SHAC reduces student counseling sessions

Student Health and Counseling placed tighter limits on services last month in order to meet increased demands on a stagnant budget.

SHAC slashed counseling and psychiatric sessions available to students in a 12-month period from 20 to 12. The limit applies to psychiatric sessions that monitor the effects of a student’s medication, SHAC Counseling Director Harry Linneman said. He said SHAC wasn’t given enough funding to cope with a 25 percent increase in students requesting services the past three years.

“We have been impacted for three or more years now with the increase in demand for our services rapidly accelerating, and the severity of problems we are dealing with,” he said.

SHAC now screens students requesting treatment for mental-health issues using the triage system. The system helps SHAC spot urgent cases and determines if SHAC has the resources to solve a student’s problem.

UNM medical school candidate Kate Doggett said that the triage system provides immediate help.

“The triage system works pretty well,” she said. “It allows students to receive counseling the same day unlike the old system where help was delayed.”

UNM graduate student Christina Juhazi-Wood said the limits are a mistake.

“The mental health professional assigned to the case should determine the number of sessions required to treat the patient,” Wood said. “Placing a cap on counseling sessions isn’t responding to the variety of needs facing the UNM students and staff.”

Linneman said the limit is preferable to turning students away, which would have been inevitable under the old system. He said limiting the number of counseling sessions a student can receive in a year or a lifetime is typical for major universities. He said UNM’s 12-session limit is higher than the national average.

“For some students who really would like to have weekly counseling services all year long, it feels like a radical reduction, and a lot less than what they think they need to solve their problems,” Linneman said.

Linneman said the majority of cases are resolved within five or six sessions. He said the limits will not prevent SHAC from carrying out its mission statement, which is to help students succeed in school. Linneman said the SHAC offers workshops in stress management and anxiety reduction in order to help more students.

“We have to prioritize services for those students who are at risk of not being able to complete school because of emotional or other problems they are having, or who might represent some kind of danger,” he said.