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Wednesday. April 19, 1972
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'Sometimes life is tough'
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students with emotional problems, and it is I
at those time that the Office of Residence
Life, the Student Health Service, and
concerned fellow students offer everything
from free psychiatric help to a broad and
sympathetic shoulder.
. -. But life is also tough for proponents of
campus mental health, who have to face
hurdles of apathy as well as "a lack of
funds, a lack of space, and a lack of
commitment" on the part of the
institution.
-Students with problems ranging from
simply "no one to talk with" to severe
disturbances have a good number of
mental health services on campus.
According to Jane Poller, assistant
director of Residence Life, the student's
first resort can always be the Resident
Advisor, one of 140 students who are paid
a $1,250 stipend a year to handle dorm
paperwork, maintain order, and provide
students with "grass roots counseling" by
peers. Only 68 new resident advisors were
hired from 500 applicants, and they will
receive basic counseling training by next
fall.
John Meeker, another assistant director
of Residence Life, said the first goal of the
resident advisor is "to establish a sense of
rapport and trust," a crucial element in
showing students he can be "a sensitive
listener, a concerned someone ... for
normal sorts of problems."
Students can get draft, legal, sex and
drug counseling from specialized groups on
campus, most of them run by unpaid,
-volunteer students, faculty or chaplans.
ThY Academic Student Counselors are one
such new group for next fall unpaid
"alternatives to advisors in South
Building," according to Poller.
Besides specialized counselors who
indirectly contribute to mental health by
helping alleviate some of the more urgent
stresses on students, two groups handle
general counseling.
One is Switchboard, located at 408
West Rosemary Street and founded two
years ago by the Chapel Hill Drug Action
Committee. Originally begun to help ease
the town's rising drug problem,
Switchboard now also offers problem
pregnancy and contraceptive counseling,
draft counseling, help for young people in
finding jobs as well as a place to stay in
Chapel Hill, runaway counseling, a soup
kitchen five days a week, and a "crash
pad."
Another student counseling group,
more on campus than Switchboard and
staffed by eight graduate students paid a
nominal stipend, is the Residential
Counseling Service in the Morrison and
Morehead Residence Colleges. Serving as
an intermediate step between the resident
advisor and the psychiatric section of the
lnirmary, the counselors have been
praised by Poller as "people w ho care, who
give a lot of time, a lot of themselves, to
make the residence halls more human."
Funded this year by $15,000 from the
Office of Residence Life the Residential
Counseling Service aroused controversy
and gained a lot of supporters when the
office announced this spring the
unavailability of funds for next year.
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Tfie Counseling Service will now receive
$13,000 next year from a special projects
fund created from increased dormitory
rent. One administrator, however, called
the grant a "band-aid solution," and said
that funding beyond next year "will be
touch-and-go."
One problem noted by both Meeker and
Poller is the lack of "coordination" and
"centralization" between counseling
groups, with resulting duplication of effort
and wasted energy.
Ken Kastleman, a graduate student in
clinical psychology and a counselor with
the Residential Counseling Service, is also
critical of the lack of high level
administration support for counseling.
"Survey reports have consistently
demonstrated that there are vast and
unmet mental health needs on and off
campus," he charged, "needs which can be
met only by the concerted interest and
action of administration and students.
These needs exist not only because of the
inadequacy of current financial resources
but because of lack of coordination of
many existing mental health efforts and
the very limited encouragement given to
new and imaginative plans for serving
students."
UNC Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor,
who has been in office only a few months,
said Monday that no proposal for a
counseling program "has crossed my
desk." He turned down a request by RCF
Chairman Steve Saunders to form a
committee to study a counseling program,
referring Saunders to the Dean of Student
Affairs for appropriate action.
The mental health section of the
.Menu
The graph at the right represents the number of students each
month who visit the mental health service in the student
infirmary, according to figures over a 3-year period released by
psychiatrist Myron Liptzin.
In March, 1970, for example, 119 students used the mental
health facilities. Last month doctors saw 216 patients. The dip in
the 1971-72 curve for December and January reflects the semester
shift. March figures, LiptZi.i said, are unusually low because of the
semester break. He expects April and May figures to soar over 300.
The graph only shows the number of students interviewed by
the infirmary mental health doctors, but a graph of the total
number of interviews each month would be higher because each
student may have more than one interview during therapy.
The graph does not show what kind of students most typically
visit the mental health service. Those least likely to use the
facilities are students in fraternities and sororities, Liptzin said;
those most susceptible to problems are students in high-rise dorms,
followed by off -campus students and on-campusdorm students.
Defining mental health can often be as
much a problem as mental health itselt.
Even mental health professionals differ
among themselves.
Dr. Myron Liptzm. a psychiatrist on the
Medical School faculty and head of the
mental health section of the Student
Health Service in the infirmary, describes
mental health as "allowing each individual
to realize for himself or herself optima!
growth, development and relationships
with others in the absence of
incapacitating symptoms, and the ability
to deal with unexpected crises in an
organized, directed growth-enhancing
fashion."
Dr. Robert N. Wilson, chairman of the
School of Public Health's mental health
department, envisions "a state or process
of competent functioning, in relation to
other people and in relation to oneself."
The definitions often differ only in
semantics or by subtle shades of emphasis.
But the common concern of mental health
professionals psychiatrists,
psychologists, different kinds of
counselors finds focus in the blunt
definition of an impatient UNC freshman.
"Mental health," she said, "is the absence
of mental illness."
Mental health is not properl a problem
on campus. In fact, mental health
signifying a more or less successful mental
adjustment by students to the stresses and
strains of their college environment is
taken for granted by most students, who
fear instead the bogey words of mental
ahr Daiiii
o ttJiie
Student Health Service, the only official
psychiatric help available from ther
University as part of student infirmary
fees, is woefully understaffed and
underfinanced, according to its director,
Dr. Myron Liptzin.
"I'm aware of no university in the
United States of this size and this quality
that has as little in the way of mental
health and counseling facilities for
students." Liptzin criticized saying that
many administrators are aware of the
mental health needs, "but in terms of
funding and space, little has been done."
The American College Health
Association, a group of professionals
working in the area of student health,
recommends a minimal staff of one mental
health professional per 2,000 students and
a realistic staffing of one professional per
1,000 students. Chapel Hill, Liptzin says,
has a ratio of one professional per 5 000
students.
A committee of health professionals
which visited the campus for a three-day
tour of the infirmary in March of last year,
recommended that the role of the Student
Health Service be expanded and
diversified, among other things, with "the
increasing realization of the emotional
problems and stresses faced by students in
a university setting." The committee also
said "there is a need for additional
personnel trained in psychiatry, clinical
psychology and marriage counseling."
The UNC Board of Trustees - at the
Chancellor's recommendation approved
an increase in Student Health fees March
10 from $20 to $30 per semester in the
academic year. "This I hope," Chancellor
;al health
illness learned in elementary psychology
courses - words like "schizophrenia."
"manic-depressive," "psychosis."
"neurosis." or "paranoia."
The small, understaffed mental health
section of the student infirmary has
referred some 30 seriously disturbed
students to N.C. Memorial Hosp.ta 's
"South Wing" for extended treatment. But
emotional problems include more than the
obvious forms of mental illness.
In figures quoted by Harvard Doctor
Dana L. Farnsworth and applicable to
U SC. "f or every 1 0.000 st ud e nt s :
O 1,000 will have emotional conflicts
of sufficient severity to warrant
professional help.
O 300 to 400 will have feelings of
depression severe enough to impair their
efficiency.
O lOO to 200 will be apathetic and
unable to organize their efforts - "I can't
make myself want to work."
O 20 to 50 will be so adversely affected
by past family experiences that they will
be unable to control their impulses
(character disorders).
O 5 to 20 w ill attempt suicide and 1 to
3 will succeed (so far none of the 20
attempted suicides at UNC this year,
mostly by pills, have succeeded ).
O 15 to 25 will become ill enough to
require treatment in a mental hospital."
Dr. Liptzin also has his own statistics.
The infirmary has seen 1,461 patients
betw een September and March of this year,
already well over the 5 percent of the
aarifirri
Taylor said, "will provide resources
through which the Student Health Service
can improve and expand ' the services
available to students on this campus."
Earlier, according to a DTH news
article, new Director of Student Health
Services, Dr. James A. Taylor, had been
especially interested in using some of the
money in upgrading the infirmary mental
health service.
At present, Dr. Liptzin is the only
psychiatrist in the mental health section
and, as a member of the Department of
Psychiatry in the UNC Medical School he
works in the infirmary only half of the
time - the rest is spent mostly in teaching
and research. Two department
psychologists, Dr. Michael -Frombart and
Dr. Bruce Baldwin, also work half-time in
the infirmary, and Dr. William Eastman
does marriage counseling. They are assisted
by a slightly-increased staff of trainees and
counselors.
The mental health service is available to
all students free of charge. Although a
minimal waiting period of 3-7 days is
necessary for appointments, the service
provides 24-hour immediate emergency
coverage.
Only short-term therapy is available at
the infirmary, which usually includes a
flexible average of 4-5 visits. While there is
no fixed number of visits allow ed students,
patients requiring long-term therapy are
referred to private psychiatrists, the N.C.
Memorial Hospital psychiatric clinic or -in
some cases advised to withdraw from
the University.
Therapy usually consists of interviews,
though doctors may occasionally prescribe
(CD J
NC
needs are increasin
300
200
100
Sep
Oct
student body seen last year. But. Liptzm
says. "Probably 15 percent of the students
re having pr
to require some consu;titicn. in auanion.
probably 50 - 50 percent could benefit
from some counsel; ng at some time, such
as during an acute crisis situation."
At least ore estimate is higher. A survey
of students and their health opinions and
health needs, conducted last vcar b
graduate tudent Llod Comstock.
indicated "about 30 percent of the campus
have moderate to severe emotional or
personal problems."
The statistics sound ominous, and some
of them are. But the figures can't capture
all the reasons why students drop out. u h
coeds swallow bottles of pills and a
20- ear-old boy jumps several floors from
his South Campus dorm. Figures don't
explain how an intelligent student from an
average, middle-class family ends up
freaking out on a "bum trip" one night in
Memorial Hospital. Statistics also tend to
blur together, unable even to distinguish
adequately between the student who is
merely "feeling sad" from another whose
crippling depression has lasted several
days.
A 1970-71 program evaluation of last
year's Morrison Counseling Team does give
some idea of the variety of one dorm's
problems, ranging from "girl boy
problems" to depression, academic
concerns, premarital worries, drug-related
problems, interpersonal -relations, and a
"simple need to talk."
Stories
by
Ken Ripley
tademlt
mild tranquilizers or anti-depressants.
1 Students may be admitted to the infirmary
if necessary at no cost "to get them out
from under the sense of pressure they are
feeling."
Records are kept completely
confidential, Liptzin emphasized, and are
kept separate from the infirmary records.
They are not released to any outside
agency or person except with the patient's
consent, and only to another health
professional involved in the patient's
treatment.
Most students are voluntary
s e 1 f -r e f errals and make direct
appointments. A small number of students
must be persuaded to come in by resident
advisors, roommates, faculty or friends.
In a therapeutic interview, Liptzin des
not give advice, but tries "to help the
student clarify and identify the crisis
situation and to gain some understanding
of how it developed." Then Liptzin helps
the student "explore alternative ways of
coping with the problem."
Students can get help for their problems
at the infirmary mental health service, but
the main problem -there is the same as for
counselors mental health is a low
priority on campus.
"Improved mental health gets a lower
priority than a new pile of bricks," said Dr.
Robert N. Wilson of the School of Public
Health.
"Mental health has been on a back
burner, a low priority," agreed John
Meeker in the Office of Residence Life,
"and it should be among the highest
priorities."
1969 70
1970- 71
1971- 72
I - -x -
Nov Dec J.m Tcb
Number of student seen month
Trie
. the p
uatne wsr
Memorial Hospital, cccasio-.a'.ly the
Orarge-Pcrson Mental Health Center in
On a pel HJI. and vane us loa! private
psvchiatri.sts attempt to treat ers-tv-n.ai
disturbance as thev occur. But the rSe of
rrotes.s5or.ai -
st:
as -r.uch p'evcr.tative
rativ;
Group hke Sw itch-board.
Residential Ooune'.:n.it Service, th.
Jefur.ct "Talking Point." and
Ln:er:tv's Res. Jen: Advisor pr
3v:de counselors v :h varv jnj decree o
l l ii til..
no w sa i:ter
d;
- Irvine to
smooth out as much as possible the cul!
problems before thev can grow into 'arc
The college :u
filled with emotio
as p:a.
problems. Tvp'.cal tudents not or.lv face
the emotional upsets of late adolescence.
including
!:hi
identity and direction, but also the trec
inherent in a college atmosphere.
(lotr.g to college. Liptzin sa. "ir.vo!ve
leaving a relativelv stable, familiar
environment usually pretty well
structured, in which there is considerable
support and contact with j variety of
different people - and coning to a new
environment which is relatively
unstructured, with considerable freedom
and a marked lack of meaningful, on-gomg
contact w ith aJults."
"Today's student."' one campus
observer noted, "may attend classes as
large as 300 or 400. live m a dormitory
with 2.000 others, select what to study
from a catalogue of courses two inches
thick. His life is punctuated by queues,
mobs, and forms. He stands in one line to
pay his tuition, another to get his
dormitory assignment, receives his grades
from a computer printout, and may do
more writing on application forms than m
English composition.
"He can attend classes a full year and no
faculty member will call him by name. I -"or
many a 17-year-old who has never been
away from home before, the plunge into
such icy water can be devastating."
Compounding the problem is student
isolation. Liptzin notes the lack ot
living-learning relationships between
students and faculty. "Students," he says,
"have very few models for identification
outside of the classroom setting, and
faculty members, because of their own
work loads, responsibilities, and interests,
don't have the time nor many of thenithe
training, to meet students on a personal.
intimate level and assist them through this
difficult time in their lives."
Students are also isolated in their
dorms, Liptzin says, in "whole groups of
students with virtually no one to talk to
but peers - many of whom are struggling
with the same problems they are."
A greater opportunity for more
intimacy, coupled with an adolescent drive
to establish sexual identify and a "capacity
for achieving closeness or sharing intimacy
with other individuals," can lead to growth
or to emotional problems. "While the
change by putting more responsibility on
the individual is generally healthy,"
Liptzin says, "some students aren't able to
cope with this degree of freedom and
change."
"College freedom can be threatening,"
explains Dr. Wilson in the School of Public
Health, "because it leads to ambiguity."
Noting that the "task environment"
inherent in University lite passing
courses, taking tests, receiving grades as
well as the transitory and confusing nature
of an "artificial" environment can cause
unusual stresses on college students.
Wilson believes that most student
emotional problems are "more fairly niilJ
and temporary kinds of upsets - more
crisis-caused than long-term disorders."
"A certain amount of stress." Liptin
points out, "is beneficial. Our aim is not to
eliminate stress - but to help resolve the
stresses that exist. Our aim is not to make
psychiatric patients of students."
Sometimes therapy begins with simply
recognizing, "Life is tough."
ft w.
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Apr