Mental Health Difficulties in Students and Open Dialogue

I now supervise a University counselling and well-being service and I have been shocked by the level of referral and obvious psychological distress within the student population. Nationally within the U.K. the number of students declaring problems on arriving at university has surged. There is additionally an expectation that the students will be well supported because they are now paying considerably more for their courses. Unfortunately some universities are dispensing with their student counselling support services and providing wellbeing support and mentors instead. This is because staff you are fully qualified psychological practitioners cost more to employ. The welfare services should be in addition to counselling not instead of and is an abrogation of the university’s duty of care.

The whole student issue is a complex one in that students are now under considerably more pressure because of the debt implications of studying. The lucky few have parents that are able to fund the tuition fees for courses which average £10,000 per year, added to which there is the cost of accomadation and living expenses. The additional anxieties and pressures of the debt that most students leave university saddled with and cost of courses is something my generation did not have to consider because tuition was free. 

The university has a considerable body of overseas students where much of the income is derived and many of the issues that arise within the overseas student body are cultural. There are specific difficulties relating to particular ethnic groups which require considerable diversity awareness. There are also issues relating to the Family of Origin underlying many of the student presentations and this is why I am encouraging thinking in relation to some family training on an Open Dialogue framework occurring. The family training will of necessity incorporate a high level of cultural awareness and I will be involving practitioners from diverse backgrounds with different religious and cultural perspectives. There are other issues that also need to be incorporated in the training and that is the large number of students identifying as LGBTQ. In particular the huge increase in those students who identify as transgender or non binary, these issues are a comparatively recent development and many staff have had insufficient training to manage these presentations.