A day in the life of a college therapist can be quite busy. They will see five to seven clients in a day, conduct testing with patients to see if they have learning disabilities and even coordinate outreach programs to let students know of the help they provide.
Doug Booth, a clinical psychologist from Clinical Psychologists P.C. in Auburn, said it’s difficult to notice any trends with patients during the summer semester.
“One thing I’ve noticed is anger,” Booth said. “People tend to reach their saturation point and decide they need help from a therapist."
Doug Hankes, a psychologist and director of Student Counseling Services at Auburn, also said it was difficult to generalize the population during the summer months.
“I know a lot of clients here during the summer are sometimes burnt out because they have to take classes right after the spring semester,” Hankes said. “So it can be stress-related depression sometimes.”
During the summer the SCS do a lot of work through their outreach program in order to notify freshmen at Camp War Eagle about the services offered at counseling services.
Eric Bloch, another therapist at SCS, spends a lot of time during the summer working as the outreach coordinator. Along with that, he is also seeing multiple clients throughout the day and attending staff meetings.
“A lot of people don’t know the full scope of the services we have,” Bloch said. “We do outreach to anyone that makes a request, we have drop-in groups for anxiety, drop-in groups for adjustment, and we even have a meditation group at the rec center.”
In the past year, seniors are the class that attends SCS the most, making up 24 percent of the patients.
“You could argue that the longer you are on campus, the more likely that you’ve learned about SCS and decide to use the services,” Hankes said.
One thing Bloch has noticed this summer is that there is a little more uptick in clients that are experiencing body image concerns. He said it is usually because they are outside more.
All three of the psychologists said depression increases more toward the end of fall, closer to the holiday season.
“For a lot of people with depression, that depression gets better just because of exposure to the sun,” Booth said. “Because it regulates serotonin levels. As the daylight savings time shifts to standard time, people get less sun exposure, and the nights are longer so we see more instances of depression.”
All three of the psychologists also mentioned that there isn’t much of a difference between their college-aged students and older clients.
For Bloch, he said it’s the life experiences that differentiate his college clients from his older ones.
Hankes said he has worked with college clients to start making more conscious decisions based on their personal values. His younger clients have needed more guidance.
Booth said his college clients tend to be more tech savvy but have more problems with adjustment.
“Older clients seem to have more chronic issues,” he said. “Like chronic depression or chronic anxiety. With young people, we can see it come and go. And in 10 to 12 sessions we can fix that.”
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