Terraka Garner
Life Editor
Your heart rate increases, your skin temperature decreases allowing your blood to flow to the large muscles; adrenaline is pumping through your veins: do you fight, do you flight or do you freeze?
Idaho State University’s Director of University Testing and Counseling, Donald Paulson, said the “fight, flight or freeze response” is any living being’s natural response in a moment of crisis or confusion.
“Have you ever been driving down the road and a squirrel runs across the road? What do they do? They stop and you’re saying ‘hurry up and get going’ but that’s the freeze response,” said Paulson. “A very common response that people forget about during traumatic events, rape for example. It’s the bodies natural shut down process to cope.”
Idaho State University has much to offer in providing mental health services for students. The Counseling and Testing Center (CTC), located on the third floor of Gravely Hall, offers opportunity in an array of ways for students to get the individual tailored help they desire.
The CTC averages from this year’s annual report totaled 4200 appointments made within the past three years coinciding with an average of 7.7 percent in sessions per person.
“Typically, our students will come in for, on average, seven sessions. We’ve got some students who we’ve seen for two or three years and other students who come in and get what they need or what they want or maybe they just quit because they don’t want to face the issues yet,” said Paulson. “It’s perfectly legitimate; some of the issues they have to face are difficult.”
Some students’ feel like counseling is not beneficial. These individuals are commonly known as the self-proclaimed “problem-solvers.”
“I’ve known the center has been on campus, but I don’t feel like I need counseling,” said ISU student, Sam Anguiano.
Students needing assistance in anything from dealing with PTSD or traumatic circumstances, to coming to terms with sexual orientation and gender identity, to relieving thoughts of self-harm or suicide to accepting loss and grieving to just wanting someone to talk to can reach out to the CTC at no cost.
If the CTC can’t assist, faculty in the center will reach out and contact a professional who can lend a helping hand.
“We work real closely with the University Health Center in terms of medication, that would be the major referral we would use. We really don’t do alcohol and drug treatment as a primary, but everybody that has a license either as a counselor or a psychologist is trained to work within that frame of reference,” said Paulson. “If it seems like the situation is more complex, then we might make a referral. Those are about the only referrals we will make unless we have a wait list.”
Next to clinical counseling, which is the client to therapist one on one consultation, the CTC offers group sessions and trainings such as an open mindfulness group, also open to faculty, a mindful living group for people dealing with excessive amounts of anxiety, and suicide awareness trainings lasting 60 to 90 minutes.
“Sometimes people attend group only and sometimes they’re in individual counseling which is a place where they can work on the skills and the relationship,” said Paulson. “The stuff that they’re learning about in their individual counseling.”
One of the CTC’s newest developments is their “Biofeedback” stress relief center. The center focuses on teaching a person what his or her baseline is so that the person can then delve in to learning how to control their stress. The Biofeedback concept can allegedly help minimize migraines.
“We were fortunate to get some funds, because my budget is very small. We were invited to write proposals for how to spend some money and we spent roughly $25,000 on the equipment and the training for Biofeedback,” said Paulson. “The one I love, it’s called Dual Drive. It’s a computer game and you’re driving the automobile and as long as your heart rate stays in the calm zone, the car just does all of its ups and downs. If you get too excited, it crashes and you’ve got to calm yourself down. It’s a way of training you for real life when you get excited.”
The testing portion of the CTC tests for placement. The center offers licensure exams, the GRE, the MCAT, a GED test and cosmetology exams among other tests.
There is a common uncertainty between which center offers what when comparing the three different clinics on campus that work with mental health circumstances. These are the counseling department, the clinical psychology unit and the center for new directions.
Paulson said, in regards to the CTC, “We’re the designated go-to for students,” adding that when there is a wait list, students will be recommended to these three clinics.
Confidentiality is a widespread concern among college students, according to Paulson. He said the CTC is legally and ethically bound to keep anything said or done in a session confidential unless the client is at imminent risk to harm him or herself or others.”
“The breaking of confidentiality is always out of concern for the student’s well-being and I’ve got such a good staff that I would never second guess,” said Paulson. He added, “I think the bottom line is we want to create a service that allows students to achieve their professional goals and their academic goals. For some students, academics are the only place where they have any sense of confidence or self esteem; the rest of their life sucks so they’re [at the CTC] for that but for the majority of students, their concerns are impacting their academic progress.”
The University Counseling and Testing Center may be reached at 282-2130.
