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Listen
Preventing Suicide and Deliberate Self Harm
Laying the Foundations: Identifying Practice Examples
Project Report
10. University of Edinburgh Student Counselling Service
Target Group
The Student Counselling Service was set up in 1968. The service aims to work with students who have emotional and psychological problems, to restore them to good academic functioning as soon as possible. The service employs 10 counsellors (4.7 FTE), and offers a service to both undergraduates and postgraduate students.
Issues
Students who use the service are either anxious, depressed or both - a feeling of being out of control or being unable to cope. There are also a growing number of students who self-harm and are presenting with this. Anxiety or depression is usually the result of several stress factors - breakdown of relationship, isolation, complications in home life (family of origin or their own relationship) such as parents splitting, parents who are ill or who have died.
Services/approach
The service will see people for assessment within one week, and then offer counselling within two weeks. During assessment, the counsellor will assess how urgently intervention is needed, as well as whether the student is going to be able to get anything from the counselling.
The service offers brief intervention - 4 sessions initially. This is often enough for the student. Contact with the student can progress to 8 sessions if required.
The service doesn't usually enter into long-term therapeutic work as the resources for such work are not available, and for the majority of students, long-term work is not suitable. However, if it is clear that long-term psychotherapy is needed then the service will help the student to find an alternative service. Occasionally, it will be clear after a few sessions that a student has a long-term need, but that disengagement would also be harmful. The counsellor would therefore continue to see them. If such long-term work is undertaken, the counsellor would take a narrow focus, to help gain insight into patterns and origins of behaviour.
The service also refers a small number of students for psychiatric assessment for a mental health problem such as manic depression, OCD or schizophrenia. Counselling at the Student Counselling Service for students in this situation is usually an adjunct to help support them. For example, if they are experiencing an onset of chronic mental health problems, the service will help them to adjust to that new element in their lives.
When working with a student the counsellor would explore the primary problem, and look at factors such as environment, and at the student's own psychological process in order to identify the areas where the student is stuck. The idea would be to look for something that can be adjusted. Once the student comes to an understanding of why they are feeling the way they are, they often obtain immediate relief. Once it begins to make sense to them and they realise they are not 'going mad', their mood lifts and anxiety levels drop, and they are able to look at ways of coping. Most students in the process of being listened to will make sense of things themselves. The idea is therefore to support them through making changes and finding ways of coping.
The service aims to help the university community to recognise symptoms and to encourage students to seek help at an early stage. The service holds workshops for Directors of Studies and Wardens of Halls on how to recognise signs of potential disturbance. The service tries to send out the message to staff and students who have contact with students with difficulties that a robust, matter of fact approach is the best. The service also aims to increase awareness in staff and students about mental health issues and to change attitudes. The message that the counselling service always puts out is one of vigilance and care (within the counselling service and within the community). The counselling service can't see everything and they rely on others (staff and students) to refer students they are concerned about.
The network of services at the university is very important, such as wardens, and schools liaison workers, as well as bodies such as the Welfare Consultative Group which feeds in to the Student Affairs Committee (which feeds into Senate and Court). It is important to change attitudes at the top as well as other levels. At Edinburgh, counselling is firmly lodged within the institution - the ethos is that it is integrated. It is accepted without question that there is a need for such a service. This is very important when trying to encourage a change in attitudes in the university community.
The Students Association were keen that suicide prevention work should not place an extra burden on students to look after each other. So the Student Counselling Service intensified outreach work with staff responsible for the welfare of students and widened it to those with an administrative function as well as to students involved with Nightline.
The service ran a campaign from November 2000 onwards with a credit card sized card on 'what to do if you are feeling down' with phone numbers of places to get in touch with. Also, a radio campaign was undertaken at the beginning of the academic year. The campaign is on-going. The Students Association have taken over the campaign and are now also funding it.
The image of the counselling service has also been re-vamped. The service decided to take a more informal approach to students - eg comfy waiting room with music, a more relaxed atmosphere, rather than a quasi-clinical atmosphere.
Key features
For further information, contact:
Craig McDevitt
Student Counselling Service, University of Edinburgh
31 Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh, EH8 9JS
Tel 0131 650 4170
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