Why aren't WE doing more?
Depression: defined as the "severe despondency and dejection, typically felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy" (New Oxford American Dictionary).* Depression affects 14.8 million American adults (6.7%) in a given year. On college campuses, 30 percent of college students reported feeling so depressed that it was difficult to function' at some time in the past year. Emory University alone had 8,300 appointments made in the 2012-2013 school year, with 1,276 students that actually showed up for these appointments (about 10% of Emory's population). Emory's Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) offers many programs and events for our students, but they do not offer long-term individual counseling: it only provides short-term counseling. After a certain amount of sessions have been reached, the student is referred out to several therapists that can provide long-term help; but as we know, these are not free and are sometimes not even covered by health insurance. And this is only for students who actually end up seeking help. Are we supporting students with mental health concerns at our university?
I call upon us as Emory students to fight the stigma and fight the battle against depression. I want us to combat this by first looking at whether or not the systems that are set up at Emory provide adequate resources and support for students that are struggling with mental health. We need to investigate whether these students are being supported and feel like Emory cares about their mental health. The Office of Health Promotion states on their website that in the 2011 National College Health Assessment that 91.2% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that Emory cares about their well-being. However, if students who receive therapy need to continue to be counseled after their sessions at CAPS have run out, are they truly being supported by Emory if they are referred to a service that they can't afford/can't get to because of lack of transportation? While low-cost clinics and low-cost agencies can be provided as referrals to these students, often the quality of the therapy goes down with lower costs. And shouldn't we be providing this at our institution anyway? We need to be able to support these students, and we're not currently doing this!
We all need to come together as a university to acknowledge that there is a lack of support in long-term health for Emory students that are experiencing severe, potentially life-threatening illnesses. Short-term counseling is simply not enough. While group therapy is an option for these students, many students do not feel comfortable witnessing and exposing their deepest emotions to potential classmates, or even former acquaintances! The bottom line is, if we want Emory students to be both mentally and physically healthy, more needs to be done to support students that are mentally unhealthy.
*Specific DSM-V criteria for depression can be found by clicking here.
I call upon us as Emory students to fight the stigma and fight the battle against depression. I want us to combat this by first looking at whether or not the systems that are set up at Emory provide adequate resources and support for students that are struggling with mental health. We need to investigate whether these students are being supported and feel like Emory cares about their mental health. The Office of Health Promotion states on their website that in the 2011 National College Health Assessment that 91.2% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that Emory cares about their well-being. However, if students who receive therapy need to continue to be counseled after their sessions at CAPS have run out, are they truly being supported by Emory if they are referred to a service that they can't afford/can't get to because of lack of transportation? While low-cost clinics and low-cost agencies can be provided as referrals to these students, often the quality of the therapy goes down with lower costs. And shouldn't we be providing this at our institution anyway? We need to be able to support these students, and we're not currently doing this!
We all need to come together as a university to acknowledge that there is a lack of support in long-term health for Emory students that are experiencing severe, potentially life-threatening illnesses. Short-term counseling is simply not enough. While group therapy is an option for these students, many students do not feel comfortable witnessing and exposing their deepest emotions to potential classmates, or even former acquaintances! The bottom line is, if we want Emory students to be both mentally and physically healthy, more needs to be done to support students that are mentally unhealthy.
*Specific DSM-V criteria for depression can be found by clicking here.