Mental Health of Students at ECSU

Neva Allendorf | Contributing Writer

Photo credit: Envato.com

What if a student is struggling with their mental health at university? How will Eastern provide resources for their students that suffer from these issues? My partner, Cali Volpicelli, and I were curious about this topic and took it upon us to investigate the psychological resources on the Eastern web. There we saw CAPS; this stands for Counseling and Psychological Services. My partner reached out to Bryce Crasper, the head of CAPS, director, and licensed psychologist, to schedule an interview. We asked six questions that we thought would be important for students to know.

Our first question was, who is responsible for the functioning of this agency? All clinicians that work here are responsible for the functioning of this agency, but everyone participates in all separate ways. They are all individually involved with students. Everyone pitches in.

Secondly, we asked what the goal/mission of CAPS is. Bryce answered that the CAPS provides counseling services to ECSU students, support mental health, promote academic success, and promote clinical and wellbeing of students. Providing professional and confidential counseling to students that are struggling with developmental, well-being, mental health, trauma, anxiety, etc. CAPS hopes to see student's flourish.

Where are these services and resources and how may one access information about this agency? This is our next question. CAPS services are located on the 4th floor of the web which makes it easily accessible for students due to it being in the center of campus, but also it being on the fourth floor making it private and not in a high traffic area. Online you can find the CAPS services through the Eastern websites on psychological services.

Our next question was, why is CAPS part of the Eastern Community? Bryce said that College counseling is something every college provides. Psychological well-being is something you need to be a productive member of society. CAPS prioritizes mental health. College would be terrible without these services.

The last question that we had of this particular topic before we moved onto our next topic was, how does CAPS fulfill their mission? Caps fulfill their mission by being as available as possible, getting the word out to students, leading and listening to their students. CAPS helps students with treatment with what we know is effective, and with what we know will help them. Help them through their own growth and development.

We had more questions to ask, what about COVID-19's impact on students and their mental health? Specifically, looking into the impacts of depression once again. He explained that COVID-19 taught us a lot, but it also hurts us as a society. We were lonely and separated from people and connections. Bryce said that college students experienced loneliness and disconnection, and that COVID-19 was the only time when we, as humans, were truly alone in our own places of isolation. He also said that it gave us empathy for what it’s like to be depressed and to struggle on that level. However, it also led to a kind of social skill atrophy. Bryce went on to explain that people are not necessarily adapted to forming connections or doing the kinds of things necessary to maintain relationships.

He also mentioned that COVID-19 gave kids screen fatigue and affected depression rates. However, he was not sure if there was a real increase in depression rates, noting that no significant differences have been found in diagnostic impressions. Another big issue he discussed was trauma. Bryce explained that he has seen a large rise in trauma and anxiety as well. The final thing he mentioned was that since COVID-19, trauma, anxiety, and depression have all increased, and that the struggle people face today is very real.

The next question that my partner and I asked Bryce was “do you see depression within students” and he said that he did and that they haven’t looked at the prevalence yet but that they do see major depressive disorders some mild and some moderate and some severe and that it is ranged recurrent. He also goes to mention that they see kids that are also struggling with what they call adjustment disorders with food which is not necessarily a full-blown impressive disorder but has a lot of depressive features to it, that you would not expect. Then we asked if he saw a change in academic performance between the fall and spring semester to which he mentions that in the fall semester you only have one break but in the spring semester its nice outside, and you have a couple of Monday and Fridays off but in fall it's like a marathon.

Finally, we asked Bryce to talk with us about some resources , he said there are many resources and that the one good thing about depression is that it has a lot of research and has a lot of study, training and manualized treatments that are shown to be effective and work, the CBT is the most common one that we hear about (cognitive behavioral therapy) and its one of those that's like ubiquitous in therapy and that everybody uses, there is also interpersonal therapy which is also effective, med management and that one is evanescent based, but in terms of rescores here at eastern its caps, they are good at providing referrals and if can send you if you need hospitalization. Finally depression us kind like a virus in that it wants to stay around its self-convincing so it'll convince you to not go out and have a good time, and that you can’t get out of bed and it's not worth talking to that friend so please if you need help reach out to caps, they are a good service to help.