Have you ever felt stressed, lonely or anxious during your time at Fairfield? Do you feel that the adjustment to college life is just too much to handle?
If so, rest at ease because you are not alone. This is how a sophomore female, who wishes to remain anonymous, felt last year.
“I encountered many issues as I tried to adjust to Fairfield,” said the student, who eventually turned to the school’s counseling services for guidance.
“For a while, I tried to deal with them [the issues] on my own, but it became too much to deal with,” she said. “After I spoke individually with one of the counselors, I felt as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.”
Each year, Fairfield’s Counseling and Psychological Services, or CAPS, treat students dealing with a variety of problems.
According to Dr. Elise Harrison, assistant director of the Counseling Center, students can visit for any reason, but there is a common thread linking the three most popular reasons students seek help.
The most common link deals with the adjustment period students encounter when going away to college. Often, students have long-term relationships they do not know how to handle, problems living with roommates, homesickness or difficulty finding their niche on campus.
Anxiety issues and depression are the next two most common reasons students visit Dr. Harrison and counseling services.
College-related stress and separation from home can overwhelm students, causing them to retreat into depression or become anxious, Harrison said.
According to Harrison, CAPS is a “safe, confidential place for students to talk about issues that affect their lives.”
“In terms of specifics, we have a very comprehensive service that provides psychological counseling with licensed, experienced clinicians,” said Harrison.
In addition to individual sessions with one of the licensed clinicians, with which the University provides time to students with up to 12 sessions per year, CAPS offers group therapy sessions. This includes a grief group, a body image group and a stress reduction group.
“Students do activities together such as lunches, coffee houses, music events and meetings,” said Harrison.
She also said CAPS has a very innovative program designed for students with substance abuse problems.
The program includes a harm reduction group and a recovery group for students who need support in abstaining from alcohol or drug use, and a living clean group for students supporting each other in sobriety.
Students from each grade take advantage of what CAPS offers and say they often find that the services are very useful.
The individual sessions really helped another female sophomore adjust to life at Fairfield.
“When I was having a crisis last spring, I was able to talk to someone who helped me,” she said. “I have benefited from the counseling service because they really are there at all times.”
On Oct. 18, the CAPS will be holding a depression screening in the Barone Campus Center. The event is part of the Mental Health Screening Organization. It will provide students with questionnaires to help the counselors be more in tune with common issues students and how to solve them.
Click here to go to learn more from Fairfield University’s web site
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