Making the most of your experience.
Whatever counseling format you choose, we encourage you to attend all of your scheduled sessions or reschedule if needed. The following recommendations can help you make the most of your experience:
- Honestly and openly voice your thoughts and feelings in counseling.
- Between sessions, think through the concerns you are addressing and write down what you want to focus on during your next session.
- Complete any counseling homework your counselor suggests.
- Experiment with new and positive ways of doing things and thinking about things.
- Give your counselor feedback about how counseling is going.
When you participate in individual counseling, you will meet with a trained professional who can help you work through personal, emotional and relationship problems that can interfere with your academic success. In these sessions, a counselor will help you develop individualized goals to address the specific concerns that prompted you to seek help. Individual counseling can help you learn how to effectively manage stress and other emotional symptoms, resolve relationship issues, and become a stronger problem-solver and decision-maker in your daily life.
During our busiest times, the frequency of individual counseling sessions may be limited to bi-weekly or even less often. If you desire more frequent counseling contact, please consider one of our group counseling options.
Couples counseling can improve your relationship with a partner, spouse, friend, or roommate. We can help couples explore their concerns and goals, as well as improve communication and skills for resolving conflict. Other areas addressed in couples counseling can include:
- Making decisions about the relationship
- Strengthening emotional connection
- Problem solving skills
- Learning to meet each other's needs
- Gaining new perspectives to enhance the relationship.
Free short-term couples counseling is available to any couples with at least one enrolled UW-Stout student.
Group counseling is a free and confidential opportunity to meet others who have similar experiences and to utilize peer interaction to work toward personal growth. For many emotional and relationship issues that college students face, group counseling is the best treatment choice. While some students are initially hesitant to join a group, past participants have consistently told us that their group experience was very positive and beneficial.
We have different types of groups depending on what you hope to get out of the experience. Most groups have 5-8 members and meet once a week.
Some of our groups require a pre-group screening session with the group leaders to determine if a particular group is a good fit for you.
The professional staff of the Student Counseling Center are available to all members of the UW-Stout community for consultation and intervention recommendations surrounding issues that concern the personal and emotional lives of students.
Our consultation services are aimed at increasing the University's capacity to create a culture of caring that promotes a healthy living and learning environment for students, faculty, and staff. We believe that promoting student mental health and well-being is the shared responsibility of every member of the UW-Stout community and we are prepared to support you in this role.
Services Include:
- Consultation
Faculty, staff, parents and friends who have concerns about a student may consult with a Student Counseling Center staff member by calling 715-232-2468 during business hours.
Consultative services are also available to help parties affected by campus crises.
- Helping Students in Distress
Use our online resource to find further information about common causes and common warning signs of student distress as well as guidelines on how to assist them.
Confidentiality
All records are kept confidential and are not part of university records. With rare exceptions, no information is released to anyone outside the Counseling Center, including other university offices, faculty, staff, or parents without written consent.
Exceptions to confidentiality include life-threatening situations (i.e., when someone is deemed to be an imminent danger to harm themselves or others; or in cases of suspected child abuse) or appropriate court order. In these cases, Counselors may disclose information to protect a client or others from harm, or to comply with legal mandates. Student Counseling Center staff members may share information with each other for the purposes of consultation and training.