In order to ensure that students are maintaining their health during quarantine, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) has begun helping students through the use of teletherapy. This allows CAPS to provide mental health resources to students that need it while the Stevens community remains separated.
During quarantine, it’s important that everyone takes proper care of their physical and mental health. According to Health Educator and Case Manager Gabrielle Guider, “…an important thing that everyone can do for their mental and physical health is tend to their self-care. Self-care means something different to everyone, but the common theme is intentional actions that make you feel well… With our worlds flipped upside-down, creating a new, self-care focused schedule should be a priority.”
Guider says that self-care can include practices like getting enough sleep, practicing good hygiene, maintaining your physical health through regular exercise and eating well, connecting with family, taking breaks from technology, and utilizing resources such as the services provided by CAPS.
To help students maintain their health, CAPS has begun offering teletherapy to those that need it. According to Director of Student Counseling Eric Rose, “Any kind of talk therapy involves entering into a helping relationship with someone specially trained to help people get unstuck from various problems they are experiencing. Under optimal circumstances therapy meetings occur in-person. But in some situations, tele-therapy, or therapy at a distance, is a great alternative.”
While it took time to set up, these services are now ready for use by the entire student body. Rose states that, “Initially we were unable to offer therapy to new clients, but now that we offer teletherapy to new and returning clients, there’s been a noticeable uptick in students seeking counseling.”
In addition to teletherapy, CAPS is also offering other virtual services such as ‘Chat with CAPS’, where students will gather informally to discuss their experiences, and workshops on mindfulness meditation, resiliency, and managing relationships in tight quarters.
Students who are interested in starting teletherapy meetings can contact CAPS at 201-216-5177 or caps@stevens.edu to set up a brief screening or for more information on the services that CAPS provides.
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