Counseling center promotes wellness

Willis

With a new name this year, the University Counseling Center (UCC) is making the University community more aware of its role as consultants to faculty and administrators working with students. Psychologist Lisa Willis '91, '99 (PhD), UCC director and director of clinical training, talks about the center.

What type of services does UCC offer?

The center's main role is to promote wellness and overall good health with prevention and intervention services and to provide individual, couples, and group therapy as well as psychopharmacological services to students and their spouses who pay the mandatory health fee.

Most of our direct service consists of time-limited treatment where we focus on a particular goal, help students through a crisis, or teach them important coping skills. We also provide a wide range of consultation and outreach services for academic departments and student activities offices. And we have a Web site that has an advice column and valuable links to other mental health-related sites.

And for those not paying a mandatory student health fee, such as most faculty and staff?

Typically, if a faculty member or staff person calls, we suggest the Employee Assistance Program as a first source of information. There is no cost for the first visit, and the program can provide support and an appropriate treatment provider.

The center recently adopted a new name. What prompted that change?

We started talking about the change when the University Health Services student health advisory board suggested it. The board believed that the old name, Counseling and Mental Health Services, might be an obstacle for some students seeking treatment. We polled students and staff and came up with University Counseling Center, which has been very well received.

Who is on the counseling center's staff?

We have four full-time psychologists and a psychiatric nurse practitioner and psychiatrist who are with us on a part-time basis as well as postdoctoral fellows and interns completing their Ph.D. or Psy.D. in clinical or counseling psychology. A substance-abuse specialist has joined our team, which is a new resource.

Where are some of the center's ongoing campus connections?

A great deal of time is spent consulting with faculty and administrators who work with students. We have strong relationships with Residential Life and the College, and we assign a consultant to each of the dorms and to each student activities office.

We present educational programs throughout the year to build on these relationships and to aid in prevention efforts. Our faculty has appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine and Dentistry. This is an important relationship for us, and we work with the medical school and the Department of Psychiatry in teaching and supervisory roles.

Can you point out new efforts under way?

We have really worked to upgrade our Web site, www.rochester.edu/ucc. We plan to keep adding material strictly as an educational tool--the site is not meant to replace formal mental health counseling.

Look for our newest section, "Helpful Information," for material about various concerns and useful coping skills.

If people feel the need, can they reach out to the center at any time?

And when there are tensions or emergencies on campus, such as the plane crash last fall, we act immediately to support those in need.

As a psychologist, how do you view counseling in a University setting?

There's something special about the college population that appeals to me. At a counseling center like this, we can help students with important development issues such as concerns about their identity, questions about the future, and growing tensions that arise from becoming more independent.

Students are incredibly bright, insightful, and motivated to understand themselves better and to make changes. I have always enjoyed working with adolescents and young adults. It is so important to continue to be hopeful about the future of each and every one of these individuals.

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