UpDate - Vol. 14, No. 6, Page 7
October 6, 1994
Counseling center offers students important, short-term assistance

     Many students perceive counseling as a long-term project that
will consume hours throughout the academic year. In fact, shorter,
more intense forms of counseling are being used widely at the
University of Delaware, to meet the needs of students who have
problems, according to John B. Bishop, assistant vice president for
student life.
     This short-term counseling, Bishop said, "often focuses on the
problematic developmental experiences in the lives of students and
teaches them how to cope in a more effective way.
     "We're moving away from the concept of counselor as healer and
toward an emphasis on self-sufficiency. Rather than having counselors
take the responsibility for healing, students are expected to take
more initiatives. We look at counseling not only as problem solving,
but as a learning-to-cope process.
     "In short-term counseling, we are often able to focus on specific
problems, while identifying things that the student will be able to do
to help him- or herself out in the longer term-a form of psychological
homework to some extent."
     Typical short-term counseling at the University lasts for an
average of four, one-hour sessions. It may go as long as six to eight
sessions, with an upper limit of 16.
     "In short-term counseling, the counselor has to create all of the
required conditions of long-term counseling, but in an abbreviated
period of time," Bishop explained.
     "Outcome studies in psychotherapy demonstrate that short-term
counseling models are effective with college-age individuals," Bishop
said.
     "In fact, there is a lack of evidence that long-term models are
more effective. More and more, college and university counseling
centers are engaging in intentional short-term counseling."
     In a study designed to evaluate students' perceptions of the
effect counseling had on their decision making about higher education,
Bishop and Sharon K. Walker of the center assessed 187 students who
requested counseling during a recent academic year. The students
surveyed were considering dropping out, transferring to another
institution or concerned about the possibilities of academic failure.
     Of the original 187, 150 (80.2 percent) were still enrolled as
full-time students one year following their initial contact with the
center. Only 37 students (19.8 percent of the students who defined
themselves as retention risks) did not re-enroll at the institution
during the next academic year.
                                                          -Beth Thomas