Personal Counseling
Personal counseling involves meeting one on one with a mental health professional to address issues that affect one’s personal life. Themes addressed in personal counseling can include depression, anxiety, substance abuse, relationship problems, stress management, anger, or other topics relevant to one’s well-being.
Academic Counseling
Similar to personal counseling, academic counseling involves meeting one on one to focus on issues related to academic performance. This can involve working on time management skills, study skills such as note-taking and how to utilize one’s learning style, improving concentration, and other relevant goals to improve academic performance.
Couple Counseling
In couple counseling, two individuals meet with a counselor to address issues relevant to their relationship. Although relationship issues can be addressed in individual counseling, it is often more effective for both individuals in the relationship to work together in couples counseling. Although this will typically be a couple romantically involved, couple counseling can also be relevant for friends, roommates, classmates, or any other relationship of significance. Themes addressed in couple counseling can include learning to communicate more effectively, developing healthier behaviors, setting appropriate boundaries, and others.
Consultation
Students often deal with complex interpersonal relationships. These can include dealing with classmates and faculty/staff. The focus of consultation is on getting help for a specific interpersonal problem. Consultation is typically briefer in nature than individual counseling and is more problem-focused. Consultation can be a way to address issues such as how to communicate more effectively, how to approach a classmate appropriately about a behavior of concern, how to handle communication with a professor, or other relevant problems where specific advice or an opportunity to think through a situation in confidence would be helpful.
The Relax Room
The Relax Room is a space for students to learn and practice a variety of things to help with stress management and relaxation. There are a variety of services and equipment available for students to use to balance the stress of their studies and promote confidence and calmness in their daily lives.
Biofeedback involves using information from an individual’s body to assist in managing stress. The biofeedback equipment available for VMBS students features a computer program that measures heart rate and skin response through a sensor. A software program then combines this information with tasks that help the individual increase their awareness and control of physiological states influenced by stress. More information about our software can be found at the Relaxing Rhythms website.
Presentations and Workshops
VMBS Well-Being Services provides presentations to VMBS students on topics such as time management, study skills, stress management, maintaining healthy relationships, sleep, and other relevant student issues. If you are interested in learning more about presentations, please contact a professional counselor at vetcounselor@caps.tamu.edu.