Ep 85: Guiding Young Adults Through the University Experience: Insights into University Counseling Centers with Dr. Tim Hess

Listen in as I team up with the remarkable Dr. Tim Hess to unravel the complexities of university counseling centers—a crucial sanctuary for students in the throes of personal growth and academic challenges. This episode promises a treasure trove of insights for anyone fascinated by the delicate art of guiding young adults through the often tumultuous journey of higher education. We navigate the developmental milestones of those aged 18 to 24, and Tim, with his rich experience, sheds light on the transformative 'becoming' phase that defines university life. Amidst the serious discussion, we find moments of levity, sharing tales of Tim's unexpected enchantment with Disney and his unwavering passion for the Olympics.

As we dissect the structures and philosophies that shape university counseling centers, I draw parallels to healthcare, illustrating the necessity of a stepped care model in mental health services. It's a game-changer in empowering students with the appropriate resources, moving beyond individual therapy to a spectrum of support systems. Tim and I dive into the challenging task of aligning student expectations with the reality of available services, offering a candid look at the comprehensive care that shapes the collegiate mental health landscape. It's an enlightening segment that peels back the curtain on the inner workings of these essential institutions.

In the final stretch of our conversation, we explore the balancing act parents face as they support their young adults stepping into independence. We underscore the importance of resilience, self-awareness, and the empowerment that comes from learning through life's trials, even failure. As we wrap up, I extend my heartfelt thanks to Tim for his invaluable contributions and encourage listeners to reach out with their own questions and stories. This dialogue is not just a learning experience—it's an invitation to be a part of an ongoing conversation that shapes the world of university counseling and the future of our emerging adults.

This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
 
 Feel free to share your thoughts at www.makewordsmatterforgood.com or email me at Beth@makewordsmatterforgood.com

If you are a therapist or psychologist and want to be a guest on the show, please complete this form to apply: https://forms.gle/ooy8QirpgL2JSLhP6 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Hello listeners, welcome back. I'm your host, Dr Beth Tromeau. I'm licensed psychologist and an associate professor of psychology at Indiana University East, where I'm also the director of the Masters in Mental Health Counseling program, and I am here with my dear friend and colleague, Dr Tim Hess. He is.

Speaker 1: 0:30

We have been talking about doing a podcast together for quite some time and I'm just thrilled that one. I'm just thrilled that you're here because, frankly, I just love any moments I get to spend with you, but also because this topic is one that I feel like I know a lot about, but I probably don't actually know a lot about goes into university counseling centers, and it's an area that I haven't had an opportunity to work. I've worked with college students, but not in a university counseling center, and so I thought it would be brilliant for us to come and share a little bit about the work that you do and the work of really a university counseling center, college mental health, all the things that go with it. So Dr Tim Hess is here y'all, and I am thrilled. Tim, can you introduce yourself to folks and tell us one fun thing about you?

Speaker 2: 1:24

Sure Thanks for having me, beth. We have talked about this for a while and I am excited. Listeners may not know why we're so excited, because I realize I have known Beth for almost 20 years. It is wild. It is wild. I feel like we've became more friends in the past 10 to 12 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but like yes, we were in grad school around the same time.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Our master's program together.

Speaker 2: 1:46

Oh my gosh, life is a go. I know Lifetimes ago. It does feel like lifetime ago. We thought we knew so much and we knew nothing. But who I am? I am Tim Hess. I am a psychologist and most of my training and professional career has been in university counseling centers, and so I really like the setting. I like this age. I feel like the draw for me is the becoming.

Speaker 1: 2:10

Right.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Like that. Like 18 to 24 is like, well, like, who am I going to be now? Like I've been raised my whole life to think I'm supposed to be X but like maybe I'm not X. Like maybe I'm really Y or Z or a square, I don't know. Like, and that is such such this stage of life, and is so much fun. The more important things about me I married my wife and I. We have three kids. Those are the most important things about me in the world. And then the fun fact about me I am an adult Disney fan. And I became an adult Disney fan at the age of 35, which is a little planning our first kind of family trip down. So that is something that has been a new for my family to try to understand why, all of a sudden, dad is really into Mickey Mouse and he was never into Mickey Mouse before. So I guess something for me to unpack in my own therapy perhaps. But that's that's my fun fact. That's that's my fun fact.

Speaker 1: 3:01

I love that. I actually did not know that it was like a later in life kind of love for you, did you? Did you just wake up one day and get the magic dust from and kind of.

Speaker 2: 3:12

I think that's what my family would probably tell you, because I think there's a little whiplash sometimes, like for me I like systems, I like data, I like planning like that's some of what I do in my role at my job at a university counseling center, and so there's a lot if you plan a Disney trip if any of you have planned a Disney trip it is a lot of that and so and it's just a fun place to be magical things happen when you're there.

Speaker 1: 3:36

It really is. We have only been one time with the kids and there is a different feeling that happens when you are at the Magic Kingdom. That's that I definitely agree.

Speaker 2: 3:49

But maybe that'll be our next one.

Speaker 1: 3:50

You know what? Actually, I think there would be a lot of listeners who could use your expertise in Disney planning.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Oh my gosh, Don't get me started on that, Beth. It takes too long Okay.

Speaker 1: 4:02

But you're also a very avid Olympics fan, right? You also love the Olympics.

Speaker 2: 4:08

I do and I don't like sports, so that one I have a little more insight around. Like I am not a sports guy at all, but the Olympics I'm all about and I think a lot of it comes from my mom. So, growing up my mom she always liked sports, but the Olympics were a big deal for her and in her family and I think it was a lot about, like, the internationalness of the Olympics, that the Olympics are a chance to see competition but also to like learn about the world and the larger world. And so, yes, like we make the joke that my wife becomes an Olympic widow and so Paris this summer, y'all it's gonna happen again. Like I'm gonna be watching and streaming all kinds of content because it's just it's it's really cool. It's really cool to kind of watch all these athletes competing and some of those stories around you know, driving and pushing and achieving, and yeah, it's just a cool thing. I think I like summer more than winter, so so I'm excited.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Summer Olympics is better for you.

Speaker 2: 5:03

Yes.

Speaker 1: 5:04

I love this. I actually love the Olympics too. I there's just something really special about it, and so I'm starting to learn more about you.

Speaker 2: 5:15

After all this time, there's still more to learn.

Speaker 1: 5:16

After all this time, okay, I love this. Okay. So, 18 year old, getting ready to go to college, they show up on campus and there is this, this place called a university counseling center. And do you want to call it a UCC from here on out, just for the sake of conversation, or?

Speaker 2: 5:37

I can call it that right.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Yep, yep, okay. So university counseling center we're going to from here, call it a UCC. So there's this place called the UCC on on many college campuses, right, and so can you tell a listener here. Just let's start at the basics of what a university counseling center, what a person could expect?

Speaker 2: 5:59

Sure, no, that's probably a good place to start and I realize, also for some folks who are listening like you may have trained at a UCC, but if you've not been at a UCC in the past 10 to 15 years, it has changed a lot. Uccs came out of a history of like career and guidance focus, so that's where they've started. But you fast forward the decades and we look and function now much more like a community mental health agency, so like professionally. There's often lots of discussions about that and, and I should probably say so, while I do currently work at a university counseling center like, my goal today isn't to speak just about like that place or to like be a spokesperson for that place where I work, but to try to try to talk a little bit about the field more broadly. And so over time, university counseling centers have evolved, so they're typically a counseling center on a university's campus. Most campuses now have them. The names vary based on kind of who they are, kind of the.

Speaker 2: 6:55

A lot of the narrative is we've become much more popular and much busier and, if you think about it, some of that comes from historically, if we go back decades, and some of you who have been in the profession for decades, know this.

Speaker 2: 7:05

Like medication has gotten better, accommodations have gotten better, and so more and more people get to come to college, which is wonderful. Yeah, more and more people have access to higher education than they ever did before, and we know, with more and more people coming, we're also recognizing that, like people need supports, and so mental health support is always kind of one of those things, and so university counseling center is often a mix of professionals, are often multidisciplinary, so they can have psychologists, they can have counselors, marriage and family folks, social workers, counselor educators, like therapists, like lots of folk. Often many of them are multidisciplinary, which is really great, and many of them have graduate students who are learning to be therapists in them and so, like a lot of professions, like teaching, like nursing, like medicine, like the best way to learn to be a therapist and you can tell me if I'm wrong, beth, because you're at the front end of this system is to like be a therapist.

Speaker 1: 7:59

It's wrong, you got to try it.

Speaker 2: 8:01

Yes, yes, and so departments like yours, right, and often university counseling centers like ours, have training programs where we bring graduate students on who've got some experience and some emerging competence and then our responsibility is moving that training further down the line, and so often there's a mix of the professionals that are there. Some university counseling centers may also be integrated with the medical clinic on campus or the student health center on campus. Some are not. Kind of depends on the university structure. And psychiatry Some will have psychiatry.

Speaker 2: 8:34

Sometimes psychiatry is on the university counseling center and sometimes it's kind of in the medical end. Sometimes it's just one big happy shop. It kind of depends on each campus. So, and I think one of my hopes today too, is that therapists who have clients who are going to transition to higher ed or families who are going to be sending a student might have a better sense for how the systems work and what they look like. And then each campus often has a model of how they do their work and that model is often defined by the resourcing that they have from the institution, the values that they have as an institution and a center, kind of the philosophy of the work they do, and then often the context kind of context of the region or area they're in. So that's kind of broadly and I can talk more about specifics because I know that's all big stuff, but I don't know if there are questions at this point, beth.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Yeah, so can you give me an example of this sort of framework or philosophy that you're talking about, like the model by which a person receives services or gets the supports?

Speaker 2: 9:39

Absolutely so. In the past 15, 10 to 15 years there's been a pretty popular model that's come over, and actually it's becoming less popular now, in the sense of just like the work sometimes shifts. There's a model called stepped care. Stepped care is a model that comes out of European and kind of socialized medicine, and so everything from Europe is fancy, beth, and so we're, of course.

Speaker 2: 10:04

We love everything from Europe right as Americans we have a strange straight affinity with the place that we fought against for independence. But that's a different podcast, it's a whole different area. And so stepped care. And so stepped care is this idea that we often are looking for a least intensive, effective intervention to meet a need. The metaphor I often use to describe because that's hard for all of us to understand sometimes, is back pain. So if I have back pain I may go to my doctor and I might say all right, doc, cut me open Like we're doing surgery. Surgery would likely be an effective intervention. Surgery likely would not do harm. Surgery might resolve my concern. But surgery is, from my doctor's perspective, is probably like pretty high up the intervention scale. My guess is, what's going to come out of my doctor's mouth first is like Tim, here's some. Let me give you a handout on some stretches. These stretches are less intensive and effective. We're starting here, and so if I go home and I do my stretches, or if I go home and I don't do my stretches and then go back and say, okay, let's cut my back open, my doctor's probably going to say why aren't you doing your stretches? And make me go do my stretches. If I go home and do my stretches and it works great. Surgery may have helped, but I probably didn't need surgery. The stretches work. If I go back because the stretches didn't work, the doctor might say, okay, next we're going to try some medication. We're not doing surgery yet, yeah, right. Actually, first my doctor would probably say physical therapy, let's get you a little bit more support. Then to medication, right, and then if medication doesn't work, it might be surgery. But that might then be a referral to a specialist to do the surgery, to a surgeon.

Speaker 2: 11:40

And so, recognizing that sometimes in university counseling centers we use this model because the other thing that's true often about university counseling centers is we know that there are lots of folks in the community that do therapy and the most common type of therapy in the community is individual therapy, like that's what folks do. That's right. So there are some practitioners who can have a thriving group therapy practice, but that's harder often in the community. There are some practitioners that do really well with like workshops and psychoeducation in the community and like consultation. In that way that tends to be not as frequent that the most common treatment people get for therapy is individual therapy. For a lot of students they come to the counseling center with the assumption that I'm going to get individual therapy just like I got through high school. That's right.

Speaker 2: 12:28

The reality is because the university counseling center is really like a large group practice that functions in kind of a often a closed community of the university. That's right. We often have a lot more resourcing and a lot more options on the table. The menu is much larger. So, yes, we do individual therapy and we do group therapy, and we have workshops and we have on demand content and we have apps and we have peer support specialists that you can meet with, and we have, you know, student organizations that address mental health, and so often what we're working to do in the university counseling center is say what is your concern and let's get you connected to the best resource we have on campus, which may not actually be the thing you assume or you expect. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:14

And I could talk more about that, but maybe I'll pause there.

Speaker 1: 13:17

Okay. So here's the first thing I thought about Individual therapy may be easier or more comfortable for me. So I'm somebody who's saying, okay, well, I don't want to do all that peer support stuff, right, like, can't I just see you? So how do you help students who are coming in? And even you know, just like shifting the perspective of you know, because I knew that university counseling centers often did a lot of outreach. They did groups, which you know in private practice is often hard, because it's hard to bill insurance and to get people's schedules coordinated and blah, blah, blah. But I have to imagine there's some resistance to that kind of model. Right when they come in, they've been seeing a therapist for a little while. How come we have to do it that way?

Speaker 2: 14:08

That is a great question, Beth.

Speaker 1: 14:09

Thank you for the audience right Right.

Speaker 2: 14:13

Because these are legitimate questions I think some of it comes also down to. So university counseling centers often have to make decisions about how they're going to leverage resources, yeah, and so one of the dynamics there are multiple dynamics in the university counseling center. One of the dynamics we often talk about in university counseling centers is what is going to be our balance between treatment and access. If you think about, we have this much, you know so many hours of clinical time a week we can put onto the schedule. That's a fixed item, right, like we can't put more time right, right, we can't make time appear, right. And so how are we going to deploy that time? And recognizing that there are most university counseling centers that I'm aware of have a balance of treatment and access, so most university counseling centers are not able to tell campus look, we're full now, come back later, yeah, so most university counseling centers have to have some amount of access where a student can show up during finals week and probably get an appointment if possible. And so we university counseling centers, because our focus is the community, the campus community very few counseling centers will respond to. You know what? We're actually full right now, call us back in a month, two months, three months, four months, and we know that sometimes other models of therapy private practitioners right in the community have that ability. They can really lean into treatment more heavily. They can fill and work and work, and work, and work, and work, and work and work and work and really help people make do the whole thing that often in a university counseling center we do, a lot of us do what's called breathe therapy, but we're trying to say why are you here and let's help you work on that goal and help you make some of the progress and then cares dynamic. So you, yeah, like doing individual therapy with Tim would probably not cause harm and maybe you could do some individual therapy with Tim and download this mental health app and do some like homework between appointments or do some individual therapy with him and then maybe try group therapy next semester and start getting some support from peers.

Speaker 2: 16:29

So it is a disruption of expectation and most university counseling center practitioners will tell you.

Speaker 2: 16:34

We know that and I think a lot of it comes from this, this belief that we don't want the door to shut. We want students to feel like then sometimes there is a wait, like the door open doesn't mean you know like you can walk in and like people are just sitting here twiddling their thumbs to arrive. That model is really hard to build and no one likes that either. So it's often a complicated dynamic in trying to provide treatment and access for students and all of the students on a campus, and so most universities counseling centers will also have a scope of service where they've tried to define, based on our resources, our staffing, our context are there good therapy resources in the local community or not? Does our student population often have the means and ability to pay for care? So we're often making decisions about how we serve as many students as we can and the best way we can, recognizing that there are real limits that we're also working within. It can be tricky sometimes.

Speaker 1: 17:36

I mean I love this though. I mean, even as a person who was in private practice for a long time I can't tell you the number of clients that I had that I was like you really need a group, like you need to be around peers, you need to hear. I have 10 clients who need to hear kind of the same message around anxiety management and it would make more sense to bring them all here on a Tuesday at six o'clock. Tell them all the same thing.

Speaker 1: 18:02

But I think you're right. I think it really is shifting the expectations of what people think and I think there's this illusion that individual therapy is better or faster or it's sort of that like instant gratification. Isn't the right thing I'm saying, but you know, I think people have this illusion that individual therapy is the best way to get better, whatever better means in terms of kind of mental struggles that people are having. But I'm sure you've seen right, like people who take those steps to doing the group work or doing the video content or, you know, having more accountability to engaging in the things they know they have to do every day, that can be equally or even more powerful than an individual session with one of us, right?

Speaker 2: 18:58

Absolutely. I mean, I think, what we know from research. So they're the collegiate center for mental health, ccmh, is probably the largest national research group on college mental health. They gain data from like hundreds of counseling centers across the country. They have hundreds of thousands of clients in their database, and so, like, if you have a question about, like, what is the state of college mental health from a counseling center perspective, not general population, like they can answer that question. So they are consistently saying the top three concerns for college students across country are anxiety, depression and relationship concerns. The average number of sessions for years has been stable around five.

Speaker 2: 19:37

I think, too, like, wrapping your head around, like that's how the work often plays out, and so often I'm talking to students about I understand that it might be easier to talk to me one on one about this thing that's happening for you.

Speaker 2: 19:50

What we often hear, though, from students in group therapy and you know, if any of you have led groups before, you know this right Even after a first group session like, for many people, the ability to say and I thought I was alone, and I think, depending on your therapeutic style, clients can even feel alone in individual therapy yeah, like, not every therapist does the yeah, me too kind of thing and so for some clot and like we don't know, even if we do that, we may not reciprocate in the same way.

Speaker 2: 20:14

And so there is great power in individual therapy and not feeling so alone. That doesn't fix it for any of us, but I think for a lot of our students to the ability to say I'm having a similar either experience, history or like emotion is really powerful. And then partway through group, a lot of students will tell us like I haven't figured all my stuff out yet, but I can help someone else and that makes me feel good, I mean supported, and that feels good. And so I'm a big fan of group therapy as a really experiential treatment, as a really active treatment. And for some of our students, to your point, if they've done really good individual therapy before they come to us and like half of them have at least half of them have done it before yeah, maybe what they just need is a refresher.

Speaker 1: 20:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Maybe they just need a reminder. Like you remember that skill your therapist taught you. Like let's, let's bring that back. Like what if you started using that skill again? And so I think it is trying to sometimes help them understand what they already have, to actualize that, to empower them to use those skills and then to build connection as much as we can. But I hear you, it is a hard sell. One of the best things we can do with students with social anxiety is put them in group therapy, and what's the last thing somebody with social anxiety wants to do? Go to group therapy. I get it.

Speaker 2: 21:33

I get it and like let's at least have a conversation about the good and bad of both individual and group and let's make an informed decision about what's going to happen next, to really kind of think about how we move this forward.

Speaker 1: 21:49

Okay, so let's say I'm a person who is interested in UCC work. Many listeners out there might be people who are therapists in training. They may be therapists early in their career, late in their career. Sure, let's, let's talk about best and hardest. Best thing about UCC and kind of hardest thing about UCC.

Speaker 2: 22:15

Best things, best things. So one of the best things is many university counseling centers. Those positions are salary, so even if they bill insurance, my income is not tied to attendance. Right, if a student chooses to come or not come, it doesn't change what I get to take home and use to feed my family, yep, or go to Disney World, right, right, I think for a lot of folks that is one of the best things, right. I also think one of the best things is a lot of university counseling centers, because they're at institutions of higher education.

Speaker 2: 22:47

We're often working with students who have a lot of social capital and resourcing. Okay, yeah, so we are noticing more and more insecurity. More and more college students are reporting food insecurity, housing insecurity, financial concerns. So that is a thing higher ed is really wrestling with more and more. But for many students they live in the residence hall, they have a meal plan, so we have the ability and, like they need academic support, we have a learning center. So there is this sense of they often come with a lot of strengths to us already that we're capitalizing on that.

Speaker 2: 23:21

So the student population sometimes is kind of a fun population, if you want to use the word, fun to work with. So those are things and we do a lot of like therapist development and training. Yeah, if you like the idea of like supervising training therapists and training like it is so much fun to do the work in a context like this. Some of the hardest things are some of those like resourcing pieces. So typically, you see, c's are salaries nationally are not where we'd like them to be. You can make more money working at the VA than you can make work in a university counseling center. You can make more money in private practice often than you can make work in a university counseling center, though the reality is most university counseling centers in the country have open positions. So, if you're like and there are other benefits, like most universities will give a tuition benefit to family members. So I think too, sometimes thinking about like, if you've got like younger people in your life, where are they at in that sequence? Right, that's right.

Speaker 1: 24:23

So you know, adding tuition cost in might make it a really good deal or health insurance, retirement, like you don't get that in private practice usually you may make more money but you're also having to pay more money in taxes and benefits and that sort of thing.

Speaker 2: 24:40

Sure, so I think that that's a good thing. Pay sometimes is a little bit trickier to get, to get competitive pay with other places. I also think this resourcing thing can be really hard, yeah. So I think for a lot of therapists it feels tricky to like set boundaries and say no Right. It feels tricky to recognize, like I can't give you what you need, yeah, and so I need to like get you connected to a better option or do those pieces that those aren't always fun conversations, yeah, to have. But another good thing I will say is we often do a lot of prevention and public health work, yeah. So we're often on university committees presenting to classes and student groups. So if that's if you're an extroverted therapist like I am, that's a lot of fun. I like it. Now the office Like I like doing those things. There's a lot of reasons that I like it. But it's not a perfect job.

Speaker 1: 25:36

No, job is Well, but it sounds like there's a lot of variety also, you know, if you're not a person who wants to just do eight hours of individual work every day for the rest of your life. Right Like this job. You do a variety of different clinical things Right the supervision, the group work, the individual work, probably like crisis work.

Speaker 2: 26:00

Mm. Hmm, oh yes.

Speaker 1: 26:02

Because that's a part of UCC work also, right?

Speaker 2: 26:04

Yes, yeah, we haven't talked about that and more and more it is, and I think counseling centers are often looking at how we define that Mm. Hmm, oh, I think, recognizing most university counseling centers are not built to do emergency mental health work.

Speaker 1: 26:18

Okay, like, what's the difference between emergency mental health work and a crisis?

Speaker 2: 26:23

Great question. Okay, sometimes it's subjective, which is a challenge, but I tend to try to think about it in the sense of, if I break my leg, I could call my general practitioner and want something now, but my GP is going to tell me go to the ER. You broke your leg. Yeah, and so, recognizing, most university counseling centers aren't built for immediate evaluation, stabilization and containment like an inpatient psychiatric unit is. So if you're having a mental health emergency, then you need to go to the ER right or access an emergency resource like 911 or 988. Yeah, those are designed to be immediate. Now, in the moment, what's going on and what's going to happen next? Many university counseling centers will have urgent appointments or drop in hours and those sometimes function much more like an urgent care. So you come, you may have to wait, but we might be able to do something sooner. And recognize this is that treatment access thing. If a center takes time toward, like if you've got 500 clinical hours in a week, how are you going to ratio that time?

Speaker 1: 27:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:37

And so if we make half of it available for access, like we may use it, we may not, but the time is burned. I think there is this challenge in counseling centers can't always respond immediately, and I get that. For students and for families, that isn't always great, because often for a student or a family, like this is the biggest thing that's happening in your life yeah, so I get that for you, like this is the 10. I think sometimes what families and students and I don't expect them to understand is, yeah, what centers actually doing is. It's got several people who all want access to this thing, and so we sometimes have to make some choices and have different on ramps and access points to help students come in, and sometimes there's some delay and how quickly that may happen and it's and again, that's one of the downsides that makes it hard.

Speaker 1: 28:35

I don't know. So this idea of emergent mental health right or a crisis yeah, I have had experiences with young people where they feel very intense emotion, yes, about something. So, for an example, they just found out that their significant other was cheating on them. Let's just use this, maybe, as an example. I'm thinking about anxiety, depression, relationship issues as the key issues, and break up may feel like this is an emergent situation. I can also imagine a college student calling their parent and having very intense emotion. So how do we help people understand the difference between you? Know you're in an intense situation where there's an intense moment, but this doesn't meet the level. Like what would it? What would meet the level, then for a person to be like you need to go to the ER, or why don't you go to the counseling center on campus so that someone can help you?

Speaker 2: 29:59

Great question and often, sometimes the easiest way to get some answers to that is to call the counseling center and ask, or, like go to their website. Most of us have it on our website, right Like we've got a whole page of emergency and crisis resources that try to help people like find their way a little bit, and I know that, like often when we're in a really difficult experience, it can be hard to get that clarity.

Speaker 1: 30:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:20

And I get for a lot of families like if you sent your kid away, that's right.

Speaker 1: 30:25

My kid's 10 hours away, tim, like what am I? I mean my kid's not actually friends, but yeah, like I'm. Just if I'm a parent and I've sent my kid across the country and they're calling me at three in the morning because they just saw on social media and they're freaking out, I don't know how to help them.

Speaker 2: 30:43

Yep, yeah, yes, absolutely, and in some ways, I think what's interesting is like we can predict this. Yeah, like this trip. This is the biggest transition most of them are doing in their life away from their biggest support structure. Yeah, yeah, there will be challenge and difficulty, yeah, and so I think sometimes it is. If it's 3am, I'm a big fan of like go get some sleep, because everybody needs to sleep at 3am, like nobody's not my best parent self at 3am. No, like everybody needs to sleep, let's talk again in the morning.

Speaker 1: 31:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:15

Like how's that sound? Yep, because sometimes in the morning it's not maybe better, but like we slept, so now we can maybe check in. Sometimes I think it's about having a plan before they go. Yeah, so if things don't go well, like, what are the resources that are available on campus?

Speaker 1: 31:34

Yep.

Speaker 2: 31:35

Okay, and so helping students find those like. I think the goal is often like scaffolding and structured support. So how do you help the students start to work it out, because that's actually the adult skill we want them to have. Yeah, and so you know, have you looked into, like, the counseling center, what? How does that work there? And you know, have you called to talk to them or made an appointment? And so I think often it's also leaning into like natural supports already. So what has helped before and what might be helpful now? What do you need, like as a supportive person, like what would be helpful from me? Yeah, like, do you need me just to listen? Do you need me to like just tell you that that really sucks? Do you need me to like help you find some information that you can then access?

Speaker 2: 32:21

The other thing that's tricky is most universities, because the students are 18. The other transition is parents can't do it. Yeah, so we have parents who will call and say I'm calling to make an appointment for my child and our response is you can't do that here, they're an adult. Now they have to call. Yeah, if your students never done that before, if they've never had to call and make their own therapy appointment or make their own doctor's appointment or run a medication appointment with their prescriber. Like these are really good skills to prepare for that transition, because the university is going to expect them to do that and so it is.

Speaker 2: 32:54

It is very tricky, beth, and often, often UCCs will consult with parents about students. Right, like so tell me what's going on with your student. This is what I would recommend and usually that's a go tell them this. Like we, we don't do the cold calls. Yeah, like that often feels way too much. Like you're getting told on.

Speaker 2: 33:11

Like imagine if you were really struggling in your life and all of a sudden you got a call from a stranger who's a professional and they said hi, I'm Dr Hess and I heard through the grapevine that you're not doing well. Like that would probably not set us up for a positive therapeutic relationship, also because it sends an implicit message that you can't handle this. Yeah, and so I think wanting to be thoughtful about how do we help students set themselves up for as much empowerment, as much choice, as much control as we can, and absolutely like, if your student is not able to ensure their own safety or the safety of others, then you need to like call the police or call 911 or call 988, right like a university counseling center is not what you need. You need immediate emergency support and some folks need that and that is absolutely part of the continuum of care, but it is. It is often tricky.

Speaker 1: 34:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:04

It is often tricky.

Speaker 1: 34:05

So I love that you are sort of encouraging us to put like to train our teenagers, our younger teenagers, right, our 16, 17, 18 year old, our sophomore, junior, seniors in high school, to be prepared, you know, have them call to make their appointment, even at the pediatricians office for their well check this year. See if they can do it, coach them on the side. I actually just had actually just did this with my 16 year old where I said, you know, you, you try to make the call, and then she was like I'm just too nervous and I said, okay, hand me the phone and I want you to listen to what I do first, right, so show, then have them practice. So I love all of that. Let's think through this preventative part, right. So what you said is that you get to do some preventative things. Something else you said is you know, we can probably predict that it's going to be a challenge, right, and I love that.

Speaker 1: 35:08

You've said this a couple of times already that we're we're basically transplanting these kids, these young adults, who are in one of the most challenging stages of development, right?

Speaker 1: 35:19

So I teach develop lifespan every year, so I know that this, this emerging adulthood, is just a stage of development that is tricky, even without a history of any kind of mental health challenges at all. Right, just every student. You said at the very beginning like you love the becoming of this age group where they're trying to figure out who I'm I without my parents, where they got on my nerves when they were breathing down my neck. Now I'm like. Now I have to breathe on my own right and I have to live on my own. So what are some common things that folks can do, outside of what we've already mentioned, to help their student prepare for this transition, whether it includes a UCC or it doesn't right, what are some things that we can just prepare them for, knowing these challenges are coming yes, and while I am not trained as a social worker, I feel like my social work friends are much better at some of this than I have and I have had to learn is some of this public health stuff and this prevention stuff around.

Speaker 2: 36:25

So what? What could we predict like?

Speaker 2: 36:27

let's be thoughtful and like what do we already have in in the toolbox, right, please, the toolbox metaphor. So you know, I have a colleague who has since retired from the university but would often talk to families of orientation about you have to ask better questions. How will you know when it's time, how will you want to know when it's time to go talk to your faculty member because you didn't get a good grade? How will you know when it's time to talk to your roommate about the conflict you're having that your roommate may or may not know that you're having? Yeah, how will? How will you know it's time to go to the counseling center? How will you know it's time to tell us, yeah, something's not going well and so the, that transition of power, that transition of authority, and you get to decide now and then questions like so, like what have you tried and learned? What are you trying to learn? What's worked before, what hasn't worked before? And then like what's your next step going to be? So what do you want to do about that?

Speaker 2: 37:25

and recognizing those are such great questions him yes, yes, and it, but it's hard, right, yeah, because sometimes the answer we get back is not the answer we want to hear. Yeah, right, the answer we want to hear is I'm going to go do the thing that's going to make it all better for me. That's right. But sometimes the path is not linear and the path is not beautiful, and sometimes it's a path through some real challenge and difficulty. Yeah, and, and that's really hard, and with technology and with social media, sometimes we know more than we wish we knew, right, true, um, and so it can make it really hard to stand by and watch someone we love struggle, yeah, and continue to struggle and to make choices that we might not make, and to struggle and to maybe have to, like, recover.

Speaker 2: 38:12

But can we build a resilient and like a resilience based model? Can we build a growth mindset model where that's not failure, like that's healthy adulting? Yeah, we all learn through failure, that's right, and sometimes we need support and sometimes we need extra help, and that's okay. Um, but part of it, too, is figuring out what. How strong am I? Like? Maybe there's some things I can do, and and if nobody ever lets me try or tells me that I can. Maybe I don't learn that I can. Yeah, and I get like it is a dynamic tension, right. Yeah, yeah, um, but I think, asking parents often, I think sometimes to move to a support role versus a driving role, so so to to ride as the navigator, maybe, or to ride in the backseat and let them drive, and that can be hard. Yeah, that can be hard.

Speaker 1: 39:06

Especially, you know, if they're not navigating the way you want, oh my gosh. Yes, you know, I can imagine many parents that really struggle with that right, that they're like, well, okay, they can drive, but I'm going to navigate, I'm going to tell them exactly which way and how fast, and you know which turns to make. And I think in conversations I've had with both you know, emerging adults and their parents, it probably is one of the hardest things. It's what I have spent a lot of time with my clients about. Like, what are the expectations you have in your relationship? So I'll have my the 18 year old sitting here and I'll have mom or dad and we have to have these conversations and saying, okay, how often are you going to call? Because right now you talk every day and I'm going to tell you right now you may not want to talk every day and you may want to talk every day. So, like, let's have some real conversations around expectations. And then how do we get mom or dad into the back seat instead of in that navigator role?

Speaker 2: 40:15

Yes, expectations, absolutely, because, let's be honest, the conversation about expectations will not go well when it's activated. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:25

So if you have not texted or responded to me in two weeks like that's not a you're right, or, at 3am, a conversation about will you come pick me up and take me home? Like it's hard, and so, yes, absolutely. All that preventative work and trying to get everybody on the same page and having that plan and letting them flex some of their strengths, I think really can be a powerful moment.

Speaker 1: 40:48

How will I know how strong I am? How will the emerging adult ever know how strong they are, if we don't allow them to flex those muscles?

Speaker 2: 40:56

Yes.

Speaker 1: 40:57

Okay, tim, I have lots more questions, but we are very, very close on time. You know we were chatting about this before we got started. That usually at this point, you know, I have the guests say, like, how can people find you on your website? Or you know the work that you do and you actually have a very unique and lovely way that people can follow you. No folks about how they follow you.

Speaker 2: 41:20

They can. That is not at all related to mental health.

Speaker 1: 41:23

Which I love, but it is related to mental health.

Speaker 2: 41:26

Well, yes, it can be, but yes, so my wife and I bless it. So we have an Instagram account where we talk about tea and coffee, because that's what we like to talk about, and so it is like we're not doing mental, healthy things in the sense of like talking about the work, but it is silly and it is fun, and so if you want to see some people with some real low production value like not nearly as high as you've got here, beth you can find us and it is. It is a lot of fun. So, yeah, and I think I think it's called I should know what it's called, but nobody ever knows that they I think it's Tim and Jennifer, or Tim and Jennifer brew on Instagram, if you want to find us, and I mean do I have a silliness?

Speaker 1: 42:06

You're basically famous.

Speaker 2: 42:07

Not at all. Not at all.

Speaker 1: 42:10

Well, we will link it in the episode details here. I'll make sure that we get that correct because it is it is so lovely. I mean, I really do love you, know, just hearing, well, I do love your wife, I love you also, but I do love your wife because she's always a little more like, oh, I just really don't like that one, mm. Hmm, you'll just definitely keep it real, but anyway, okay. So there were so many things that I learned today and I felt like we're just so helpful, and I also still had like I still have questions, so we may have to come back and talk more. So, listener, if you have questions, feel free to reach out to me. Beth, at makeworthmatterforgoodcom, you can send me an email. I would love to hear from you. And Tim, thanks for saying yes to being here today, anytime friend Anytime.

Speaker 1: 43:04

What a lovely conversation. So, friends, thank you for listening, as always, and Tim appreciate you. I hope you have a great winter break season and, listener, stay safe and stay well Ciao.