Boston University Student Health Services aimed to remove the stigmas associated with mental illnesses and encourage students to seek help for their emotional and mental problems during Mental Illness Awareness Week, an SHS representative said.
Since 1990, the first week of October has been dedicated to MIAW by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a grass-roots advocacy group in the United States dedicated to representing families and people affected by mental illness, according to its website.
Margaret Ross, the director of behavioral medicine at SHS, said BU’s main event for MIAW was the National Depression Screening Day held at numerous locations on campus on Thursday.
“In the past few years, the work on campus to de-stigmatize the seeking of help for emotional problems and mental illness has increased dramatically,” she said. “We know that students generally go for help to their peers, and we are focusing efforts on making this campus a more informed and empathic place to be.”
SHS screened about 215 people, a huge increase from last year, she said.
Between one-third to half of the individuals screened were referred to counseling, she added.
Relationships ending, poor grades and being far away from home are reasons college students often feel overwhelmed with stress and anxiety, said Dori Hutchinson, director of services at the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation.
Hutchinson said that while there are “fabulous people on campus” to help, students don’t always take advantage of these resources.
“We are delighted to see so many people stopped by and took their mental health pulse,” she said. “We see this as a sign that the message that our mental health is a critical resource to our wellness and our academic lives, is gaining some traction at BU.”
Hutchinson said screening day is used as a means to promote a culture of wellness and should be just as important as getting a check-up.
SHS offers counseling services with full assessments for every student who comes in, Ross said.
“From the assessment, we formulate a plan for how best to help the individual student,” she said.
SHS uses groups, medicine management, crisis intervention, intermittent treatment and workshops to help treat students, she said.
College of Communication junior Cassie Davison said she thinks people with mental illnesses should not be labeled as abnormal individuals.
“I think they’re just normal people with some issues. . .they just have a harder time with coping but I don’t think they’re very different from everyone else,” she said. “People just need to learn to be more patient and not just categorize them right away. . .everybody’s different, and people just need to give them a chance, keep an open mind and just be able to understand them a bit better.”
College of Arts and Sciences freshman Juliana Barbera agreed that mental illness was an everyday issue that should not scare people.
“My brother deals with a lot of challenges that make him difficult for others to relate to,” she said. “For me, they’re just people that you need to interact differently with. . .it’s all about just trying to figure out the way that they see things so you can relate to whatever they’re going through.”
Hutchinson said mental health is important to a person’s overall wellness.
“You won’t perform well on the field or in the classroom if you don’t feel good,” she said.
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