What Students are Talking About
Family: Leaving home, divorce or separation, blended families, affairs, addictions, abuse, moving, holidays, financial stress, significant life events, understanding each other.
Interpersonal Relationships: Roommates, disappointing friendships, dating, engagement and marriage, breaking up, handling conflict, handling anger, overcoming shyness, risking intimacy.
Identity & Self-Worth: Questions about who I am and why am I here, questions about what I believe or do not believe, questions about achievements and failures, questions about belonging and being loved.
Depression: Can’t sleep, can’t get out of bed, can’t concentrate, “I don’t care.” Suicidal thoughts, self-destructive actions, medications, “I can’t stop crying.” “I’m the only one.” “What’s wrong with me?”
Body Image: Overeating, undereating, binging and purging, diets, compulsive exercise, laxatives, “I’m so fat I hate myself.”
Anxiety: Stress, procrastination, worry, obsessions and compulsions, panic attack, post traumatic stressors, “What if….?”
Decision-Making & Planning: Adjusting to college life, academic and career choices, to add or drop a class, choosing a major, quit or join a team, whether to transfer, withdraw or go off-campus, “What am I going to do after I graduate.”
Grief & Loss: Large and small. Losses that come with life transitions such as moving or growing up, and losses that come through divorce and death of significant others.
“Hard to Talk About” Concerns: Unplanned pregnancies, sexual assault, pornography, sexual identity, mental illness, alcohol, sex.