College students struggle with mental health issues
I keep getting emails about articles from the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, a publication I’d have no knowledge of if it weren’t for the pleasures of Al Gore’s Internet. They do some good mental health reporting, like the article below about college kids and therapy.
When I tried to avail myself of the mental health services at Oberlin, where I went to college, I found myself crudely disappointed. I had had a hallucination, and was constantly depersonalized and derealized (technical terms for feeling like your life is someone else’s). I was fairly desperate for help.
My shrink there told me I had issues with my mother. Well, duh. She put her tacky polyester jacket on an empty chair and said, “Pretend that jacket is your mother. What do you want to say to her?” And all I could think of was, “Mom, where did you get that jacket? It’s horrible.” The shrink didn’t like that.
The photo here is of the Allen Art Museum at Oberlin, where I passed many peaceful hours looking at beautiful paintings. It was much more valuable than student health services, without question.
Mental health a rising college student issue [Fort Wayne News-Sentinel]
Liz | 6:14 PM | Uncategorized
So, yeah, I discovered this entry late. I only found your column after it was linked from Cute Overload - (long live The Cute). But I thought I should let you know that I also had a horrible experience with Oberlin’s psych services. I was having panic attacks all through my freshman year, and when I went to Counseling Services, the guy just wanted to talk about my mother and stepmother and then gave me a tape of relaxation exercises. Not Helpful.
Over the summer I finally went to a psychiatrist who gave me a prescription for Prozac. Cured.
I hope they have gotten better since then (this was in 1997). They need to kick out the Freudian psychoanalysts and bring in some cognitive behaviorists, stat!
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