College campuses are little cities of their own. We can live on them, access food, go to the gym, do laundry, attend community events, receive medical care, and seek help for our mental health… but only to an extent.
Most university counseling centers impose a session limit. Essentially, each student is allowed a certain number of sessions with a psychologist throughout their time at the university. After those run out, they must seek outside services. The rationale is that counseling centers are meant to help students deal with issues, not to provide longer-term treatment.
But something about this picture seems very wrong. Why shouldn’t schools provide long-term treatment? We pay health and wellness fees. The university (and the payments it requires) provide for all of our other needs. In fact, in most cases, we need not leave our mini-city for any reason beyond our own desire. It would seem natural, then, that we could receive all the care we need for our mental health. Yet this is not the case.
“But wait,” you stop me. “Maybe the outside mental health practices are better suited to the needs of students seeking long-term treatment.” That may be true, but it doesn’t mean it’s actually the best option for students, mostly because it is not as available. For example, students may not have insurance plans that sufficiently cover the costs of getting off-campus mental health treatment, meaning that they cannot afford to move over to a separate practice. Students also may not have enough money (or time between classes, work, and activities) to travel to these outside locations. Really, this is just one more way to leave behind students from lower income backgrounds.
Additionally, students may put off seeking the help they need when it is not so readily accessible, only adding to the already-endemic issue of mental health on college campuses. The widespread nature of this problem begs administrators to consider expanding their mental health services. With such a high percentage of students in need of help, I see no reason why universities should not at least consider growing their counseling centers into sites of committed treatment, both long and short term. If mental health concerns were rarer, I may understand why universities would decline to provide a full range and extent of on-campus services. But with growing numbers of students in need of such services, this marks a strong need within our mini-communities.
The problem of counseling center session limits may represent a misunderstanding of the gravity of mental health. It is indeed a health and safety concern- which universities are obligated, at least morally, to address for their students. If they are to be true communities, universities will devote themselves to, at the very least, providing for all of their students’ basic needs- including mental health.
