The first places many students turn for help are Counseling and Psychological Services and the University Health System. But for individuals experiencing symptoms of severe mental illness such as depression or bipolar disorder, these general service offices might not be enough.
Although they might not know it, students have one of the country’s best resources for mental health counseling at their fingertips.
The University of Michigan Depression Center is the country’s only comprehensive depression center. It formed in 2001 to focus clinical and research efforts on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of depression in college students.
“The age of onset tends to be when an individual is a young adult,” said John Greden, the center’s director and chair of the Psychiatry Department. “(An individual’s) general vulnerability can be made worse by drugs, alcohol and loss of sleep, which are common stresses during the college years.”
The depression center draws from numerous disciplines and departments, including the medical and nursing schools, public policy, social work and psychology, to combat depression and bipolar disorder.
In addition to its clinical services, the center conducts extensive research on the possible causes and impact of depression on college-age students. Previous studies have addressed seasonal depression, the effects of sleep deprivation on mood, academic- and trauma-based stress and social stigma about mental illness.
“We are changing public awareness, but we still have a lot of work to do,” Greden said.
Besides the greater visibility of services such as CAPS and UHS, Greden said students’ lack of knowledge about the center might stem from the inadequate attention to depression in our society.
Depression is underdiagnosed and undertreated, he said, which may contribute to the misunderstanding and stigma of the disease.
Each year, the center invites representatives from academic institutions around the country to speak on issues of mental health and counseling services at the Depression on College Campuses conference. The event allows students, administrators and faculty from the University to learn what mental illness services are available at other campuses and how the University might improve its care.
“The conference has opened up a dialogue for these issues and how colleges should deal with depression and other mental illness,” said Psychiatry Prof. Rachel Glick, who served as co-chair of the conference. “Anything we can do as a community to help support our student body is really important, and this only gets accentuated when there is a loss or disasters.”
The theme of the 2006 conference, scheduled for Mar. 21 and 22, relates to the ways a campus community copes with the immediate and lasting mental impact of crises, such as Hurricane Katrina, September 11, suicides and fires.
The event, co-sponsored by the Michigan Center for Public Health Preparedness, will feature speakers with first-hand experience in dealing with disasters and traumatic loss on college campuses.
One of this year’s scheduled speakers is Victor Schwartz, director of Yeshiva University’s Counseling Center and former chief psychiatrist at New York University. Schwartz’s previous work has frequently focused on the mental health of college students.
At the conference, Schwartz said he plans to address how administrative and counseling bodies can work together to ensure the proper steps are taken to provide students with good mental health care and prevention education.
“The fact that there may be a death on campus, or even two or three in a brief period of time, doesn’t mean the University is doing something wrong or that the counseling services are somehow faulty,” Schwartz said. “It is impossible to create a system to completely prevent this from happening.”
Schwartz added that when the campus community faces a series of traumatic events, students need to be sure they not only seek the help they need, but support and care for others as well.
Because of the recent suicides of two University students, Glick said she expects students and faculty to express interest in suicide-risk assessment and prevention at the conference. However, suicide is not the main focus, she said.
Greden said because the majority of people who engage in suicidal thinking are depressed, the center focuses on addressing the underlying factors of the depression -factors that are treatable in most cases.
Currently, the clinical and counseling entities of the Depression Center are based out of the various colleges and the University Hospital. That will change Nov. 4 when the University unveils the center’s new home – a $41-million-dollar structure equipped with a sleep laboratory, clinical services and offices for educators.
The three-story 112,500 sq. ft. Rachel Upjohn Building, which will also house the ambulatory psychiatry services, will be located near the East Ann Arbor Health Center.