When you need help

Trauma, culture shock, social isolation, anxiety and procrastination are some of the problems for which students seek help.

Next week marks Mental Illness Awareness Week in Canada, an event designed in part to draw attention to the stigma often surrounding mental illness. The university environment isn’t exempt from this bias.

“The stigma is lessening but still there,” says Victor Day, director of Dalhousie Counselling and Psychological Services.  “Our clients are concerned with confidentiality.” 

Dr. Day says while some use the term "mental illness," Counselling Services prefers “psychological problems.” “It’s a matter of degree,” he says. “Students may be anxious or depressed to a moderate degree without having an illness.”  

A popular misconception is that visits to Counselling Services spike during exam periods. Dr. Day says exam anxiety accounts for less than 10 per cent of visits. The stream of students seeking help (more than 1,500 in 2008) remains fairly steady through the year. “There is usually a combination of academic and personal stressors that have been going on for awhile.” Traumatic events such as a sexual assault or family death may also lead students to seek help. 

Culture shock and social isolation are areas of concern for visiting international students whose “performance pressures” can be exacerbated by second language difficulties and negativity around seeking treatment. Says Dr. Day: “Some students come from cultures where there is traditionally more stigma associated with seeking help for psychological problems.”   

Some things are looking up. Dr. Day has seen a long-term trend across North America in which more students are seeking help than they were a generation ago. He also notes that there are people with diagnosed mental illnesses coming to university who might not have done so in the past. Dr. Day sees this as the result of early intervention—notably, increased support services for adolescents with mental illness.  

The recent story of alcohol poisoning among students during a party at Acadia University raises the question of substance abuse on Dal campus. “Not a large portion of our work is related to drug or alcohol abuse,” says Dr. Day. What happened at Acadia, he says, “is not terribly unusual. A lot of students get intoxicated a lot. It’s not necessarily indicative of an alcohol abuse problem.” Counselling Services sometimes sees “the effects of irresponsible drinking” in clients seeking psychological help after experiencing a sexual assault or acquiring a sexually transmitted disease where alcohol was involved. 

Counselling Services tries to develop programming based on client needs. While most students prefer one-on-one counselling, there are a number of group workshops targeting commonly identified problem areas such as managing anxiety, eating disorders, the experience of grief and loss and procrastination. The latter item might cause an eyebrow to rise.  Procrastination as a psychological problem? 

Dr. Day  says procrastination is “an almost universal phenomenon among students.” In a survey conducted among service users, one quarter of self-identified procrastinators said their habit “causes significant problems” in their lives. 

“Procrastination is a behavioural effect with many different causes,” he notes, citing performance anxiety, depression, career indecision and anger about academic pressures as among potential contributors to the problem.    

For those not comfortable with coming into the Counselling Services office for help, an online self-help program will be introduced within the next few weeks. “Feeling Better” will target those experiencing mild to moderate anxiety or depression.  The service is based on a pilot project launched last year. “It’s an idea whose time has come,” says Dr. Day, who sees this self-educational program as having “the same benefits and limitations as self-help books”.  The human touch is still important, however. “Most people still want to talk to a human being,” he says. 

Mental Illness Awareness Week runs from October 4 to 10, 2009.