Therapy Dogs on Campus: A Counseling Outreach Activity for College Students Preparing for Final Exams

A university counseling center engaged a therapy dog program for an outreach activity to reduce stress as students prepare for final exams at a large culturally diverse university. This article describes the rationale, planning, and implementation of the activity; presents an evaluation summary; and provides recommendations and implications for counselors interested in using a similar activity. A large and diverse student population attended the activity and gave primarily positive feedback for this low‐cost group activity.     

Meet Them Where They Are: An Outreach Model to Address University Counseling Center Disparities

ABSTRACT

Although University Counseling Centers continue to report increased rates of served students, those who hold marginalized identities continue to be underrepresented. Many factors may contribute to such discrepancies, including stigma, access, and trust in providers. College students across the nation have recently called for an increase in the number of professionals who identify as racially/ethnically diverse. The current article reviews one university’s response to their own students’ call for action, and particularly explores how the program was implemented and its associated costs and benefits. Considerations for other university administrators seeking to employ similar methods are discussed.     

Beyond Borderline Personality Disorder: Dialectical Behavior Therapy in a College Counseling Center

The study investigated the efficacy of a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) program with a general college counseling center population, not limited to students diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. A review of records of 64 students found that obsessive-compulsive symptoms, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, paranoia, somatization, psychoticism, and phobic anxiety decreased, as did overall distress. All four target areas of DBT, namely confusion about self, impulsivity, emotional dysregulation, and interpersonal chaos, also significantly decreased. Limitations and implications for college counseling centers are discussed.     

Adapting Dialectical Behavior Therapy for College Counseling Centers

College counseling centers report increased student presentation with severe psychological issues (Gallagher, 2012 ). Although dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) has demonstrated efficacy with multiple clinical populations, standard model DBT is not feasible for many traditional college counseling centers. This article describes the iterative development and evolution of a comprehensive DBT program adapted to fit the scope of a traditional college counseling center. Guidelines for implementing lessons learned over the 3 years of the program are provided.     

Estimating the Efficiency of Therapy Groups in a College Counseling Center

College counseling centers are facing rapidly increasing demands for services and are tasked to find efficient ways of providing adequate services while managing limited space. The use of therapy groups has been proposed as a method of managing demand. This brief report examines the clinical time savings of a traditional group therapy program in a college counseling center. The savings were mixed from semester to semester, ranging from 5 individual therapy spots lost to 10 individual therapy spots gained depending on the estimation. Considerations are offered for the use of therapy groups to manage clinical demand based on this report.     

Assessing Campus Counseling Needs

Campus mental health needs are in the spotlight. Whether the nature and severity of problems presenting in college counseling centers are increasing or not, it is important to provide appropriate services for the campus as a whole. By surveying the general campus population, a better basis for determining the needs of students can be established than by surveying self-selected students who present at counseling centers. These data can also be used to establish local norms for comparison to clinical populations.     

The Comprehensive Counseling Center Model

The authors outline a four-factor model and philosophy for college mental health services that addresses the loss of comprehensiveness in some centers due to changes in organizational structure. Given research on demand for services and retention of those seen in centers, emphasis is placed in particular upon the value of consultation, outreach, and training work across the entire campus community. The model challenges some assumptions made by proponents of integrated care, including its definition, and illustrates the benefits of establishing and maintaining a fully comprehensive college counseling service.     

The Use of Family Therapy Within a University Counseling Center

As a counterpoint to the oftentimes adversarial way that parents are viewed when they appear to be overinvolved in the lives of their college-aged students, this article advocates for the use of a family therapy perspective in university counseling centers. Benefits of this perspective include a broadening of the lens through which individual concerns are seen and a more nuanced social justice analysis in which issues of gender, race, and class are highlighted. A review of family therapy literature is intertwined with discussion regarding the relevance of this perspective when working with college students. Vignettes illustrate various applications of college-based family psychotherapy.     

Brief Therapy at a University Counseling Center: Working Alliance,Readiness to Change,and Symptom Severity

The authors investigated whether students receiving short–term individual counseling at a university counseling center showed progress as evidenced by perceived client and counselor outcomes and the roles that client readiness to change and working alliance played in this setting. The results indicated that the counselor reports, not the client reports, reflected statistically significant change in client symptoms. Changes in symptom severity were not associated with working alliance and readiness to change.     

A Case Study: An ACT Stress Management Group in a University Counseling Center

The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) stress management group in a college counseling center setting. This study explored (a) the effectiveness of ACT in increasing participants’ ability to tolerate distress, which directly affects their ability to function in a stressful college setting; (b) the effectiveness of ACT in decreasing participants’ level of experiential avoidance, which directly affects their willingness to engage in their day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and social interactions; and (c) the impact of ACT treatment on anxiety symptoms traditionally targeted in cognitive-behavioral therapy interventions. The results of this initial investigation show promising support for the prediction that an ACT Stress Management Group would significantly reduce participants’ level of experiential avoidance and increase their ability to tolerate distress.     

Trainees Versus Staff: Exploring Counseling Outcomes in a College Counseling Center

Investigators compared counseling outcomes among nonpaid graduate-level trainees and professional staff at a college counseling center. Counseling outcomes for 331 college student participants were measured using the Outcome Questionnaire 45.2 (OQ45.2), employing a pretest–posttest design. The two groups of service providers did not differ significantly (p = .179; α > .05). A unique aspect of this study was the statistical control for the clients’ readiness to change. The implications for practice in college counseling centers suggest the use of graduate-level trainees as effective counseling providers and a method to cope with high demand for services.     

认识领悟疗法在学校心理咨询中的应用

认识领悟疗法是以精神分析学说为理论背景的心理治疗方法，它认为人们出现的心理问题是幼年期的恐惧在成人心理上的再现。通过用求助者理解的、符合他们生活经验的解释，使求助者理解、认识并相信他的症状和异常行为的幼稚性，并达到真正的领悟从而使症状消失。认识领悟疗法对解决现代人心理的问题具有借鉴和启发意义。     

Practicing in the 21st Century College Counseling Center

Although college and university counseling centers often struggle with misperceptions of their work and their role in the campus community, limited research has addressed this issue. In this article, common campus misperceptions are explored. Among the issues that often increase the misperception of counselors and counseling services include misunderstandings by campus departments about the role of counseling for students, the perception that counseling is often a solution to any emotional or behavioral issue, and the difficulty of avoiding dual relationships with students on many campuses. Implications for campus counseling centers, including strategies for combating misperceptions, are discussed.     

An Integrative Approach: Relational Cultural Theory and Cognitive Behavior Therapy in College Counseling

This article presents an integrative framework for using cognitive behavior therapy through the lens of relational cultural theory. The authors provide an overview of cognitive behavior therapy and relational cultural theory, followed by suggestions on how to facilitate cognitive behavior therapy using the principles of relational cultural theory in college counseling. A case illustration is used to demonstrate the integration of cognitive behavior therapy and relational cultural theory.     

What They Never Told Me About Being a Counseling Center Director

The author offers his perspectives about the experiences that are associated with being a college or university counseling center director.     

叙事心理辅导中的舞蹈治疗

舞蹈能够通过身体语言表达人们内心深处的情感，并由此处理个人心理困扰而成为心理治疗与辅导的方式。舞蹈治疗在现代舞蹈的基础上发展而来。其基本原理包括了身心相互影响，内在冲突外化，经验重构，关系协调。舞蹈治疗的方法在于身体与心智并重、语言与非语言兼用。它凭借其动作性、想象性、节律性而在心理辅导与治疗中发挥着独特的作用。     

Community Consultation and Intervention: Supporting Students Who Do Not Access Counseling Services

Although the severity of psychological problems among college students and the demand for campus counseling services has increased, many students who could benefit from mental health services still do not access them. This article describes Community Consultation and Intervention, a program designed to support students who are unlikely to access professional help despite the best efforts of traditional counseling center outreach. Community Consultation and Intervention reaches into the campus community to intervene by advising faculty and staff who may be the only contact for a distressed student, taking on a nontraditional “student support” role in direct interactions with students, offering advocacy when university systems or other environmental stressors precipitate psychological problems, and providing case management and crisis intervention services on behalf of the university when troubled students are especially concerning and disruptive to their communities. The most novel element of the program—the student support role—is distinct from conventional counseling in that it privileges problem solving, support, advice, and advocacy over focusing on emotions and other traditional mental health interventions. Case studies and programmatic challenges are described.     

音乐疗法在学校心理辅导中的作用

音乐疗法是学校心理辅导和心理健康教育的重要手段。音乐疗法适合学校的教育情境，对于预防和治疗学生的身心疾病，调适学生的不良情绪，培养学生的健康情感和协作精神，促进学生的自我表达，开发学生的创新思维和创新能力等，具有非常重要的作用。     

Graduate Students on Campus: Needs and Implications for College Counselors

Graduate students compose an important segment of university and college populations. However, institutions of higher education often have not addressed adequately their status as adult students with different developmental and life issues and concerns. This article defines and describes the needs of graduate students, discusses implications, and makes recommendations for college counselors to more effectively address their range of needs.