Seventeen-hundred students, almost one-quarter of Northwestern’s undergraduate student body and more than enough students to fill all the residential halls on South Campus have something in common.
They make up the number of new cases NU’s Counseling and Psychological Services handled last year.
This doesn’t count the students who already had been to CAPS for help or the 600 after-hours calls the center handled. Although the number is similar to other institutions of NU’s size and selectivity, 1,700 still is more than twice as many cases as the average counseling center handles at Big Ten-conference schools.
“We’re so at capacity you wouldn’t believe it,” said Kathy Hollingsworth, director of CAPS.
The situation means students could wait up to three weeks to begin one-on-one treatment with a therapist. It also means the center has little time for outreach and educational programs that let students know what CAPS does.
Weinberg sophomore Mike Wang said lack of information prevented him from going to CAPS.
“There were times when I thought I might take steps to go,” he said. “But there’s nothing around to let me know how it is — whether it’s useful or not useful.”
CAPS is exploring new ways to reach students before they encounter a crisis, including creating a center for more outreach programs, workshops and group sessions, updating and expanding the CAPS Web site, and reaching out to the community.
“In addition to dealing with problems,” said William Banis, vice president for student affairs, “we’re also trying to promote models of healthy functioning so students will have an idea of what that looks like and what kind of competencies they could be developing while they are at Northwestern.”
CAPS’ Roles
CAPS follows a model of education, prevention and crisis intervention, which means it has a key role in managing students’ mental health, providing counseling and offering outreach to keep problems from turning into emergencies.
When students first call CAPS, they schedule an intake appointment to talk with one of 14 staff members about goals and strategies for treatment.
CAPS prioritizes cases by severity, so sometimes it can take two or three weeks to get an assessment. But, Hollingsworth stressed, any student can see a counselor during walk-in hours.
“Maybe (the student) waited two or three weeks to call, so waiting two or three weeks for an intake appointment seems like a long time,” Hollingsworth said. “But they can keep their intake and walk in to get temporary help that tides them over.”
If a student needs long-term care, CAPS refers the student to a local counseling agency, Hollingsworth said. Students who have NU Student Insurance can have up to 24 sessions a year in outside therapy.
Students will be assigned a regular therapist if CAPS services will be enough to help them. During their time at NU, students get up to 12 free counseling sessions.
Hollingsworth said students either will be done with therapy or will be ready to move into a different program, such as group therapy or outside counseling, by the time they reach the session limit.
CAPS also works closely with students who take medications for mental illnesses. When students come to college, they face temptation to stop their treatment, consume alcohol and deprive themselves of sleep — each of which can alter the effect of their medications.
Everything that happens at CAPS remains confidential because of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Counseling does not go on a student’s record, and counselors can speak only in generalities about cases — even to parents.
Reaching out
CAPS is one department where budget cuts haven’t prevented the hiring of new staff. In the past nine years, 2.5 full-time-equivalent positions have been added. However, the time constraints and wait times remain.
Reducing the number of emergency cases that are at CAPS in the first place can help.
One facet of prevention is outreach. Traditional forms of outreach include workshops and presentations. Banis said between the Chicago and Evanston campuses, 35 CAPS liaisons reach about 12,000 students through these programs each year, although some students are repeat attendees.
But CAPS also is turning to newer outreach strategies — technology and training.
Paulette Stronczek, a CAPS psychologist, said the agency is working to increase the content of its Web site. The site will include links to the Jed Foundation’s Ulifeline, which provides information about the mental health of college students.
Other pages linked to CAPS’ site will lead students to self-tests for depression and anxiety disorders and sites about “a myriad of psychological disorders,” including information on where to get help, Stronczek said.
Another form of outreach is training NU community members about ways they can help troubled students. One new resource is the Connections program, which allows student to call a hotline staffed by many campus faculty members, staff and administrators in order to get referred to the proper place to go for help, Banis said.
“When a third party gets involved, that’s often a red flag (that the student is in bad shape),” Hollingsworth said. She said CAPS won’t contact the student whom the caller is concerned about, but they will help the caller persuade the student to talk to CAPS.
“We’re not the psychology police, but we can coach someone on how to approach (a student),” she said.
Branching out
This year CAPS is developing programs for a new center. The house, to be located at 619 Emerson St., next door to CAPS, will host group programs and workshops focused on both prevention of mental problems and increasing of CAPS’ capacity.
The programs include popular emotional intelligence workshops and sessions run by Wei-Jen Huang, commonly known as Dr. Love. Huang also works with the three CAPS interns to hold advanced group sessions with free agendas so students can work on relating to and understanding each other.
Word of mouth has made the emotional intelligence sessions increasingly popular. Huang, a clinical psychologist at CAPS, started this quarter with two seven-student sections and he is planning to add two more, which probably still won’t be able to accommodate everyone who wants to join.
The crowding is unusual — at many other universities, group therapy sessions suffer from lack of attendance. But Huang said many students have told him joining his group is the best thing they ever did.
“Group therapy is extremely powerful,” he said, adding that one year in group sessions can equal three or four years of individual therapy. “Each of us brings our own life history and the way we interact with people; we have our own pattern. What we do shows up in group.”
Students learn not only about themselves, but also about how to help others and develop authentic relationships — something Huang said can have effects reaching far beyond the confines of his group.
“I think a lot of people can grow and they can help each other,” Huang said. “That’s much more powerful than one-on-one change.”
MORE COVERAGE
* Experts say the combination of college stress, perfectionism and alcohol use forms a perfect recipe for mental illness
* One student’s tale of the struggle with her negative body-image problem, which followed her to NU
* For help in handling the influx of new cases, CAPS turns to other NU resources, including the Women’s Center
About the series
Mental-health issues often remain hidden, a solitary struggle for those
who shoulder the burdens of depression, eating disorders, anxiety and many other diseases. Yet suicides on college campuses and a rise in students seeking psychological treatment nationwide are forcing universities, including Northwestern, to face the realities of mental disorders. State of Mind is an effort to break the silence. For seven days THE DAILY will explore the condition of mental-health services on campus and introduce students to five of their peers who have battled mental illness. In hopes of sparking discussion about these issues at NU, THE DAILY encourages participation in the dialogue. Please send any feedback to [email protected].
If you or someone you know needs help …
*For 24-hour crisis assistance, call 847-491-8100
*CAPS offices are located on the second floor of Searle Hall, 633 Emerson St.
*To make a CAPS appointment, call 847-491-2151. Appointments are scheduled Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
*CAPS holds emergency walk-in hours Monday through Friday from noon to 2 p.m.
