Peer Counseling and Support Groups
If you still feel overwhelmed despite efforts to manage your stress, you may want to seek outside help. Peer counseling, often available through the student health center or counseling center, is usually staffed by volunteer students with special training that emphasizes maintaining confidentiality. Peer counselors can steer those seeking help to appropriate
campus and community resources or just offer sympathetic listening.
Support groups are typically organized around a particular issue or problem: All group members might be entering a new school, reentering school after an interruption, struggling with single parenting, experiencing eating disorders, or coping with particular kinds of trauma. Simply voicing concerns that others share can relieve stress.
Peer Counseling and Support Groups Photo Gallery
Professional Help
Psychotherapy, especially a short-term course of sessions, can also be tremendously helpful in dealing with stress-related problems. Not all therapists are right for all people, so it’s a good idea to shop around for a compatible psychotherapist with reasonable fees. (See the box “Choosing and Evaluating Mental Health Professionals.”)
Is It Stress or Something More Serious?
Most of us have periods of feeling down when we become pessimistic, anxious, less energetic, and less able to enjoy life. Such feelings and thoughts can be normal responses to the
Many people seek help from professional therapists when dealing with stress-related problems.
