go back to these kind of at the end,
[00:15:17.700]but we're just trying to, we want you to kind of think
[00:15:20.460]about what students might be going through.
[00:15:22.470]And I mean, a lot of you in the room
[00:15:23.460]are pretty well-trained, but just for,
[00:15:26.280]for maybe people who work for you or people
[00:15:27.930]on your campuses, when we put these case studies together,
[00:15:31.320]we're trying to get everyone to sort of think about,
[00:15:33.873]maybe not always jumping right to getting them to referrals,
[00:15:38.760]but just kind of sitting with them
[00:15:39.960]and listening to what might be going on
[00:15:42.060]and having that empathy and understanding what's happening
[00:15:44.910]'cause they may not wanna go right to counseling.
[00:15:46.952]So kind of getting, listening to really what's happening
[00:15:51.654]and developing those relationships
[00:15:52.487]and developing that rapport and helping maybe
[00:15:54.720]some of your staff doing that and sort of listening
[00:15:58.050]and getting there and developing that relationship
[00:16:00.420]so you can move them toward that.
[00:16:02.010]So, yeah.
[00:16:03.720]Or just one of the things that happens
[00:16:04.977]as many of you probably know is,
[00:16:07.355]if you make that referral, it might not be followed.
[00:16:10.683]You know, how many times have I suggested to a student
[00:16:14.520]to seek help or make a phone call and they don't do it,
[00:16:17.889]so we sort of move it off our plate, but nothing happens.
[00:16:21.913]Or, and I don't know if this is the case.
[00:16:24.180]I know some of you mentioned working at counseling centers
[00:16:27.032]here at Florida International University,
[00:16:29.670]we have over 50,000 students.
[00:16:31.835]They're not necessarily getting
[00:16:34.470]into the campus health center that quickly.
[00:16:38.348]They can get in the same day for an intake,
[00:16:40.950]but they're limited in sessions, they're limited in time,
[00:16:44.190]they're limited in staff.
[00:16:45.270]So it's not always just an easy handoff
[00:16:47.730]to the counseling center.
[00:16:49.980]And some problems as we'll talk about the counseling centers
[00:16:52.770]aren't equipped naturally to deal with, like in this case,
[00:16:55.510]there was some evidence of perhaps a starting
[00:16:59.610]of an eating disorder.
[00:17:01.470]So we wanna first kind of take a look at what's going on
[00:17:05.990]on campuses, who's in college.
[00:17:08.160]So we know from the latest survey
[00:17:10.170]about 16 million individuals are in college.
[00:17:13.860]And when you think about this,
[00:17:15.355]we wanted to highlight some of the,
[00:17:17.400]like who are these people?
[00:17:19.213]You see them, but what's their kind of background?
[00:17:22.590]So the average age is probably not surprising, 18 to 24,
[00:17:26.417]many people coming right outta high school
[00:17:28.740]or maybe taking a gap year or two and then entering college.
[00:17:31.136]So that's the average age.
[00:17:33.360]But we know that there's a range too.
[00:17:35.730]We have returning students or older students in college,
[00:17:40.920]about 25%.
[00:17:42.450]So a quarter of the students are not eating enough
[00:17:45.930]because they don't have enough money for food.
[00:17:47.580]They've run outta swipes, they can't buy any more food.
[00:17:50.273]And somebody mentioned food pantries and things like that.
[00:17:54.270]But we all know that if you're not eating well, or enough
[00:17:59.760]that can also interfere with your studies.
[00:18:01.740]You don't have the energy, you don't have the concentration.
[00:18:04.110]So that was kind of shocking to us
[00:18:06.330]that a quarter of students do that,
[00:18:08.190]about 40% of students are also working,
[00:18:10.714]whether it's just a couple hours a week,
[00:18:13.094]on a work study or in a lab or in Chipotle or whatever.
[00:18:20.190]They're working also.
[00:18:21.420]So they're managing the stress of a job,
[00:18:24.593]and all that that goes with as well as their academics.
[00:18:29.220]About 63% are enrolled full-time.
[00:18:31.740]So not every student is,
[00:18:33.035]there are students for financial and other reasons,
[00:18:36.060]maybe family obligations that can't commit
[00:18:38.130]to full-time studies.
[00:18:39.595]About a third of students nationally
[00:18:43.035]are first generation students, and that,
[00:18:46.075]as many of you probably know,
[00:18:49.260]has some of its own challenges.
[00:18:50.934]I myself was a first generation college student.
[00:18:54.420]I didn't have any guidance from my parents.
[00:18:56.460]I didn't have any help writing essays.
[00:18:58.235]I didn't have anybody to talk to about what was going on.
[00:19:01.470]They couldn't relate to that.
[00:19:03.150]So, there are unique struggles that come
[00:19:05.940]with first generation
[00:19:07.410]and sometimes as we'll talk about later,
[00:19:08.993]that can be tied into some of the cultural values
[00:19:12.720]around seeking help or admitting that you need help
[00:19:15.780]or talking about family problems.
[00:19:17.453]In some cultures, I'm not gonna talk
[00:19:20.400]about what's going on at home.
[00:19:21.574]We don't talk about these private issues.
[00:19:24.150]We don't air our dirty laundry, so to speak.
[00:19:26.820]So that can be tied up with some first generation students.
[00:19:30.833]Our University of Florida International University
[00:19:34.230]is a Hispanic serving institution.
[00:19:36.060]We have over 73% of our students are Hispanic,
[00:19:38.950]either locally, whether first or second generation,
[00:19:43.733]or we have a lot of international students as well.
[00:19:46.230]So we deal with a lot of issues related
[00:19:50.113]to the various Hispanic cultures on our campus.
[00:19:53.490]And then about 60% of students don't spend any time partying
[00:19:59.130]in a typical week.
[00:20:00.390]And this was kind of shocking for us too,
[00:20:02.640]because everybody has the image of,
[00:20:05.175]I remember reading a book a couple years ago
[00:20:07.380]called "Paying for the Party".
[00:20:09.390]That for many students going to college is just about that.
[00:20:12.273]But there's a good portion of students that aren't involved
[00:20:17.310]in that, aren't out drinking every week, aren't using drugs.
[00:20:21.300]And when there can be a climate like that on campus
[00:20:25.020]and they're not part of it, that can cause
[00:20:27.772]some conflict too, feeling left out of that
[00:20:30.913]or feeling like there's no one for me to hang out with,
[00:20:34.590]everyone else is drinking or partying.
[00:20:36.054]I sometimes hear that from students,
[00:20:38.993]well, I went to that, but everyone was drunk
[00:20:41.670]or I don't wanna hang out with them.
[00:20:43.697]So that can sometimes contribute,
[00:20:45.810]but I always try to tell them that there's other people
[00:20:48.810]like you, as we know from this, not everyone is partying.
[00:20:55.560]We wanted to review, I'm sure you're familiar
[00:20:59.040]with the American College Health Association,
[00:21:01.440]the National College Health Assessment,
[00:21:04.290]that's done every quarter, every semester.
[00:21:07.453]And they survey close to 70,000 students from 129 schools.
[00:21:15.030]They include big schools, small schools,
[00:21:16.744]all types of schools.
[00:21:18.300]So it's a nice kind of cross section of student life.
[00:21:21.911]And I just wanted to kind of highlight this
[00:21:24.630]from that last report over the past 30 days, have you felt,
[00:21:29.751]it's probably not surprising that 94% of students
[00:21:33.930]felt nervous.
[00:21:35.949]At some point they might feel nervous about a presentation
[00:21:37.889]or what a grade or somebody that they like,
[00:21:42.493]and encountering that individual.
[00:21:45.229]They may be nervous in general about college life,
[00:21:48.330]but what is sort of shocking to me is that
[00:21:51.390]more than half are feeling hopeless.
[00:21:53.890]And when I think of the word hopeless, it means like,
[00:21:56.970]I feel like things aren't gonna get better.
[00:21:59.430]I feel like this is a situation that isn't gonna change.
[00:22:02.206]Another indicator so sad that nothing cheers them up.
[00:22:07.010]We all have highs and lows and we'll talk a little bit
[00:22:10.560]about that, people can go through kind of moods
[00:22:13.380]where things aren't going well
[00:22:15.068]and it feels like you got the weight of the world on you,
[00:22:18.990]but typically people are able to engage in a social activity
[00:22:22.468]or something that they like,
[00:22:24.360]and that's enough to kind of cheer them up.
[00:22:26.550]But what we're seeing here is that about 60% are saying,
[00:22:28.871]doesn't matter I'm staying in this kind of rut
[00:22:32.820]and then half are saying I feel worthless.
[00:22:35.789]And what's interesting about this is that these are students
[00:22:38.820]who, as we know, may have gotten into their dream college,
[00:22:42.127]the place that they wanna go,
[00:22:44.130]they're pursuing the studies that they wanna do.
[00:22:47.591]They're involved in activities and they're still feeling
[00:22:50.970]really, kind of lousy about themselves.
[00:22:53.890]So, the fact that half of the kids in the survey
[00:22:57.570]are feeling that way is kind of concerning
[00:23:00.150]from a mental health perspective.
[00:23:04.830]Again question in the room, just let us know.
[00:23:07.800]Signal with the microphone or something.
[00:23:10.830]Yeah.
[00:23:11.991]Yeah and what I wanna add too about this,
[00:23:13.380]which I always find this surprising
[00:23:16.620]and why we keep doing the work too,
[00:23:18.720]is these numbers are going up, they're not going down.
[00:23:21.480]So hen we talk about, like in our book,
[00:23:24.240]or when I talk in my presentations or my class
[00:23:26.025]is that I always like to do a look back,
[00:23:28.410]like, what is this compared to the 2012 or the 2018,
[00:23:32.400]and you wanna see that those numbers are going down,
[00:23:34.560]but they're going up.
[00:23:35.640]So, some people always ask, well,
[00:23:37.620]is that because we know more?
[00:23:39.533]You know, or is it just that, are we reporting more?
[00:23:41.820]There's really no answer to that question.
[00:23:43.373]I don't know, yes, it could be somewhat
[00:23:45.389]that it's because we know more, students are reporting more.
[00:23:51.066]So yes, maybe, maybe it's because of that,
[00:23:54.510]but we don't know.
[00:23:55.860]But the reality is the numbers are going up,
[00:23:58.020]they're not going down.
[00:23:59.310]So it was a significant uptick on some of these surveys,
[00:24:02.280]especially from like the 2012 and then from 2018.
[00:24:05.100]So I think there is,
[00:24:09.511]there are positive things that are going on,
[00:24:11.970]and we'll talk about that too.
[00:24:13.500]I think we are making some strides.
[00:24:15.149]The numbers aren't necessarily showing that,
[00:24:17.490]but I think anecdotally, in talking to people,
[00:24:20.880]in celebrities, being out there and like the discussions,
[00:24:23.730]I do think that's happening,
[00:24:25.410]but the reports aren't really showing
[00:24:28.813]that we're going down yet.
[00:24:29.646]I'm hoping, I mean, I wouldn't be doing this work
[00:24:31.469]if I didn't have the hope,
[00:24:33.000]that we were gonna be making some strides,
[00:24:35.145]but the numbers still aren't going the other way yet.
[00:24:39.293]So we're all hoping to move that needle the other way.
[00:24:42.420]But those numbers are, just to put them in context,
[00:24:44.700]they're still increasing,
[00:24:46.653]which is, I think you all probably would agree,
[00:24:47.760]given the work that you do in counseling centers
[00:24:50.040]and with your clinical background,
[00:24:51.780]we are still seeing an uptick,
[00:24:54.300]which in some ways I think isn't necessarily a bad thing
[00:24:57.373]because the more that we do,
[00:24:59.160]and the more where that out there,
[00:24:59.993]you're getting more people to come and more people
[00:25:01.950]to disclose.
[00:25:03.240]But those are the numbers that we're working with,
[00:25:05.549]and they're still very high and campuses
[00:25:06.810]need to be responding.
[00:25:08.551]You know, I just, in my, I'm teaching the summer course,
[00:25:11.004]the counseling course, and I have my students please,
[00:25:14.691]in our discussion board, one of them
[00:25:16.290]is please find an article and posted
[00:25:18.450]to the discussion board.
[00:25:20.160]And there's tons of articles still out there,
[00:25:22.140]and a lot of them continue to be,
[00:25:24.269]colleges need to respond to increased demand.
[00:25:26.690]Like those articles aren't going away.
[00:25:29.010]So just for food for thought, as we look at these numbers.
[00:25:34.691]Right and I think what this does
[00:25:37.453]is kind of combats the myth that college is one big party.
[00:25:43.080]You know, it's the greatest time of your life,
[00:25:46.367]for many people it is,
[00:25:47.970]but for many students we're seeing it's not,
[00:25:49.949]it's not just a carefree time.
[00:25:54.690]Right.
[00:25:57.990]Are they getting mental health services?
[00:26:00.000]So 80% of students in this survey, the same survey,
[00:26:02.584]said they would seek help from a mental health professional.
[00:26:04.850]And I underline the word would because I think
[00:26:07.831]there's a big difference in saying you would and you do,
[00:26:11.533]so it's like, would I do something?
[00:26:14.970]Yeah.
[00:26:16.050]But if the opportunity arises,
[00:26:17.053]I don't necessarily always do that.
[00:26:19.830]So I think this is kind of like a little bit misleading,
[00:26:22.429]yeah, I might do that, but I have kids in college myself.
[00:26:29.010]My son was feeling a little down this summer and he said,
[00:26:33.540]I think I'd like to talk to somebody.
[00:26:35.250]So I said, okay, here's our insurance.
[00:26:37.680]Here's what you need to do.
[00:26:38.700]You know, call these people, whatever.
[00:26:40.530]Well, it's three weeks later,
[00:26:41.760]he hasn't made a single phone call.
[00:26:43.800]So, you know, would he talk to somebody?
[00:26:46.260]Yeah.
[00:26:47.624]But has he done it?
[00:26:48.631]No.
[00:26:49.629]So.
[00:26:50.520]But about 36% report receiving mental health services
[00:26:54.420]in the last 12 months.
[00:26:55.613]And when we look a little closer at this,
[00:26:58.320]some students are already coming to campus
[00:27:00.151]with preexisting mental health issues, right?
[00:27:04.290]So it's not that the college experience is causing them,
[00:27:08.370]although in some cases that may be true,
[00:27:10.260]but it may exacerbate an existing issue
[00:27:12.573]that they had.
[00:27:14.850]We know that a lot of the kids that are in college,
[00:27:17.910]calling 'em kids, students are in college right now.
[00:27:19.855]Like all of us have gone through the COVID 19 pandemic,
[00:27:24.930]so that came with its own host of mental health issues
[00:27:29.010]for a lot of these students as well.
[00:27:30.946]And for some of them, when they started school,
[00:27:33.450]there weren't big orientations.
[00:27:37.490]There weren't big events.
[00:27:38.770]So that kind of contributed
[00:27:40.813]to some feelings of isolation too, in my opinion,
[00:27:43.692]I think you wanted to do this one, Rebekah.
[00:27:48.733]Yeah.
[00:27:49.860]So when we look at sort of the suicide situation,
[00:27:54.240]because that's what is often reported
[00:27:55.933]or the most in the media, and we talk about it,
[00:28:00.210]and obviously the most devastating to our campuses,
[00:28:02.690]this is some data.
[00:28:04.890]It's from 2006 'cause I don't know if they've done anymore,
[00:28:08.205]but I still, but it hasn't changed much from what I know,
[00:28:12.870]is that 46% never talked to anyone about their thoughts.
[00:28:15.780]And of those 67% first tell a friend or a peer,
[00:28:20.280]and then if you keep going down that sort of chain,
[00:28:23.400]when they talk to them, 52% find it helpful.
[00:28:26.280]And 58% were advised to see professional help.
[00:28:29.220]So this is really where I think it's important
[00:28:34.020]that we sort of, the focus of the work that we do,
[00:28:36.807]and what we try to talk nationally about
[00:28:39.017]and on our own campuses and with the people we work with,
[00:28:41.790]is that, 46% is a big number
[00:28:45.030]that they never tell anyone about their thoughts.
[00:28:47.790]So if we look at sort of that first statistic,
[00:28:49.980]that's a lot of what we're trying to work on
[00:28:51.960]is that we want to open this conversation
[00:28:55.980]and de-stigmatize these thoughts and sort of normalize
[00:28:59.090]this sort of suicidal thinking
[00:29:01.440]and the ideation and talking about it.
[00:29:04.653]Because once you start to talk about it,
[00:29:05.970]it takes some relief off and you can get someone
[00:29:08.190]towards some help and get someone towards
[00:29:10.471]moving the other way on the continuum versus down
[00:29:14.280]towards completion.
[00:29:15.870]So I think that that's the first thing
[00:29:18.780]is that we're trying to get that number to go down
[00:29:21.540]so that we get students or people talking about students
[00:29:24.540]in this case, talking about their thoughts
[00:29:26.580]so they can get that relief and get some help.
[00:29:29.373]And then the second one, of course, is hugely important
[00:29:32.550]because if you ask a room full of students,
[00:29:35.650]who are you gonna talk to about your thoughts?
[00:29:38.730]Very rarely are they gonna say,
[00:29:40.770]the first person I went to was my mental health counselor,
[00:29:42.690]or the first person I went to was a faculty or a staff.
[00:29:45.630]It's almost always gonna be a friend or a peer.
[00:29:49.029]And then if we think about that, it is not surprising
[00:29:53.040]to me at all that then if you break that number down
[00:29:55.530]even further, only half of those,
[00:29:57.300]so you're talking small, small, smaller numbers,
[00:29:59.340]find it helpful.
[00:30:00.173]Because if you go, when I started doing this work years ago,
[00:30:03.600]this is what I wrote my dissertation on
[00:30:06.985]when I was working at a school up in Massachusetts,
[00:30:08.040]was that if you go to your 18 year old,
[00:30:10.800]19 year old friend who has no training in this,
[00:30:14.640]no idea how to help or respond,
[00:30:16.560]it's not surprising that only half of the time
[00:30:18.660]do they find that helpful because these
[00:30:22.034]nobody knows what to do or how to help, they try.
[00:30:24.173]Our intentions are always good.
[00:30:26.109]I find myself writing this in journals a lot too.
[00:30:29.010]I should do journaling in my class
[00:30:31.050]when my students start to realize, wow,
[00:30:32.790]I'm starting to realize what I did
[00:30:34.050]probably wasn't very helpful.
[00:30:35.790]And I always write back to them,
[00:30:37.320]your intentions are good.
[00:30:38.534]That's not the issue.
[00:30:40.830]But you're learning that your intentions while good,
[00:30:44.310]you're right, probably weren't as effective
[00:30:46.020]as they could have been
[00:30:47.280]now that you're learning the importance of empathy,
[00:30:49.320]you're learning the importance
[00:30:52.189]of how to have this conversation, what to do, what to say,
[00:30:53.670]but you're in a counseling skills course,
[00:30:55.590]in a higher education program,
[00:30:57.300]if you put that out nationally, most people don't have that.
[00:31:02.666]So this is why I think the work that we're trying to do
[00:31:07.170]in training you and working with other people
[00:31:08.850]and putting our book out
[00:31:10.170]is how do we make that conversation better?
[00:31:13.110]How do we make that number go up instead
[00:31:15.480]of the 52% finding it helpful
[00:31:17.190]we can make that to 60, 70, 80, 90% higher
[00:31:20.189]so that the average person who gets talked to,
[00:31:24.900]the friend, the peer has some better, the RA,
[00:31:28.860]the hall director, the advisor,
[00:31:31.730]the person on the campus who is not trained clinically,
[00:31:35.940]that can be a better conversation.
[00:31:39.660]So I think this is really important data to look at
[00:31:42.780]so we understand who to help.
[00:31:45.309]And that's what sparked sort of the training
[00:31:47.453]that I originally worked on way up in Massachusetts was,
[00:31:49.431]okay, so let's meet people where they are.
[00:31:50.264]Let's train the friends and the peers.
[00:31:51.930]And that's what started our program.
[00:31:53.580]So one of the things we can talk about,
[00:31:55.500]or I'm happy to talk with you after or separately,
[00:31:58.110]is do you know what are some programs you could do
[00:32:00.600]on your campuses to train the people that students
[00:32:04.410]are going to, not just your faculty staff?
[00:32:07.200]Are you training your student leaders?
[00:32:08.910]Are you training people on your campuses
[00:32:10.969]in this type of work?
[00:32:12.240]There's something called, I think we have this later,
[00:32:14.190]but you could, we started a program
[00:32:16.260]called the Student Support Network
[00:32:17.520]that's now being implemented around the country.
[00:32:19.810]So there are lots of things you can be doing
[00:32:22.429]where you're training students, you're training leaders,
[00:32:25.989]you're training everybody in this type of response
[00:32:30.401]so that you can trickle that out around your campus
[00:32:33.240]so students know who to go to and the people
[00:32:35.370]that are being approached know what to do.
[00:32:38.610]So that number changes.
[00:32:40.740]So.
[00:32:41.573]And I think the thing to emphasize here,
[00:32:43.890]particularly with the issue of suicide,
[00:32:46.890]is that even in my counseling classes,
[00:32:49.620]even when I'm teaching students who are pursuing a degree
[00:32:52.620]in counseling, this is not an easy topic,
[00:32:55.010]when we role play it,
[00:32:57.060]they're like deer in a headlight,
[00:32:59.490]they don't know what to do and it's because
[00:33:01.996]of the fatality of it, you don't wanna say the wrong thing.
[00:33:04.446]There's a concern for people that
[00:33:07.020]if they say the wrong thing,
[00:33:08.790]the student that they're dealing with
[00:33:10.170]will now start, will really contemplate suicide more.
[00:33:14.550]So I think also helping people recognize
[00:33:16.951]this is a tough issue.
[00:33:18.589]When I role play with my students, I go, wow, you did great.
[00:33:22.800]And I say, it's not my first time,
[00:33:24.753]I've been doing this a long time and the skill comes
[00:33:27.444]with hearing this a lot and having a kind of toolbox
[00:33:31.931]of replies.
[00:33:34.290]But I think it's important to let people know
[00:33:36.210]it is a hard issue and you're gonna feel uncomfortable
[00:33:39.330]with it.
[00:33:40.733]We also wanted to review stress and anxiety.
[00:33:43.980]This is something that comes up a lot.
[00:33:46.589]Is what's sort of the difference between a student
[00:33:49.740]that's presenting with anxiety at a sort of clinical level,
[00:33:54.300]and not that we're here to kind of diagnose that
[00:33:56.700]versus stress.
[00:33:57.533]And we thought some of this was helpful that there are,
[00:34:00.168]as I mentioned, students coming to campus
[00:34:02.610]that have pre-existing conditions.
[00:34:05.550]And so on the left side of your screen with anxiety,
[00:34:08.670]things that you would be looking for
[00:34:11.667]that would require more help,
[00:34:13.070]whether it be the counseling center
[00:34:15.060]or a private practitioner.
[00:34:16.750]I know the college that one of my daughters goes to,
[00:34:21.347]she has some social anxiety.
[00:34:23.700]She went to the counseling center and they said,
[00:34:26.910]Matt, beyond what we can help you with,
[00:34:28.547]here's a list of outside providers.
[00:34:29.730]And I thought, wow, I'm glad I'm paying $90,000 at NYU
[00:34:35.546]for her to not get any counseling help, but, okay,
[00:34:37.726]so they were not gonna deal with it.
[00:34:38.610]They thought it was beyond their, what they could handle.
[00:34:41.907]And it's not that bad.
[00:34:45.982]So, social anxiety would be kids who
[00:34:49.183]really fearful of talking of other people.
[00:34:51.630]This isn't the person who's worried
[00:34:54.000]about making a presentation in class,
[00:34:55.890]although people with social anxiety,
[00:34:57.840]of course that would be a fear of theirs.
[00:35:00.328]But what do I say, I am saying the wrong thing.
[00:35:02.400]Can you look at this text before I send it?
[00:35:04.710]I don't wanna call there,
[00:35:05.820]I don't wanna ask the teacher for extra time.
[00:35:08.190]And all of those kinds of situations
[00:35:10.740]can then impact academics, right?
[00:35:13.860]You know, I was sick, I missed the class,
[00:35:15.960]but I don't wanna go up and talk to the professor.
[00:35:17.790]I'm afraid of what they're gonna say, being very fearful,
[00:35:21.570]afraid of evaluation by others,
[00:35:23.267]afraid that they're saying the wrong thing.
[00:35:26.460]And then these kids too, I was working with a kid
[00:35:30.060]with social anxiety, so she decided
[00:35:31.830]to take all her classes online at a large state university.
[00:35:36.090]Well, is that a solution?
[00:35:38.460]Because now she's only feeling more isolated
[00:35:41.768]and not sitting with anybody in class
[00:35:43.587]and not leaving her room.
[00:35:45.507]So you wanna be on the lookout for that.
[00:35:47.670]Those kinds of signs would be somebody
[00:35:49.740]who maybe needs more intense help.
[00:35:52.110]Generalized anxiety is when the student has anxiety
[00:35:55.080]about everything, right?
[00:35:56.520]It's not just limited to one thing.
[00:35:59.370]With the social anxiety, it's kind of fear
[00:36:01.440]of a negative evaluation by others.
[00:36:04.500]But with generalized anxiety, what we see is,
[00:36:06.910]they're worried about their grades,
[00:36:08.400]they're worried about where they park their car,
[00:36:09.840]they're worried about what time
[00:36:11.503]they're gonna get outta class.
[00:36:12.946]They're worried about if they put their laundry in their,
[00:36:14.866]it's a worry about everything
[00:36:16.170]and kind of an excessive worry.
[00:36:19.260]And with anxiety sometimes too,
[00:36:21.210]we see there's this constant feeling of anxiety,
[00:36:24.420]even if there's no immediate threat,
[00:36:26.460]so it's not that I turn to my paper in late
[00:36:28.680]and I'm worried that the professor isn't gonna grade it.
[00:36:31.390]There's a kind of anxiety that's there all the time
[00:36:34.681]about everything.
[00:36:36.600]So we put some signs there in the image
[00:36:40.230]that would kind of help you know that this is more severe.
[00:36:44.160]Whereas we expect students to have stress,
[00:36:46.950]being overwhelmed with, I've got this deadline,
[00:36:49.200]I've got this midterm, I've got this assignment.
[00:36:52.770]I can't get in touch with my group partners
[00:36:55.860]to finish up our presentation.
[00:36:57.960]Students also have worry about finding a job,
[00:37:00.749]I'm studying all this, now what do I do?
[00:37:04.350]I was talking to my daughter yesterday and she said,
[00:37:07.140]I'm getting together with my friend who graduated.
[00:37:10.140]And I said, oh, where's she working?
[00:37:11.520]And she said, she's not,
[00:37:12.900]she got an undergraduate degree in philosophy.
[00:37:15.128]And I went, okay, well, yeah, that's gonna be a little bit
[00:37:18.940]of a, might be a little bit of time before she finds a job,
[00:37:22.950]I don't know how in demand philosophers are right now.
[00:37:27.810]The stress over competing for grades,
[00:37:30.060]I need to get this grade, particularly for students
[00:37:32.640]that are applying to graduate school,
[00:37:34.500]they have their sites set on other degrees are worried
[00:37:40.050]about every class they take, am I doing well enough?
[00:37:43.216]Is my GPA gonna be high enough?
[00:37:45.750]So those kinds of stress we expect.
[00:37:48.090]And then financial concerns as we talked about,
[00:37:50.790]many students have to work while they're in college.
[00:37:53.010]Maybe they're living at home and commuting to save money.
[00:37:56.010]So there are those kinds of stressors as well.
[00:37:58.560]If you look at the chart on the bottom right hand side,
[00:38:01.827]what we know is that a little bit of stress is good,
[00:38:05.250]it usually motivates most of us,
[00:38:06.987]you know you have that final exam next week,
[00:38:10.380]so you start studying a little bit more,
[00:38:12.480]you need that deadline to kind of keep moving,
[00:38:15.540]but too much stress causes other problems,
[00:38:19.846]fatigue, exhaustion, and can weaken the immune system too,
[00:38:25.080]so that these students are getting sick all the time.
[00:38:27.180]So we like to see a I don't know what the average level
[00:38:32.160]of stress is, but some stress is good.
[00:38:33.984]Oh, I'm worried about this, this,
[00:38:35.280]I wanna get that internship, I gotta get my application in.
[00:38:38.130]But we don't wanna see too much stress that's debilitating.
[00:38:43.530]Substance abuse, as I had mentioned before
[00:38:45.726]many students are using substances on campus,
[00:38:49.890]although not all.
[00:38:51.450]When they come to school, this is from the same college
[00:38:54.147]of student health assessment, 73% are saying,
[00:38:58.650]I've used alcohol at some point in my life.
[00:39:01.020]But that could be drinking at a party in high school
[00:39:03.810]after a football game.
[00:39:05.310]But 40% are using it weekly in college,
[00:39:08.160]so we know that there is a group that are regular consumers
[00:39:11.640]of alcohol and about 12% of those said a friend
[00:39:14.295]expressed concern about their use.
[00:39:17.760]So you figure it's gotta be pretty bad if your friend
[00:39:20.430]is saying, hey, you need to slow down,
[00:39:23.430]this is a peer that's commenting on their use.
[00:39:26.760]And then 40% had between three and six drinks in an outing.
[00:39:30.570]So that could be in a couple hours,
[00:39:33.510]which we know how much time you need to metabolize alcohol.
[00:39:37.590]So we can kind of make an assumption that they're probably
[00:39:40.320]inebriated or intoxicated.
[00:39:42.270]And then 12% are experiencing blackouts,
[00:39:45.000]which of course would be excessive alcohol use.
[00:39:49.050]About 40% use cannabis.
[00:39:51.090]That seems to be, alcohol and cannabis seem
[00:39:54.880]to be the two most popular drugs.
[00:39:56.250]And of course this is aided now by some states.
[00:39:59.910]I don't know Nebraska's law,
[00:40:01.819]whether or not cannabis use is legal
[00:40:04.560]for recreational purposes,
[00:40:07.200]so my son is at school in Massachusetts
[00:40:10.620]and he said it's legal,
[00:40:12.459]but I think you have to be 21 or something.
[00:40:13.830]So, but obviously there are kids in college that are 21
[00:40:17.136]that are getting access to it
[00:40:19.260]or are able to go to dispensaries.
[00:40:21.810]The other drugs, at least what the research is showing
[00:40:25.320]are used much less.
[00:40:26.640]So that's, I guess some kind of good news,
[00:40:29.190]is that other drugs like inhalants, cocaine, opioids,
[00:40:33.630]things like that is really a much smaller percentage
[00:40:36.840]of students are using that.
[00:40:38.358]So the focus really seems to be on alcohol and cannabis
[00:40:42.330]and about 10% report that yeah, their substance use
[00:40:45.390]interferes with their responsibilities.
[00:40:47.557]They're missing class, they're not turning in assignments,
[00:40:50.736]they're not focused and so forth.
[00:40:55.320]We also know that there's violence in college relationships.
[00:40:59.940]I put up the book "Know My Name"
[00:41:03.390]if your interest in this, my area of research
[00:41:05.670]is sexual abuse and sexual violence.
[00:41:08.670]So I was very interested in that Stanford rape case,
[00:41:12.660]and Chanel Miller did a, an amazing job in this book
[00:41:16.380]of really documenting her journey through the legal system
[00:41:21.876]and the academics and so forth.
[00:41:24.720]So issues like that
[00:41:26.820]are gonna really impede students' development on campus,
[00:41:30.450]when we know when we have campus sexual assaults
[00:41:33.215]that the students that are victims
[00:41:35.640]are impacted by that trauma.
[00:41:37.554]So about 3% experience physical violence
[00:41:42.300]in their relationship, interpersonal violence,
[00:41:44.697]2% have been forced into sexual contact
[00:41:48.910]and or 3% have it pressured into it,
[00:41:52.740]and then 4% are victims of stalking.
[00:41:54.990]So you could look at these numbers,
[00:41:57.360]and say, well, 2%, 3%, that's not that bad
[00:42:00.660]on a big college campus, but I'm always reminded
[00:42:03.480]of what my friend the epidemiologist says,
[00:42:06.153]2% small until you're in that 2% right?
[00:42:10.350]Then it's really, it is a significant amount of individuals
[00:42:15.090]and obviously any individual that's impacted by trauma
[00:42:18.137]is important to address.
[00:42:21.300]Rebekah, I think you got.
[00:42:24.570]So one of the things we always like
[00:42:27.177]to bring up and talk about, and certainly on your campus,
[00:42:31.260]your demographics are going to be different
[00:42:33.813]than where we are,
[00:42:34.950]but we still like to bring it up
[00:42:36.330]because it's an important discussion, is that
[00:42:39.840]you wanna look at the diversity of your campus
[00:42:42.335]and who you're working with, who's on your campuses,
[00:42:46.980]because there's certainly gonna be some diversity,
[00:42:49.800]and it may depend, is that our campuses are changing
[00:42:56.430]no matter where you are.
[00:42:57.300]And that's gonna be important as we deal with these issues.
[00:43:01.020]And I think as we present, it would be irresponsible
[00:43:04.110]of us not to talk about this and not
[00:43:05.970]to bring up these issues because we have to be having
[00:43:08.760]a more cultural and diverse lens as we address issues.
[00:43:12.473]So if you look here, you can read it,
[00:43:14.730]I don't really need to go over it,
[00:43:17.017]but you can see that we are certainly changing
[00:43:19.800]as we look on our campuses of who's enrolling.
[00:43:23.636]So if you look at, what the statistics were,
[00:43:27.180]you can see what we're looking at on our campuses
[00:43:30.090]based on the NCES statistics
[00:43:33.360]and how much they're going up since 2000.
[00:43:37.567]And that, if you look at their trajectories,
[00:43:40.350]that's not changing, that's not not going anywhere.
[00:43:43.633]So if you can go to the next slide,
[00:43:47.135]if you don't mind, Maureen.
[00:43:48.390]So I think that what's important is that,
[00:43:51.720]and Maureen talked about this a little bit earlier
[00:43:54.296]in our introduction, is that oftentimes you have
[00:43:58.020]to think about how this plays into the culture
[00:44:01.620]when you're talking about addressing and talking
[00:44:03.780]with students about issues of mental health.
[00:44:06.390]And we can't go in thinking everybody
[00:44:08.220]addresses it the same way that,
[00:44:09.690]my certain culture or my ethnicity or my background
[00:44:12.014]might address it.
[00:44:13.316]Because, especially, I've been teaching this class now
[00:44:17.017]for a bunch of years, and this comes up a lot
[00:44:20.430]either in verbally and talking or in the journals
[00:44:23.130]that they're writing or just in conversation
[00:44:25.590]are some of the quotes that you see here.
[00:44:27.750]My people don't do counseling
[00:44:29.250]or my parents would never understand
[00:44:32.377]or counseling is seen as weak.
[00:44:35.615]We don't tell problems to strangers.
[00:44:38.310]So if you're looking at who's coming to your office
[00:44:43.476]or who's enrolled on your campuses,
[00:44:46.410]you have to think sort of strategically
[00:44:48.300]about what types of programs you're offering,
[00:44:50.640]how you're gonna meet your students,
[00:44:55.513]who's, if you have a lower, a less diverse campus.
[00:44:57.930]What about those students who are there, who are diverse?
[00:45:00.420]How are they engaging in what you're offering?
[00:45:04.650]Or how are they maybe gonna seek help
[00:45:07.290]if they maybe don't feel so connected to what's happening
[00:45:10.020]on your campuses or to your counseling center
[00:45:11.850]or who's in your counseling center
[00:45:13.737]and how are they going to do that?
[00:45:16.020]So, I know I was talking to our director of counseling
[00:45:19.290]and he was trying to make some good efforts
[00:45:22.697]to have a diverse bunch of counselors doing some programming
[00:45:26.233]that was more engaging for our population.
[00:45:31.763]So I think that's really important
[00:45:34.260]and trying to help students go work through that
[00:45:37.110]and understanding that and being sensitive
[00:45:39.060]to what they might be struggling with
[00:45:41.577]and what they grew up with,
[00:45:43.140]and maybe getting them to understand and work through
[00:45:45.570]some of those situations for in their home life
[00:45:48.217]and how that might be.
[00:45:50.910]And not just saying, being insensitive to that
[00:45:54.030]and just saying, oh, well that doesn't make sense,
[00:45:56.790]or it's fine, or just go to counseling
[00:45:59.054]because that's probably gonna be on top
[00:46:01.230]of what they're dealing with
[00:46:02.730]with their mental health issues.
[00:46:03.870]They also have all these messages that they've been given
[00:46:06.210]their whole lives or even currently
[00:46:07.833]that they're being given.
[00:46:09.480]That's another barrier for them for help seeking.
[00:46:12.510]So on top of what they're dealing with,
[00:46:14.070]it's actually an entire chapter in our book is sort of
[00:46:16.920]working with students and the diverse culture
[00:46:20.880]that they come from and how to help support those students.
[00:46:24.180]So, you said if you look at Latin American, LatinX students,
[00:46:28.350]African American students, it's more stigmatizing for them
[00:46:31.260]and they are already less likely to seek treatment.
[00:46:34.230]So again, pulling it out of your toolbox and that empathy
[00:46:38.010]and listening to them and understanding
[00:46:40.230]and just helping them through that, through those,
[00:46:44.592]that process and understanding and trying
[00:46:46.996]to give them the help they need
[00:46:47.829]is gonna be really important.
[00:46:49.020]And being sensitive to that and looking, like I said,
[00:46:51.900]it's sort of like what programs do you offer?
[00:46:54.300]How do you engage with students?
[00:46:56.490]What language are you using?
[00:46:58.560]And trying to help move them along to get some help seeking,
[00:47:02.820]understanding the pressures that they're facing,
[00:47:05.520]LGBTQ students, all the students
[00:47:07.980]that are facing additional pressures and stigmatizing
[00:47:11.476]that other students may not.
[00:47:14.610]So that's something we have to pay attention to
[00:47:16.440]and be aware of.
[00:47:17.970]Yeah, one of the things that I recommend with this,
[00:47:20.640]'cause I have done a lot of work with professional athletes,
[00:47:23.730]NFL players, and if you wanna find a group
[00:47:25.710]that doesn't wanna go get counseling, you can look there
[00:47:29.550]and what I would try to do with them is make it akin to
[00:47:33.870]if you need extra help, you go for tutoring, right?
[00:47:36.510]If you need someone to do an oil change,
[00:47:39.240]you bring your car into a,
[00:47:41.190]and making it akin to recognizing that your mind,
[00:47:44.880]your brain, your feelings also need a tuneup
[00:47:48.360]also need a professional.
[00:47:50.130]And we don't have, we often don't hesitate
[00:47:53.340]to bring something, you drop your phone,
[00:47:56.460]you wanna get the screen repaired, you bring it
[00:47:59.316]to the Geek Squad or whatever and trying
[00:48:01.800]to help them see that.
[00:48:02.820]The other important point I try to make is the issues
[00:48:06.210]of confidentiality in counseling, because when students
[00:48:09.810]are coming in with feelings about,
[00:48:11.220]we don't talk about this outside my family,
[00:48:13.080]what if somebody found out,
[00:48:15.240]I emphasize the confidential nature of counseling
[00:48:18.300]and let them know that nobody will find out,
[00:48:22.617]nobody will know if they're in counseling,
[00:48:25.050]that that's something that is between them
[00:48:27.027]and the counselor.
[00:48:28.440]And I kind of outline obviously the limits
[00:48:30.540]of confidentiality, but that this isn't something
[00:48:33.300]that's gonna appear in their campus newspaper,
[00:48:36.116]that they can do this discreetly and quietly.
[00:48:39.433]One of my kids who's in college, the counseling center
[00:48:42.570]doesn't see people in person.
[00:48:44.400]They only do it virtually.
[00:48:46.200]So I mean, you wouldn't even be seen walking
[00:48:48.240]into the counseling center, you'd be on your laptop
[00:48:51.630]and it would look like you're having a FaceTime call
[00:48:54.540]with a friend.
[00:48:55.373]So important things to help kind of combat those stigmas
[00:49:00.750]and get people to the help that they need.
[00:49:06.720]So again, we sort of talked about this already,
[00:49:09.450]but just a couple more points of things is just
[00:49:12.390]understanding sort of the origin
[00:49:14.370]of how students approach things
[00:49:16.590]and having this cultural religious teachings
[00:49:20.511]and how those may differ depending on the students.
[00:49:22.090]So those are good questions to often ask,
[00:49:23.370]with those open-ended questions that you ask
[00:49:25.407]for yourself, for your staff or this,
[00:49:27.510]for your team is reminding 'em of this,
[00:49:30.450]and those are good questions to ask.
[00:49:31.713]Tell me about your upbringing.
[00:49:33.270]What's it like in your home?
[00:49:34.770]What's your background?
[00:49:35.790]What were some of the attitudes that you were taught
[00:49:39.787]and getting them to have this conversation,
[00:49:42.600]like this first bullet point is having a sense
[00:49:45.450]of purpose and intention when you're dealing with this
[00:49:47.640]and that, I think sometimes we don't think about that
[00:49:51.247]and that I know for me that was a big sort of shift
[00:49:54.810]as, especially when I came to work at an HSI,
[00:49:57.349]I had to sort of really be intentional
[00:50:01.050]in those conversations with some of my students
[00:50:03.150]and really listening,
[00:50:05.585]we work with a lot of Haitian students,
[00:50:07.131]we work with a lot of, so kind of listening
[00:50:09.300]to sort of their stories and their backgrounds
[00:50:12.111]and asking questions.
[00:50:13.210]And I think this is another place
[00:50:15.742]where we talked about before that with suicide
[00:50:18.330]that oftentimes we have sort of a fear of asking questions
[00:50:23.040]or being intrusive or I don't wanna offend a student.
[00:50:26.880]And I can tell you, and I tell my students all the time
[00:50:29.937]and my staff when I used to be a director
[00:50:32.130]of residence life actually, so I had staff
[00:50:35.040]that worked for me.
[00:50:36.127]And I would always tell students,
[00:50:38.031]and this is something my parents taught me,
[00:50:39.090]and I'm sure you've heard this expression,
[00:50:40.200]it's not always what you say, it's how you say it.
[00:50:42.250]And that you have to develop your own sense of your style
[00:50:47.250]and your rhythm and the way that you're going to do things.
[00:50:50.100]But almost every time that I've worked with students
[00:50:54.027]and that I've approached students,
[00:50:56.160]when students see that you genuinely care about them
[00:50:59.370]and you're asking with a good purpose,
[00:51:02.400]they really will never be offended or upset
[00:51:05.610]because they know you're coming from a good place.
[00:51:07.350]Even if you ask sort of a question that's clunky
[00:51:09.870]or maybe could be taken as offensive,
[00:51:12.709]if they see that you are coming from a good place
[00:51:15.480]because you care about them,
[00:51:16.530]they think they forgive a lot of things.
[00:51:19.850]So when I was training students, when I was training staff,
[00:51:22.530]that was always my advice was when you're dealing
[00:51:25.830]with a subject that might feel uncomfortable to you,
[00:51:28.320]like issues of diversity or race or suicide
[00:51:34.080]or things that you, sexual assault, things
[00:51:36.120]that you're like not as comfortable.
[00:51:38.207]And this goes definitely into this area of sort of,
[00:51:40.080]I mean I'll full disclosure, I'm a white Jewish woman,
[00:51:43.669]so when I'm dealing with some of these issues
[00:51:46.080]that I can't pretend to understand,
[00:51:48.840]but I have a genuine curiosity about and I want to know,
[00:51:52.200]I always come out with and say like,
[00:51:54.000]I might, I'm sorry if I don't wanna ask a question
[00:51:56.940]that is uncomfortable, but I'm genuinely curious
[00:51:59.850]and I've developed a good relationships with my students.
[00:52:02.730]They're really willing to talk and forgive
[00:52:05.730]any sort of blunder that I might make.
[00:52:08.250]So, and I haven't always said the right thing
[00:52:11.270]in my 20 plus, 30 plus years of working in this area.
[00:52:15.327]I can think of times where I probably
[00:52:17.190]have said something that wasn't so great,
[00:52:19.200]but it came from a good place.
[00:52:21.570]So I think my advice is always
[00:52:24.420]telling my staff and my students and saying
[00:52:26.310]for you all on your campuses is having your,
[00:52:29.280]is building that relationship with students and coming
[00:52:31.620]from that genuine place of curiosity
[00:52:33.540]and wanting to understand, seeking to understand.
[00:52:36.570]And then I think that really can help.
[00:52:39.690]So that's the best thing that I think
[00:52:42.060]having that cultural lens and guiding your approach
[00:52:44.910]so that you can understand what a student is going through
[00:52:47.311]can be really helpful.
[00:52:49.530]So.
[00:52:50.527]Yeah, and I think just to add to that,
[00:52:52.911]I tell when I'm training counselors, and again,
[00:52:56.850]that's a different population.
[00:52:58.170]I say, think about when you go to a doctor's office
[00:53:01.920]for a medical visit, they ask you like 100 questions
[00:53:04.890]and you're like, that's not even what I'm here for.
[00:53:07.020]I rarely get offended, because I'm thinking like,
[00:53:09.600]well, there's something they know that I don't know,
[00:53:11.530]and if I don't have that issue, I just say, no,
[00:53:15.360]move on, next topic,
[00:53:17.160]that becomes particularly important with suicide,
[00:53:19.887]where we wanna be sort of direct about it.
[00:53:23.449]I tell my students, if you ask someone else about that,
[00:53:28.110]it's not as if you're putting an idea in their head,
[00:53:30.360]that's often the concern.
[00:53:31.440]Like, believe me, you didn't say
[00:53:33.600]have you had thoughts about hurting yourself?
[00:53:35.640]And then the person's like, no, I haven't,
[00:53:37.740]but I got some free time later today.
[00:53:39.930]That's not gonna happen.
[00:53:41.700]The thought is already there.
[00:53:43.590]And by you asking about it, you've opened up that line
[00:53:46.740]of communication where now something
[00:53:49.320]that they've been unable, as we saw in previous slides
[00:53:51.990]to talk about with other people, they can now feel,
[00:53:55.530]oh, okay, this is a place I can talk about this.
[00:53:58.380]Someone's asking me about it, finally.
[00:54:01.189]Again, that's, I know a much more complex issue,
[00:54:04.763]but I think you can ask questions
[00:54:07.260]that if they don't apply to the student,
[00:54:09.240]the students say no, that's not it at all.
[00:54:10.686]You know?
[00:54:15.510]Yeah.
[00:54:17.290]So then we sort of get to this point
[00:54:18.490]where I think when Maureen and I
[00:54:19.723]put these presentations together,
[00:54:21.344]we got to this sort of natural point where we were like,
[00:54:22.830]okay, now we're giving all this information.
[00:54:25.140]And people listening are gonna be like,
[00:54:26.310]well, now what do I do?
[00:54:27.870]Now I have all this information.
[00:54:29.430]Where do I go with this?
[00:54:30.527]So what I like to talk about here
[00:54:33.780]is sort of this understanding that when we observe
[00:54:37.590]sort of the human condition and we observe
[00:54:39.330]what our students are going through,
[00:54:41.247]what we ourselves might be going through
[00:54:42.080]our faculty, our staff, the people around us,
[00:54:44.640]it's sort of this acceptance and understanding
[00:54:46.380]that everybody struggles.
[00:54:48.210]So we all have issues.
[00:54:51.090]And I always say to students, I say to staff,
[00:54:54.149]anybody that I'm working with, we are not,
[00:54:56.406]this is not a situation where we're like,
[00:54:57.239]hey, look at Maureen and I,
[00:54:59.010]we're so, we have everything together.
[00:55:00.960]We're so perfect and we're teaching all of you
[00:55:02.629]or we are the directors of counseling,
[00:55:05.670]or we're the faculty and we have everything together.
[00:55:08.580]Let's go fix everybody else.
[00:55:10.440]No, we don't.
[00:55:11.670]We all struggle.
[00:55:12.600]We all have our moments, we all have these situations,
[00:55:16.320]and we all are continuing
[00:55:17.580]to try to figure this out together.
[00:55:19.380]And once we sort of accept that
[00:55:20.880]and everybody understands that,
[00:55:22.800]then we can go and help other people
[00:55:25.800]because they will be able to relate,
[00:55:27.780]they'll be able to understand, and they'll feel like, okay,
[00:55:30.000]we all are dealing with this together in different ways,
[00:55:33.327]but it's not an us them situation.
[00:55:35.700]Because once you create that barrier,
[00:55:39.151]nobody's gonna wanna talk to you.
[00:55:40.326]Nobody's gonna wanna have that conversation.
[00:55:41.190]I mean, if you look at sort of like it says right here,
[00:55:44.309]social media hasn't helped, for us or our students.
[00:55:45.960]I don't know about you all, but when I see people
[00:55:49.083]on social media that seem like everything is perfect
[00:55:50.460]all the time, that's not the person
[00:55:52.440]that I'm gonna get in touch with
[00:55:53.550]when my kid is driving me crazy or I'm having an issue
[00:55:55.749]with my husband, or work is nuts.
[00:55:57.750]Like, I'm not going to that friend.
[00:55:59.460]I'm going to the friend that's human and normal
[00:56:01.770]and talks about when their life is not so good either.
[00:56:04.511]So, I go to the friends that I know also struggle
[00:56:08.610]that also show when life isn't so perfect.
[00:56:11.640]So I think when we are able to show that to others,
[00:56:15.990]then they know that we are human
[00:56:17.370]and we are having trouble too, and we are willing
[00:56:20.220]to open ourselves up a little bit too.
[00:56:22.710]So I think showing some of your own vulnerability
[00:56:25.950]helps with that.
[00:56:27.090]So when we react differently to stress,
[00:56:29.370]so when we continue to sort of keep those struggles
[00:56:33.420]to ourselves, we sort of feel alone.
[00:56:34.920]We think everybody else has it all together.
[00:56:37.410]And then we continue to do that,
[00:56:39.480]and then we start to try to,
[00:56:42.030]the other that comes, the other sort of assumptions
[00:56:45.530]that we make here are that we wanna fix the problem.
[00:56:47.790]And that is often not helpful.
[00:56:49.350]Now, again, most of you in the room
[00:56:50.760]are sort of counselors and clinical backgrounds
[00:56:52.366]and you know this, but the people on your campuses,
[00:56:55.320]the people that hopefully you're gonna take some
[00:56:56.810]of this presentation back to that you wanna help,
[00:57:01.380]is that fixing doesn't really help.
[00:57:05.310]Most people that go into higher ed want to fix,
[00:57:07.590]we want to help.
[00:57:09.147]That's what we're doing.
[00:57:10.246]We are fixers by nature.
[00:57:11.079]But when it comes to these areas of sort of mental health
[00:57:14.010]and helping and students coming to us with problems,
[00:57:16.470]when we immediately go to try to fix
[00:57:18.120]or solve their problems, it's not helpful.
[00:57:20.090]And that's what I was talking about before.
[00:57:23.430]Those are good intentions.
[00:57:24.900]We want to help.
[00:57:25.830]We want to take away that pain.
[00:57:27.270]We wanna take away that struggle.
[00:57:28.590]We want to say it's okay, or let me fix that for you,
[00:57:31.560]or here's what you need to do.
[00:57:32.751]But we also know through research, through conversation,
[00:57:35.430]through everything, and this is a big message
[00:57:37.590]that we give out in our classes, in our presentations,
[00:57:40.410]is you wanna step that back first,
[00:57:42.389]and teaching the people in your communities
[00:57:45.600]to really pull that back is one of the biggest messages
[00:57:49.050]that we try to do in our presentations
[00:57:50.640]is it's not really going to be helpful.
[00:57:53.370]So that's something that we really wanna try to get
[00:57:55.487]and we try to get through our book
[00:57:56.970]and through our presentations, is that really being,
[00:57:59.430]using empathy is the most important thing to do first,
[00:58:02.307]so that people understand and that rather than
[00:58:05.580]letting people sit with their feelings, it's okay to be sad.
[00:58:08.340]It's okay to be upset that that is a really bad situation
[00:58:11.310]you're dealing with.
[00:58:12.270]I can understand where you're struggling
[00:58:14.070]and get to the fixing and the helping
[00:58:16.367]and the referring a little bit later
[00:58:17.550]and not jumping right away to referring.
[00:58:19.596]Right.
[00:58:20.640]And I just wanna emphasize the part
[00:58:22.560]about individual reactions to stress differ,
[00:58:25.320]what can be stressful for one student
[00:58:27.247]they didn't have chicken tenders at the dining hall today.
[00:58:30.540]What am I gonna to eat?
[00:58:31.410]What am I, everybody's coming with a different,
[00:58:36.090]I always say everybody has baggage,
[00:58:37.509]some have carry on, some have cargo,
[00:58:40.650]so we don't know what is that individual's breaking point.
[00:58:45.780]And I think it's sometimes easy to step into a kind of like,
[00:58:49.110]I can't believe they're upset about that.
[00:58:50.730]Or they're stressed out about that.
[00:58:52.911]We have to really, with empathy,
[00:58:55.440]put ourselves in their shoes, and walk their walk.
[00:58:58.320]So being careful not to be judgmental, I think.
[00:59:01.200]Because if a student feels that you're being judgmental,
[00:59:04.470]none of us, that's not where you're gonna go to for help.
[00:59:08.820]Right, and then a lot of times I think
[00:59:12.970]this is probably, this is you, I think,
[00:59:15.989]but I think that a lot of times too,
[00:59:17.829]when sometimes students come in
[00:59:18.949]and they bring up a certain problem, it's easy to say,
[00:59:20.040]I don't think that's really the problem.
[00:59:21.510]Like, there's something else going on here,
[00:59:23.250]so let's kind of listen and get to what's really the root
[00:59:26.367]of what's happening.
[00:59:28.020]That happens a lot with my kids.
[00:59:29.100]I know that they'll be upset
[00:59:30.510]about the most ridiculous thing,
[00:59:32.460]and then I'll think there's something more happening here.
[00:59:34.560]There's more stress of something.
[00:59:36.607]Like, just quick story.
[00:59:38.970]My daughter is in Israel for six weeks
[00:59:41.190]and her first couple of days there,
[00:59:42.510]she was called me and she was freaking out
[00:59:45.290]and upset about things that made no sense.
[00:59:46.410]And when I really thought about it,
[00:59:48.490]like she was adjusting to a whole new situation.
[00:59:50.370]She was missing home, she was missing us.
[00:59:52.050]It was all new.
[00:59:53.100]So it really wasn't about that thing she was fixating on.
[00:59:55.470]And when I just sort of got underneath,
[00:59:57.770]we realized that it was really bigger.
[01:00:00.030]It was really about her adjustment and really not
[01:00:02.160]about that one little thing she was fixating on,
[01:00:03.990]but it was easy to fixate on this thing rather
[01:00:07.140]than the bigger stuff that was really stressing her out.
[01:00:09.660]So sometimes you have to really just listen,
[01:00:12.060]which is kind of what we're talking about on this slide.
[01:00:14.640]Right and that's a great example of
[01:00:16.230]if you're rushing too quickly to fix that one issue,
[01:00:19.470]it's not really what the underlying issue is.
[01:00:22.500]This is, you're not a counselor,
[01:00:25.487]of course, many of you in the room told us you are.
[01:00:27.960]But we're talking in generalities here.
[01:00:30.630]And I have to say this to my counseling students too.
[01:00:34.170]Listen, before you leap,
[01:00:36.690]avoid trying to solve the problem right away.
[01:00:40.050]We'll be role playing in a counseling class
[01:00:42.660]and I'll usually make up the little scenarios
[01:00:45.167]and then within a minute they're like,
[01:00:48.210]so have you tried this, have you done that?
[01:00:50.160]Have you spoken to your,
[01:00:52.230]and I'm like, whoa, slow down hold the horses there.
[01:00:56.850]So we have to understand that the issues that the student
[01:01:02.700]may be experiencing have likely developed over time.
[01:01:06.126]It's not just the dining hall was closed,
[01:01:08.640]I didn't have anywhere to go to eat.
[01:01:09.960]Okay that's a quick fix.
[01:01:11.565]This is something that probably didn't happen overnight,
[01:01:15.727]it's also related to the coping skills they have,
[01:01:20.010]their past experience, whatever.
[01:01:21.450]So slow down, relax, attend to the story, listen.
[01:01:27.086]And that's the hardest thing is to not just,
[01:01:30.300]again, as Rebekah said, we all tend to be fixers.
[01:01:33.420]You know, I wanna help.
[01:01:34.470]I don't wanna see you in pain.
[01:01:36.270]I wanna solve it.
[01:01:38.100]And even being a licensed psychologist,
[01:01:40.680]when I'm talking to my kids, they'll say,
[01:01:42.780]I don't want you to fix it.
[01:01:44.130]I just want you to listen.
[01:01:45.720]And I'm like, that's a good lesson for me too,
[01:01:48.170]is just hearing the story out.
[01:01:50.820]And we can't fix every problem,
[01:01:52.444]we're gonna talk about that too.
[01:01:54.300]That you can't make promises like, oh, this'll get better.
[01:01:57.807]You know, you'll feel better.
[01:01:59.250]No, you may not feel better.
[01:02:00.540]You may feel crappy the whole year.
[01:02:02.760]They may end up transferring, they may end up dropping out.
[01:02:05.460]So we don't wanna have like false promises either.
[01:02:08.010]Let me fix this, this'll be all better.
[01:02:10.980]It's not that way for everyone.
[01:02:12.927]People's issues can go on quite a while.
[01:02:18.030]So know the basic signs of some
[01:02:20.660]of the things we were talking about,
[01:02:22.140]like the stress, the anxiety, depression,
[01:02:24.330]so that you know when and how to intervene.
[01:02:28.620]I think you were gonna do this, Rebekah.
[01:02:30.330]Yeah.
[01:02:31.410]Yeah.
[01:02:32.527]And I think, I mean, I'm not gonna go through these
[01:02:34.170]too much 'cause most of you are counselors,
[01:02:35.871]so I think you know most of this,
[01:02:37.231]but I think if you're taking some of this
[01:02:40.730]back to your campuses, I think just,
[01:02:41.790]and this is recording for people that may wanna
[01:02:44.040]look at it after.
[01:02:45.240]So I think just a lot of it is just
[01:02:47.850]you wanna know normal versus serious.
[01:02:50.280]So I would just say for the most part,
[01:02:52.230]what you're basically looking for is a lot of change,
[01:02:55.167]a lot of changes in patterns, mood swings,
[01:03:01.410]and when students are isolating,
[01:03:02.831]when students are giving up on things, long periods of time.
[01:03:07.950]So if they're sad or irritable,
[01:03:09.300]but it's just for a short period of time, that's one thing.
[01:03:11.400]But if it continues over longer periods of time,
[01:03:15.180]I think that's really important.
[01:03:16.909]If they're having trouble concentrating in class,
[01:03:19.390]not turning in work.
[01:03:21.960]So I think for me, a lot is just
[01:03:24.360]when I'm trying to teach faculty, staff, students,
[01:03:27.480]non-clinical, like a lot of you is just,
[01:03:30.410]when is it troubling, when is it concerning?
[01:03:33.810]When is it really impacting their lives?
[01:03:36.510]When is it a problem and when is it a change?
[01:03:40.069]If their pattern is to go to bed late and sleep late,
[01:03:44.191]and that's how they always are, that's not an issue.
[01:03:47.311]My kids are what I call in their vampire stage right now,
[01:03:51.390]and they go to sleep very late and they sleep very late.
[01:03:53.370]But that's what teenagers do.
[01:03:54.330]So it's not concerning to me.
[01:03:56.310]But if they never did that before,
[01:03:57.870]and then all of a sudden they're doing that,
[01:04:00.309]I would be like, hmm, this is not their normal.
[01:04:02.550]So you're looking for those changes in patterns,
[01:04:05.167]something that's a little bit different and things that,
[01:04:07.980]if you see things like excessive long periods,
[01:04:10.800]things that are not just,
[01:04:12.810]that are not, for a short period of time,
[01:04:16.080]those are things that you wanna be looking for.
[01:04:18.270]But I think most of you in the room know all of this,
[01:04:19.563]so I don't wanna spend too much time on that.
[01:04:21.867]But for anybody who might be looking at it later,
[01:04:23.940]these are the main things you wanna be looking for.
[01:04:26.203]Right so there's a difference between saying,
[01:04:28.607]I'm not going out this weekend to the parties
[01:04:31.440]because I gotta get this paper done,
[01:04:33.151]as opposed to, I'm not going out at all,
[01:04:36.187]I'm not going to the dining hall, I'm not doing anything.
[01:04:40.110]That sort of lack of engagement would be more concerning.
[01:04:43.980]So here we go.
[01:04:46.650]How to help.
[01:04:52.920]I think this is you, Rebekah.
[01:04:55.269]Yeah.
[01:04:56.431]So I'm not muted right now, okay.
[01:04:57.990]So this is what we were talking about before is that,
[01:05:00.900]you know, basically that the main thing is that,
[01:05:04.050]especially for you in the room that are counselors,
[01:05:06.150]by the time they come to you, you're doing a whole bunch
[01:05:08.400]of different stuff.
[01:05:09.233]You're really getting them into the clinical,
[01:05:10.800]you're getting them into the work, and that's wonderful.
[01:05:12.960]And that's the end goal
[01:05:14.671]is that we wanna get them to you, we want them doing that.
[01:05:16.805]But for the beforehand is that there is work
[01:05:20.207]that can be done.
[01:05:21.420]And we were at the NASPA conference,
[01:05:23.970]and I've heard this not just at the NASPA conference,
[01:05:26.220]but in other places that a lot of times,
[01:05:27.900]faculty, staff, RAs or county staff,
[01:05:30.780]but everyone's just going right to counseling
[01:05:34.500]and they're not really doing any work first.
[01:05:37.748]And there's so much that can be done
[01:05:39.480]before we just get to counseling.
[01:05:40.800]And that's what we're really trying to get back to
[01:05:43.924]where faculty, staff are really doing some work first.
[01:05:46.440]And this is sort of what this stage is about,
[01:05:49.110]is that really focusing on that empathy
[01:05:51.120]and not trying to fix problems that students really
[01:05:54.960]want you to get it and let them feel those feels
[01:05:57.465]and not try to minimize those.
[01:05:59.820]And it's okay to feel bad.
[01:06:02.610]And one of the videos that I show a lot of my classes
[01:06:06.540]from the "Inside Out" movie with Sadness
[01:06:09.780]and how Joy is always trying to tell her not to be sad.
[01:06:13.440]And Sad is sitting at one point, Sadness is sitting with,
[01:06:16.440]I think it's the elephant Bing Bong or whatever.
[01:06:18.480]And Sadness is really understanding
[01:06:21.060]that it's okay to be sad.
[01:06:22.965]And that's a really important feeling.
[01:06:25.020]And because Bing Bong, or whoever it is,
[01:06:28.080]does feel bad, and Sadness is like, it's sad.
[01:06:30.930]Like this is a sad situation.
[01:06:32.165]And it's so much better when you're feeling sad
[01:06:34.680]for somebody to say to you, wow, this is really sad.
[01:06:37.290]I'm sorry that you're feeling that way,
[01:06:38.430]versus don't feel sad because you do feel sad.
[01:06:40.723]Like, it doesn't help me if someone tells me not to feel sad
[01:06:43.200]because I feel sad.
[01:06:44.207]So I think getting people to understand that it's okay
[01:06:47.940]to feel that everybody wants to take that,
[01:06:49.590]those painful feelings away.
[01:06:51.090]We talked about that before.
[01:06:52.170]So I think getting down through this path,
[01:06:55.590]and getting them to their, go ahead, Maureen.
[01:06:57.690]No, I was gonna say there's,
[01:06:58.800]they say misery loves company,
[01:07:00.720]but the research has actually shown misery
[01:07:02.940]likes miserable company.
[01:07:04.207]Not that you want people bringing each other down,
[01:07:08.700]but as Rebekah said, I don't want, if I'm upset,
[01:07:11.100]I don't wanna talk to the person who's saying,
[01:07:12.477]oh, it's great.
[01:07:14.229]Life's wonderful, everything, what's wrong with you?
[01:07:15.540]I want somebody who says, yeah, this sucks.
[01:07:17.029]That's crappy.
[01:07:18.360]I can't believe that happened to you.
[01:07:22.005]I want them to emote with me and kind of join
[01:07:23.190]in my feelings, because then that feels supportive, right?
[01:07:26.245]The person who's saying to me, why do you feel that way?
[01:07:30.750]It's like, oh, I guess there's something wrong with me
[01:07:33.150]and I'm not gonna explore that much more.
[01:07:35.426]But the person's like, that's lousy.
[01:07:37.740]What, tell me more about that.
[01:07:38.940]Oh, what I, then I'm gonna feel more comfortable.
[01:07:41.790]So it's tough because again,
[01:07:44.310]we don't want these negative feelings,
[01:07:46.110]we wish everybody's life was rainbows and unicorns,
[01:07:49.980]but they're not, you know?
[01:07:51.120]No and then once you start, and so,
[01:07:53.430]and this is the other thing that always makes me laugh too,
[01:07:56.309]not laugh, but so, and I told you,
[01:07:57.946]I'm in the middle of my counseling class
[01:07:58.779]with my students right now.
[01:07:59.612]So they're writing stuff like, oh my gosh, I did it.
[01:08:02.970]I tried it.
[01:08:03.820]And then my student opened up so much to me,
[01:08:06.300]they think it's like this magical thing,
[01:08:08.730]but they're just using empathy.
[01:08:10.230]And they said, I tried it, I did it.
[01:08:11.479]You were right.
[01:08:12.750]And I'm like, I'm always right.
[01:08:14.010]Every semester this happens where students are,
[01:08:15.794]they think it's this like, magical thing
[01:08:18.150]that they're trying, and it's just empathy.
[01:08:20.190]And they're like, I had a conversation with a student
[01:08:22.230]and I tried the thing, I used the skills
[01:08:24.039]and they told me so much more.
[01:08:27.594]I sat back and I listened and I used the empathy.
[01:08:30.002]And I used some of the techniques that we talked about
[01:08:33.900]in some of the phrases
[01:08:34.920]'cause at first, until you really know how to do it,
[01:08:36.990]I think you do feel like you're just like reading a script,
[01:08:39.180]kind of.
[01:08:40.658]But once you develop it into the way you speak,
[01:08:43.260]it becomes really natural.
[01:08:44.580]And they're always so surprised that it worked.
[01:08:46.940]Oh my god, it worked.
[01:08:48.060]And I'm like, it does work.
[01:08:49.230]Because student, people feel like you understand them,
[01:08:52.320]and then they wanna tell you more.
[01:08:53.760]When you start closing that conversation.
[01:08:56.220]They're gonna close up too, because they're gonna say,
[01:08:57.840]this person doesn't understand what I'm saying.
[01:08:59.790]They don't understand my feelings.
[01:09:01.650]I'm gonna close up.
[01:09:02.580]So when you're helping your staff and your faculty,
[01:09:05.130]or whoever it is that you're trying to work with,
[01:09:07.380]getting them to really understand this,
[01:09:08.790]and it's gonna feel uncomfortable at first.
[01:09:10.320]Some people just don't know how to do this.
[01:09:12.641]And it is a skill, but encouraging them
[01:09:14.610]to understand that they can learn this,
[01:09:17.460]they can become comfortable with this,
[01:09:19.950]and they'll find that it works.
[01:09:21.270]And that it really leads
[01:09:22.700]to much more productive conversations,
[01:09:24.930]which sort of lead to this last bullet point,
[01:09:27.330]which is getting them to seek help.
[01:09:29.190]Which is really the end goal for some students
[01:09:31.420]is they're gonna get there when they do
[01:09:33.690]all these other pieces 'cause if you just start with,
[01:09:36.720]hey, you need to go to counseling, people are gonna be like,
[01:09:38.730]I just wanted to tell you how I'm feeling.
[01:09:41.303]You are not gonna get them there.
[01:09:43.290]And then you get to that seeking help
[01:09:45.150]and sort of de-stigmatize,
[01:09:46.470]and we talked about this before when Maureen
[01:09:48.120]talked about working with athletes,
[01:09:49.623]is saying that if you had a headache or you were sick
[01:09:52.379]or you broke your arm, you'd go to a doctor.
[01:09:55.050]And getting them to understand that this is the same idea.
[01:09:57.159]So these are just a couple hints that we try
[01:09:59.820]to give student, faculty, staff, whoever students,
[01:10:02.745]to get them to continue to open up that conversation
[01:10:06.060]and move people towards getting the help seeking
[01:10:08.730]that they need.
[01:10:12.381]I wanted to cover, and again,
[01:10:14.550]some of you have shared that you're proficient counselors,
[01:10:16.823]but for, again, for the person who doesn't have this,
[01:10:20.550]these are some of the basic skills we wanted
[01:10:23.278]to outline the attending behavior.
[01:10:25.020]And that's the listening, the body language,
[01:10:29.670]the focused on them, I don't wanna talk to somebody
[01:10:32.580]who's on their phone or not.
[01:10:34.343]I was trying to talk to my son last night and the whole time
[01:10:37.560]he was on his phone.
[01:10:38.393]And I said, okay, when you're ready to have a conversation,
[01:10:40.680]let me know.
[01:10:41.513]You know, it doesn't feel good, right?
[01:10:43.620]And I tell my counseling students, you know when somebody
[01:10:46.710]isn't attending to you, they're talking on the phone,
[01:10:49.943]they're looking at something else, they're distracted,
[01:10:51.740]or they give you very minimalistic responses.
[01:10:54.510]Like, oh, that's nice.
[01:10:55.860]Oh, that's good.
[01:10:57.042]But you know that they haven't really heard it,
[01:10:59.070]they haven't listened.
[01:11:00.360]So it's the verbal following,
[01:11:01.700]like, oh, what, comments like that.
[01:11:05.760]And then mostly just the body language,
[01:11:07.920]an open body language that's attentive, tuned in,
[01:11:12.030]focused on the individual in front of you.
[01:11:14.127]And that's a critical, that's the first point I want.
[01:11:17.970]The other one is listening,
[01:11:19.050]and we already kind of talked about this, but listening,
[01:11:21.282]before you leave,
[01:11:22.980]really slowing down and letting the person talk
[01:11:25.680]about what's going on.
[01:11:26.599]And it's more than hearing, it's not just hearing
[01:11:29.610]what they say.
[01:11:30.600]Sometimes with listening,
[01:11:32.160]you're repeating back some parts of it,
[01:11:34.230]or your facial expression changes
[01:11:36.300]as they tell you part of the story,
[01:11:38.160]'cause you've heard what they say.
[01:11:40.200]So now you have a concern face or a surprise face
[01:11:43.079]or things like that.
[01:11:45.360]Again, not being judgmental, but wanting to listen
[01:11:48.570]and show that listening to others.
[01:11:52.267]There was something else I wanted to say about this.
[01:11:57.992]Oh, we get into this in more advanced sessions,
[01:12:02.520]but I think it's important to touch on it here for a minute,
[01:12:05.550]is like self-disclosure, it may be real tempting to say,
[01:12:10.440]oh, I had the same experience.
[01:12:12.030]Oh, that happened to me, or I,
[01:12:14.730]and you gotta be really careful with that,
[01:12:17.010]where sometimes that can be helpful for a student
[01:12:20.100]and can bridge the gap and make them feel less alone.
[01:12:23.400]It can also take the focus off of them,
[01:12:26.070]people in counseling know this,
[01:12:27.690]and there's a lot of different views about self-disclosure.
[01:12:30.930]I tend to be of the training where it's not a great idea,
[01:12:35.239]so what I might do instead is to say,
[01:12:38.760]a lot of other students feel that way,
[01:12:40.950]or a lot of people worry about that.
[01:12:43.170]I normalize it like that, but I don't put the focus on me.
[01:12:46.663]Oh yeah, my parent died when I was in college too.
[01:12:51.767]'Cause now I've shifted and we know that even
[01:12:53.760]if you've had the same experience as a student,
[01:12:56.490]no two people have it in the same way.
[01:12:58.958]I always tell my counseling students when somebody says,
[01:13:02.040]I'm pregnant, it could be great news.
[01:13:04.136]It could not be such great news.
[01:13:06.300]So, we don't know how to react.
[01:13:09.840]We need to listen.
[01:13:11.130]We need to attend and listen
[01:13:12.780]and let them have their story come out.
[01:13:16.590]Silence is a skill too.
[01:13:18.270]This is a tough one,
[01:13:19.677]I sometimes time my students to see how long they can go
[01:13:23.430]without saying something.
[01:13:24.959]Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is be quiet,
[01:13:28.470]Is just listen, but it's active listening.
[01:13:31.170]And again, it's not listening and I'm not paying attention.
[01:13:34.710]It's active attending, listening.
[01:13:36.870]I'm following your story.
[01:13:38.610]I'm clearly listening.
[01:13:40.470]I'm invested in it,
[01:13:41.863]and then you may wait for like a natural break
[01:13:45.690]in their speech and then attend or reply,
[01:13:48.660]so when you find a natural break, you might say,
[01:13:51.930]wow, that was really, that sounds
[01:13:53.850]like that was such a difficult class and professor,
[01:13:56.790]and it's really affected you
[01:13:59.790]and just a supportive comment when there's time,
[01:14:03.639]I kind of like to let the student talk more than me,
[01:14:07.377]I'm the receptacle.
[01:14:08.610]I'm there to kind of hear this stuff.
[01:14:10.800]Maybe they don't have anywhere else they can go to talk
[01:14:12.900]about it, so I wanna be the one that's kind of silent.
[01:14:17.153]I know that I don't feel good when I start to say something
[01:14:19.638]to somebody else and they say,
[01:14:21.240]oh, well that happened to me too.
[01:14:22.530]Let me tell you what you know now my moment's gone now.
[01:14:25.682]I'm not able to share anymore.
[01:14:27.239]And now we're talking about them when I came there
[01:14:29.508]to talk about myself.
[01:14:31.410]So silence is an important key.
[01:14:33.900]But again, active silence, not silence
[01:14:36.150]where you're like saying nothing and it looks
[01:14:38.160]like you don't, you're not listening.
[01:14:41.020]That's kind of a subtle difference.
[01:14:44.250]Yeah.
[01:14:45.083]And just, and we wanna give you guys some time
[01:14:46.607]to ask questions too.
[01:14:47.970]So we will try to wrap up pretty soon.
[01:14:49.830]But just to knowing how people go through change I think
[01:14:54.023]is really important because we do all this work
[01:14:57.180]and we put ourselves into what we're doing
[01:14:59.160]and we get invested in our students
[01:15:01.140]and how they're getting them help,
[01:15:04.680]but it's not easy and they don't always wanna get change.
[01:15:08.070]So, remembering that change is a process.
[01:15:11.319]You can go on to Prochaska's stages of change model,
[01:15:15.690]which I find is really helpful.
[01:15:17.016]And I often have students go through the exercise
[01:15:21.480]of figuring out, okay,
[01:15:23.250]what stage do you think this student is in?
[01:15:26.430]So whether it's in a professional setting,
[01:15:28.290]so if you're working with your staff or you're working
[01:15:30.420]with a student like an RA or somebody else
[01:15:32.880]and they're talking to you about a student,
[01:15:34.290]you might wanna pull up Prochaska's model
[01:15:37.078]and maybe work it through
[01:15:38.640]with your staff and just say, okay,
[01:15:40.650]where do you think they are in Prochaska's model?
[01:15:44.010]And then talk about some strategies to move them along.
[01:15:46.290]I think that can be a really good practical thing to do
[01:15:51.682]because I think it can really help a staff member
[01:15:55.020]or yourself figure out, okay, where is this student?
[01:15:58.263]So that I know what I'm working with and where are they
[01:16:00.843]in this change?
[01:16:02.263]I think it's a great model.
[01:16:03.396]Are you familiar with it?
[01:16:04.860]Just, you can kind of raise your hand.
[01:16:05.940]I can kind of see you.
[01:16:06.897]Are you familiar with Prochaska?
[01:16:09.450]Kinda, okay.
[01:16:11.550]So I love the model.
[01:16:12.960]I think it's just very accessible and like I said,
[01:16:15.436]I think it's a very practical way to help maybe your staff
[01:16:18.030]or yourself know where a student is.
[01:16:19.680]So just to take that away maybe with you
[01:16:22.710]from this presentation, and it can really help
[01:16:26.310]move students along.
[01:16:27.540]I use it a lot in my classes and like I said,
[01:16:29.220]I've used it a lot in my professional role as well.
[01:16:31.710]And then I think that, remembering that change isn't easy.
[01:16:36.930]So I think when we're looking at a student
[01:16:38.790]or someone we're working with, we're like, just do this.
[01:16:41.130]Just do that.
[01:16:41.970]It's easy.
[01:16:43.273]Just go get help.
[01:16:44.106]Just change, just do that.
[01:16:45.000]It's really hard.
[01:16:46.455]It's really hard to make those changes
[01:16:48.540]and make that decision to change something about yourself.
[01:16:51.390]So just keeping that in mind as we go through this.
[01:16:54.372]And then on the right hand side here,
[01:16:57.356]it tells you kind of when you might wanna refer
[01:17:00.030]when your staff or your students might wanna refer
[01:17:03.516]'cause you can't become their counselor, I mean, you can,
[01:17:06.600]some of you can 'cause you are counselors,
[01:17:08.580]but if you're an RA or you're a hall director
[01:17:11.100]or you're an advisor, is that, it's okay.
[01:17:13.596]You don't, it's that balance between what I said earlier
[01:17:16.770]where you don't wanna refer automatically right away.
[01:17:19.320]The minute a student comes to you and says,
[01:17:20.730]hey, can I talk to you?
[01:17:22.274]Oh no, go to counseling.
[01:17:23.107]Like, we don't want that.
[01:17:24.210]But you also don't wanna get to a point
[01:17:25.920]where you become the counselor
[01:17:28.110]because that's not your job either.
[01:17:29.520]So it's that middle ground of developing that relationship,
[01:17:32.760]talking for a while, helping them through and then saying,
[01:17:35.250]hey, you know what, let's get you to counseling.
[01:17:36.990]And it's in sort of in these bullet points here
[01:17:39.990]that you really wanna get them over there.
[01:17:42.210]And the best way really to do that is
[01:17:44.098]offering to go with them, making the phone call,
[01:17:47.820]helping them get there and then following up.
[01:17:50.220]I often say to people,
[01:17:51.655]once you get a student into counseling, you can't say,
[01:17:54.150]hey, I'm done, I got them to counseling.
[01:17:55.980]My work is finished.
[01:17:57.060]That's usually when they're gonna need you the most.
[01:17:59.040]Because there's something,
[01:18:00.511]I use a backpack theory that I work with
[01:18:03.210]where you have your stuff in a backpack
[01:18:05.190]and it's when you start to open the backpack
[01:18:06.720]and go through it, that that's when the work really begins.
[01:18:08.956]And that's where it becomes the hard work.
[01:18:12.330]And that's when your student might need you the most.
[01:18:14.156]So you wanna make sure that you're there to help them
[01:18:19.020]in following up.
[01:18:20.160]And then on the bottom here
[01:18:22.650]is sort of the magic number theory that I talk about a lot.
[01:18:25.458]And it has helped me and many of my staff and my students
[01:18:30.690]over the years.
[01:18:31.523]And I can't attribute it to somebody
[01:18:32.760]'cause it was something I heard in my first professional job
[01:18:35.730]in 1999, I think.
[01:18:38.435]But basically it's the idea,
[01:18:40.350]and it came out of like more
[01:18:42.978]of an alcoholics anonymous type of thing or addict type
[01:18:45.161]of work is that everybody sort of has a magic number
[01:18:49.320]where they're gonna say, you know what, X amount of people
[01:18:53.175]have said something to me.
[01:18:54.690]I think it's time I go get help.
[01:18:55.523]But everybody's number is different.
[01:18:56.640]Maureen might be three, mine might be five,
[01:18:58.890]some of you in the room might be seven, two, one
[01:19:01.110]whatever it is.
[01:19:02.220]And nobody really knows.
[01:19:03.053]It's kind of like floating above your head
[01:19:04.410]in one of those cartoons things, but nobody knows it.
[01:19:07.050]So when you start to talk to somebody and you say,
[01:19:10.170]hey, we've been talking for a while,
[01:19:12.120]it seems like you could use some counseling.
[01:19:13.530]And they say, okay thanks, I'll think about it.
[01:19:16.200]It just means you don't have their magic number,
[01:19:18.570]but you're somewhere on their magic number.
[01:19:21.060]And maybe the next person who speaks to them
[01:19:22.830]and says, hey, I know you've talked to Rebekah for a while.
[01:19:25.320]She said she mentioned counseling to you.
[01:19:27.030]I think that's a really good idea.
[01:19:29.133]Have you thought about counseling?
[01:19:30.258]And they say, oh, you know what,
[01:19:31.091]you're like the fourth person to say something to me.
[01:19:33.120]Yeah, I think it maybe I'll go get some counseling.
[01:19:35.280]Boom.
[01:19:36.493]Then that's the magic number.
[01:19:37.326]So, if they don't go get counseling yet,
[01:19:40.230]and you've mentioned it and they walk out of your office
[01:19:42.240]and you think, well, I really didn't do anything,
[01:19:45.300]I always tell everybody, you did do something,
[01:19:48.180]you're somewhere on their line.
[01:19:50.340]You just haven't hit their magic number.
[01:19:51.780]You might be first, you might be last,
[01:19:53.040]you're somewhere in the middle.
[01:19:54.240]So I always just like to keep that in mind
[01:19:56.580]that you have done something and you just don't always know.
[01:19:59.187]And they may come back to you years later
[01:20:00.900]and say, thank you so much for mentioning that to me.
[01:20:03.058]A couple a year later, I went and got counseling,
[01:20:06.030]but without you, I never would have.
[01:20:07.530]So just keep that in mind.
[01:20:13.200]We have another case to show you.
[01:20:15.690]And we wanna show you this one and see if you would,
[01:20:19.507]now that you've learned all this great information,
[01:20:23.250]how you feel about this case.
[01:20:27.300]Hello, my name is Michael.
[01:20:29.025]Can you hear it?
[01:20:30.026]I'm a junior and I'm currently at university
[01:20:31.920]on a baseball scholarship.
[01:20:34.350]Everything was going well and I was enjoying the season,
[01:20:37.620]but then I got hurt after just a few games.
[01:20:40.385]Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play for the rest
[01:20:43.530]of the season.
[01:20:44.363]And even though my academics were really good,
[01:20:47.310]I ended up losing my scholarship.
[01:20:50.130]Now all my friends were a part of the team,
[01:20:52.920]including my roommate and everybody
[01:20:54.720]that I used to hang out with.
[01:20:56.827]So I just feel really lost
[01:20:57.660]because I don't have the opportunity to be out on the field
[01:21:00.540]and hang out with them anymore.
[01:21:02.700]It's made it hard for me to concentrate on school as well.
[01:21:05.637]And I just feel really alone all the time.
[01:21:08.580]I've thought of dropping out or maybe transferring
[01:21:10.980]as a potential fix or I could just go home.
[01:21:14.107]Life seems very hopeless for me right now.
[01:21:17.467]My whole life had been baseball,
[01:21:19.260]but right now I don't have it at all.
[01:21:23.790]Hello my name's Michael.
[01:21:25.440]I'm a--
[01:21:27.360]Sorry about that, I was trying to pause it.
[01:21:29.147]We actually, again, this is an actor,
[01:21:31.710]but we based this on a real case that we are familiar with.
[01:21:35.100]So this is a kind of a real life situation.
[01:21:38.870]Anybody in the room have any reactions to this?
[01:21:41.627]How you might handle this?
[01:21:43.380]What suggestions you might make?
[01:21:52.440]We see this a lot
[01:21:54.090]and I am the advising resident and student life person.
[01:21:58.083]One of the things, of course, we would listen,
[01:22:00.810]but then we would also talk to the student
[01:22:02.760]about their other interests and try to get them
[01:22:05.070]connected maybe to organizations or other activities
[01:22:07.968]or a campus job, something else that they could feel
[01:22:12.360]that sense of belonging that they're missing
[01:22:14.220]from not being on the team anymore.
[01:22:16.680]But unfortunately, we see a lot of our former athletes
[01:22:20.460]transfer out and go home when they lose that community
[01:22:24.330]that they came here for.
[01:22:26.003]Or if they're, especially
[01:22:27.870]when there are financial complications as well
[01:22:30.422]to staying on campus and finishing up.
[01:22:34.290]So we try to approach it from all those angles
[01:22:37.800]to help build them up again.
[01:22:39.923]And then of course,
[01:22:41.820]if there is a counseling referral perhaps later on.
[01:22:44.190]But a lot of this is really just finding a new place.
[01:22:48.450]Right, a new home, a new group, right?
[01:22:50.730]Yeah.
[01:22:51.570]Right in this case, the student's saying it's, yeah,
[01:22:54.207]I'm not even doing bad academically.
[01:22:56.160]I just, I don't fit in anymore.
[01:22:57.930]I don't have anywhere to go.
[01:22:59.130]So.
[01:23:00.870]Yeah, I was gonna say,
[01:23:02.536]it seems like he's definitely lacking a sense
[01:23:05.456]of purpose now.
[01:23:06.584]So coming at it from a really strengths focused perspective,
[01:23:10.470]but also acknowledging that there's going
[01:23:12.270]to be a grief process involved and kind of companioning him
[01:23:19.290]through whatever that looks like.
[01:23:23.460]I think that's a great comment.
[01:23:25.560]You know, sometimes we only think of grief in terms of loss,
[01:23:29.161]a loss of a loved one or a family member,
[01:23:31.650]but you can grieve a lot of things.
[01:23:33.930]And absolutely the student's grieving
[01:23:37.224]maybe that image that trajectory
[01:23:41.280]that he thought he would be in and then the physical
[01:23:44.880]and actual loss of the teammates and playing
[01:23:49.350]and what that might mean physically.
[01:23:51.180]Maybe not going to the gym now or, all those other things.
[01:23:54.990]Yeah his identity, sense of self, all of that.
[01:23:57.570]Yeah, and this is age
[01:23:59.250]where they're still developing identity,
[01:24:01.890]if we go back to Erickson's theory,
[01:24:05.010]we do have, I definitely wanna get--
[01:24:07.930]Hello my name's Michael.
[01:24:09.450]We're done with you Michael.
[01:24:10.621]We wanna show you this if you haven't seen it,
[01:24:16.350]I hope I can get to it right from here.
[01:24:20.712]Yeah.
[01:24:22.256](upbeat music)
[01:24:28.980]So what is empathy
[01:24:30.570]and why is it very different than sympathy?
[01:24:34.140]Empathy fuels connection, sympathy drives disconnection.
[01:24:39.720]Empathy, it's very interesting.
[01:24:41.370]Theresa Wiseman is a nursing scholar
[01:24:44.190]who studied professions,
[01:24:47.601]very diverse professions where empathy is relevant
[01:24:48.810]and came up with four qualities of empathy,
[01:24:51.120]perspective taking, the ability to take the perspective
[01:24:54.300]of another person or recognize their perspective
[01:24:56.760]as their truth, staying out of judgment.
[01:24:59.220]Not easy when you enjoy it as much as most of us do.
[01:25:03.600]Recognizing emotion in other people
[01:25:05.310]and then communicating that.
[01:25:07.380]Empathy is feeling with people.
[01:25:11.190]And to me, I always think of empathy
[01:25:12.620]as this kind of sacred space when someone's kind of
[01:25:16.860]in a deep hole and they shout out from the bottom
[01:25:19.530]and they say, I'm stuck, it's dark, I'm overwhelmed.
[01:25:23.400]And then we look and we say, hey, climb down.
[01:25:27.900]I know what it's like down here.
[01:25:29.850]And you're not alone.
[01:25:31.590]Sympathy is, ooh, it's bad, huh?
[01:25:37.118]No, you want a sandwich?
[01:25:43.353]Empathy is a choice and it's a vulnerable choice
[01:25:46.410]because in order to connect with you,
[01:25:48.600]I have to connect with something in myself
[01:25:51.300]that knows that feeling.
[01:25:53.760]Rarely, if ever does an empathic response begin
[01:25:56.540]with at least.
[01:26:00.540]I had a, yeah and we do it all the time
[01:26:03.810]because you know what?
[01:26:04.770]Someone just shared something with us
[01:26:07.479]that's incredibly painful and we're trying
[01:26:09.150]to silver lining it.
[01:26:10.410]I don't think that's a verb, but I'm using it as one.
[01:26:13.950]We're trying to put the silver lining around it.
[01:26:15.600]So I had a miscarriage,
[01:26:17.880]oh, at least you know you can get pregnant.
[01:26:19.860]I think my marriage is falling apart.
[01:26:22.650]At least you have a marriage.
[01:26:25.587](audience laughing)
[01:26:28.560]John's getting kicked out of school.
[01:26:30.510]At least Sarah is an A student.
[01:26:32.700]But one of the things we do sometimes in the face
[01:26:35.910]of very difficult conversations is we try
[01:26:40.230]to make things better.
[01:26:41.820]If I share something with you that's very difficult,
[01:26:44.130]I'd rather you say, I don't even know what to say right now.
[01:26:47.790]I'm just so glad you told me.
[01:26:50.760]Because the truth is, rarely can a response
[01:26:53.361]make something better.
[01:26:55.410]What makes something better is connection.
[01:27:04.458](upbeat music)
[01:27:06.679]Had anyone seen that before?
[01:27:12.000]Oh, good.
[01:27:12.833]We like when we, I see no hands up.
[01:27:14.550]I don't know about online, but we like
[01:27:16.590]when we show something that maybe you haven't seen.
[01:27:22.740]That pretty much wraps up what we wanna cover.
[01:27:24.660]We, I'm looking at the time, we're happy to stay
[01:27:27.900]for a couple minutes and answer some questions.
[01:27:30.150]We did wanna put our book up here, which is
[01:27:33.731]what our presentation's kind of based on, and we,
[01:27:38.130]in the book, we go through almost each chapter's
[01:27:42.660]like a different issue or problem that students
[01:27:46.470]may come with, and then how to address it,
[01:27:49.380]how to work with it.
[01:27:50.430]The chapters are kind of structured.
[01:27:52.290]And one thing that was important to me in writing it
[01:27:54.240]was giving actual things to say, not that it's a cookbook,
[01:27:58.680]you can say, oh, how do I make brownies look this up?
[01:28:01.770]But to give some examples of responses that you could say
[01:28:07.740]that you can then craft to your own,
[01:28:10.770]but at least it's a starting point.
[01:28:15.690]Yes, thank you.
[01:28:16.523]And any questions please?
[01:28:25.860]We have a large online population
[01:28:27.984]at my institution on top of the small campus community
[01:28:31.860]of students that our areas primarily work with.
[01:28:35.370]So the university has invested in talk campus,
[01:28:38.160]which is kind of an online peer,
[01:28:41.264]I guess social media type platform for connecting
[01:28:47.220]with others.
[01:28:48.763]And there are algorithms and monitors I think.
[01:28:51.150]And they refer if there's a student of ours
[01:28:53.670]that pops up with anything concerning.
[01:28:57.120]Do you have any experience, perspective or insight
[01:28:59.850]on how effective those kind of online peer platforms
[01:29:03.780]may be for students?
[01:29:10.380]I not yet.
[01:29:11.580]I think they're pretty new.
[01:29:13.616]You know, I've seen these come up and I've heard about them.
[01:29:16.890]I think that, I think it is the way
[01:29:20.280]that a lot of campuses are going
[01:29:22.230]because they wanna reach a lot of students.
[01:29:24.703]You know, we have those here as well at FIU,
[01:29:29.380]like we've been using Kognito,
[01:29:30.601]we've been using some other training things.
[01:29:33.060]But I don't know, I have not seen any,
[01:29:36.142]and I don't know if Maureen has,
[01:29:38.190]but I have not seen any research yet about the effectiveness
[01:29:43.220]of the online platforms because I think they're fairly new,
[01:29:46.710]especially post COVID.
[01:29:48.630]So I think we're gonna have to see in the next few years,
[01:29:51.150]and I'm very curious to see myself about how those are,
[01:29:53.937]and the effectiveness of them.
[01:29:55.823]I mean, I think they're better than nothing.
[01:30:00.210]And I think if you have an online population,
[01:30:01.890]that's gonna be a good use of the technology
[01:30:05.444]so that people, students know where to connect.
[01:30:08.121]So I think it's good that they're doing something
[01:30:10.350]that they, students know where to go
[01:30:12.580]with your online population, whereas I think
[01:30:14.180]in the past there was really nothing available
[01:30:15.778]for online students.
[01:30:16.611]So I like that there's something,
[01:30:17.640]but I think as far as the effectiveness,
[01:30:19.080]I think we're gonna have to wait and see,
[01:30:20.250]and hopefully people are doing some assessment on that,
[01:30:22.080]but I haven't seen any assessment yet.
[01:30:23.561]Maureen, have you?
[01:30:24.827]Yeah I just wanna make sure I'm understanding,
[01:30:27.240]one is my concern about peer-to-peer, right?
[01:30:30.330]Because unless the peers have had some training,
[01:30:34.050]what's their response gonna be?
[01:30:35.850]Because they're also another student
[01:30:38.310]who has their own struggles and issues.
[01:30:40.020]So I think that there's been a lot of literature
[01:30:43.410]that shows paraprofessionals can be very helpful
[01:30:47.284]in situations, given some basic training,
[01:30:49.343]they can respond well to mental health issues
[01:30:52.223]without having gone through a long doctoral
[01:30:55.380]or master's program.
[01:30:56.820]So my concern would be if the peers are trained,
[01:31:00.000]what kind of training they get to respond.
[01:31:02.340]But most of the literature has shown that has changed
[01:31:06.600]in the world of psychology when they've moved a lot
[01:31:10.080]of these evidence-based treatments online,
[01:31:12.690]they're finding that they're just as effective
[01:31:14.370]as when they do them in person.
[01:31:16.598]So, I'm not sure if I'm answering your question,
[01:31:19.050]but I think that there's a lot of advantages
[01:31:21.690]to some telehealth in terms of accessibility, ease of it,
[01:31:26.180]maybe somebody can't come into an office,
[01:31:28.470]but they can turn on their smartphone
[01:31:30.870]and then they're getting a session that they wouldn't have.
[01:31:33.136]But I would just wanna make sure that the training
[01:31:35.640]of the peers is adequate to handle these issues.
[01:31:42.121]Thank you.
[01:31:47.246]But I do think, to follow up
[01:31:49.260]with what you're saying, what I wanna see
[01:31:51.420]in the next couple years is I'd like to see some assessment
[01:31:54.360]on the effectiveness of those programs.
[01:31:57.106]But I think they're so new and it takes a while often
[01:32:01.050]to do these assessments is,
[01:32:02.700]let's see if there's, let's see how they,
[01:32:06.230]do you know if your campus is doing any pre or posts
[01:32:07.530]on these programs?
[01:32:11.220]I'm not aware of us internally doing that.
[01:32:13.290]I would imagine the company itself is trying to do.
[01:32:16.230]Improve their work.
[01:32:17.428]I would think so.
[01:32:18.630]That could be something
[01:32:21.688]that I can ask our contract owner about.
[01:32:24.060]I would, I would, I think that would be
[01:32:26.100]an important thing to see.
[01:32:28.260]So, but I think, I do know that
[01:32:30.091]when I was at NASPA there was a bunch
[01:32:33.425]of those companies around, so I do know
[01:32:35.130]there's a big proliferation of those.
[01:32:37.440]So I think in the next couple years we're gonna be able
[01:32:39.450]to see a lot of whether or not they're effective,
[01:32:42.690]but I think they're just kind of new.
[01:32:44.490]Or just feedback from the students
[01:32:45.627]that are participating in it.
[01:32:46.460]Did this meet the needs?
[01:32:48.587]Did you feel heard?
[01:32:50.250]What was different about it?
[01:32:51.990]I mean, one of the things that I've noticed
[01:32:54.330]with that generation is the shift to telehealth
[01:32:58.050]is not as difficult for them,
[01:32:59.640]because they're on their phones, they're on their laptops
[01:33:02.220]all the time.
[01:33:03.110]For those of us from an older generation,
[01:33:06.780]that wasn't how you connected with people, you got together,
[01:33:09.750]but they, that format is very natural for them, I guess.
[01:33:16.290]Yeah, that's true.
[01:33:17.831]It's definitely very natural
[01:33:19.680]for their interaction.
[01:33:21.510]It is.
[01:33:22.529]And I do think that's something, I mean,
[01:33:23.790]just thinking out loud, I do think that's something
[01:33:26.100]for like the older generations,
[01:33:28.200]I mean, I'm an older generation,
[01:33:29.969]I think we have to sort of also be more comfortable
[01:33:33.750]with that, that sometimes our initial reaction is, oh no,
[01:33:37.830]they have to be in person
[01:33:39.270]and that's not gonna be as effective.
[01:33:40.320]But I think Maureen makes a great point
[01:33:42.570]that the younger generations, they're super comfortable
[01:33:44.820]in that sort of milieu.
[01:33:46.329]They're very, that's their venue.
[01:33:48.840]Like they do that all the time
[01:33:50.070]and that's how they communicate.
[01:33:51.907]So where my reaction might be like, oh, I don't know,
[01:33:54.330]but they might love it.
[01:33:56.250]I mean, I ask my students all the time,
[01:33:57.850]like, do they wanna come in person?
[01:33:59.400]Do they wanna meet online?
[01:34:00.600]Do they wanna do this?
[01:34:02.209]And they almost always prefer virtual or online.
[01:34:03.889]They just, that's how they're comfortable, so--
[01:34:06.540]Well they also also don't have to drive
[01:34:09.307]through the Miami traffic.
[01:34:10.667]Right, right, completely.
[01:34:12.120]So I think they're comfortable with it.
[01:34:14.400]Do I think it's the most effective?
[01:34:15.720]I think we have to see.
[01:34:18.180]Right,
[01:34:19.013]I wonder if the sort of anonymity of it too,
[01:34:21.180]from behind the screen frees them up a little bit more
[01:34:24.369]and it does a little more that de-stigmatizing
[01:34:27.930]because they don't feel the physical judgment
[01:34:29.970]maybe from somebody.
[01:34:31.167]No, I would agree with that.
[01:34:32.580]I think there's some advantages in terms of that.
[01:34:35.006]But I think that there, for some people,
[01:34:38.411]I think I was saying one of my daughters at NYU,
[01:34:42.510]they only offer virtual counseling.
[01:34:45.000]She has an apartment with roommates.
[01:34:47.340]She can't find time alone.
[01:34:48.840]She wants to go in to have that private space.
[01:34:52.170]There's nowhere, you're not gonna go down the hall
[01:34:54.150]to a study room with other people
[01:34:55.710]and have your counseling session.
[01:34:57.510]So I think it doesn't work for everyone in every situation.
[01:35:00.545]No, I agreed.
[01:35:02.667]I mean, even with both my kids, they both go to counseling.
[01:35:03.780]My daughter does fine with virtual counseling, my son, no.
[01:35:05.931]So I think it just depends, like he's much better in person.
[01:35:09.480]So it just depends.
[01:35:11.130]Yeah and this isn't actual counseling, right?
[01:35:13.170]This is just a.
[01:35:14.003]Right, right. Peer.
[01:35:15.390]Connection, yeah, yeah.
[01:35:17.160]Right true.
[01:35:19.030]Good point.
[01:35:20.288]It's a good start though, maybe.
[01:35:21.121]For sure.
[01:35:21.954]Well we hope you've enjoyed our presentation.
[01:35:24.600]Oh, was there another, sorry.
[01:35:26.630]Nope, I think that's all.
[01:35:28.200]Thank you both so much.
[01:35:29.640]We greatly--
[01:35:31.110]Of course.
[01:35:32.370]Yeah, that's nice to see everyone.
[01:35:34.050]And our emails are there.
[01:35:36.150]We also, I just told you, oh, we--
[01:35:39.180]Do have that slide.
[01:35:40.767]Yeah, we have yeah, through NASPA.
[01:35:42.823]Yeah, I was gonna tell you about that.
[01:35:45.064]We have a short course,
[01:35:46.507]we have a short course starting,
[01:35:47.627]so tomorrow if anyone or--
[01:35:48.769]Yeah, yeah.
[01:35:50.047]Oh geez, yes tomorrow, July's flying by.
[01:35:51.777]But you can still register for it.
[01:35:53.550]So if you or anyone on your staff is interested or anyone
[01:35:56.868]on your campuses, they may be interested in doing this,
[01:35:58.505]it goes much more into depth
[01:36:00.987]than everything we talked about.
[01:36:03.270]So just for what it's worth.
[01:36:05.880]Yeah, it's five weeks starting tomorrow, one hour a week,
[01:36:09.240]but then there's homework and readings
[01:36:12.009]outside of our live sessions online, you know, so.
[01:36:16.047]And you get, they get,
[01:36:19.590]you get a certification at the end.
[01:36:20.651]Yeah so.
[01:36:22.011]So might be good for your,
[01:36:24.049]like your residents life staff or your advisors
[01:36:26.011]or people like that, so.
[01:36:26.844]They get a copy of the, an E-copy of the book, I think,
[01:36:29.670]for registering so that they can read the chapters
[01:36:32.369]and so forth, so.
[01:36:36.006]Great, well thank you both so much
[01:36:38.130]for all your information and have a great rest of your day.
[01:36:41.640]You too, thank you.
[01:36:42.550]Bye.

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Basic Counseling Skills for Higher Education Professionals

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