Counseling Center lends a helping hand

You’d be remiss not to avail yourself of every resource a large university has to offer,… You’d be remiss not to avail yourself of every resource a large university has to offer, including Pitt’s Counseling Center.

According to its Web site, www.counseling.pitt.edu, nearly 2,000 students each year take advantage of the center for lots of reasons, from garden-variety blues to relationship problems to lack of career or academic focus.

The center’s psychologists, counselors and social workers are available for confidential, individual or group therapy at no cost. Pitt’s Student Health fee covers 12 individual sessions per year and, if more treatment is needed, the center will assist students in finding low-cost, local care.

Students may participate in unlimited group sessions. There are academic and cultural groups, support groups for those in the minority when it comes to sexual preference or identity, groups for recovery from grief and sexual trauma and groups dedicated to drug- and alcohol-abuse issues.

Often, students are asked to participate in a pre-group screening interview to determine the appropriateness of a particular group for the student’s situation and of group therapy in general. Before any group begins, every participant signs a confidentiality agreement promising not to reveal group members’ identities or information to those outside the group.

It’s important for students not to be intimidated by the idea of counseling. The stigma associated with seeking help is counterproductive ? seeking help for a problem is an active, mature way to deal with a problem, as opposed to ignoring it and being bogged down or crushed by its weight.

Often, just talking with an objective listener a few times is all it takes to get some perspective on a problem and decide on a plan to address it. Few students need more than a term’s worth of counseling and, if they do, the Center has the resources to direct any student to appropriate assistance.

The Center is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and, during the fall and spring terms, there are evening hours from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Mondays. It’s located at 334 William Pitt Union. To schedule an appointment, usually within days, call (412) 648-7930.