Reply to Depression and college choice

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Depression and college choice"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How did you go about choosing and applying for colleges if your DC deals with depression or other mental health issues? Thanks[/quote]

My child has psychosis. I am limiting his search to schools within 3 hrs of MD. I feel better if I can visit easily to make sure he is okay. He is going to need to find a new psychiatrist if he does go out of state though. [/quote]

Good choice. However, tele-psychiatry is a game changer. [/quote]

If your kid is a high achiever, I would not rule out highly selective schools. These schools have more resources, including health counseling. Their mental health counseling - no charge to students - is better than the ones through a private health insurance that costs $300/session. [/quote]

But be careful: increasing numbers of students want and need to access counseling and other mental health services (and this goes back to before the pandemic).  Even well-funded, selective schools may have trouble meeting campus mental health needs, especially at difficult times of the year (midterms, etc.).  Students need to seek care promptly and self-advocate; they can even be dropped from counseling schedules for missed appointments just because there are so many other students in line for help.

Don't depend only on the campus counseling center, no matter how good it is, if DC has a clinical mental-health history.  Make sure you have other, additional supports in place and on call, especially a prescribing psychiatrist (likely overbooked in a university environment) and an emergency therapist, telehealth service, or default red-button helper.  This is for weekend or evening issues when DC might not prefer to activate the campus emergency systems: it can take several steps to get emergency mental-health help after hours at college, and in some cases means having to start by calling the campus police (which many students might not want to do).  Colleges want to help, but there never seem to be enough resources to go around.

And for those whose DCs don't have a mental-health history: don't overestimate resilience and stability in a new environment.  Make sure before they leave that DC knows how to recognize signs of depression, anxiety, and crisis "so they can help their friends" (when you're really teaching them also for themselves).  Make sure when they arrive at college that they know exactly how to contact the counseling services, including nights and weekends, what services are available, and how in-demand they are (so that they do not wait to ask for help and then find themselves without a place).  Stay in touch; be prepared to listen; and encourage intervention at the first signs of trouble.  The less assumption that everyone is fine, and the more routine we make conversation about mental-health care, the better off everyone will be.

- College prof[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics