SAFETY NET

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"I think a lot of Rice students suffer in silence, needlessly so. ... Somehow there's a sense of shame in [seeking counseling]," Dr. Lindley Doran said.

Doran is director of the Rice Counseling Center, which alongside the College Assistance Peer Program, tries to help students deal with the emotional side-effects of college life. Except for group sessions after suicides and other deaths, though, their work is usually quiet.

Only 28 percent of the RCC's 200 undergraduate clients last year came in with serious problems such as clinical depression, eating disorders and substance abuse. The majority of student clients enter the office with milder concerns about typical college issues like academic stress, family problems and relationship doubts, Dr. Doran said.

Doran says Rice students may be particularly vulnerable to emotional difficulties because of the personality traits that seem to follow from being the "type" of student likely to be admitted.

"You have to be a high achiever and a pretty compulsive person to have gotten this far," Doran said, adding that students are generally at risk since difficult personal issues including sexual identity and career choice "come out from under the surface in a college environment."

_J ane first visited the RCC as a freshman when she found herself unable to function. She struggled to get out of bed, had frequent nightmares and became frightened and lonely. "I basically cut off a lot of my friends. ... I felt very exposed to being hurt," she said.

Jane was sexually abused as a child and raped at age 16. "I came to college and it resurfaced. ... I was falling into this deep pit ... emotions from the past were all piling up at once," she said.

Often she was angry with men, she said, recalling a time when she completely overreacted to a man who kicked her on the shin in a non-threatening way. Her friends and boyfriends were unable to understand her condition, sometimes finding her behavior confusing.

She remembers that her college secretary and roommates first brought the RCC to her attention. Soon after, she began working with Dr. Doran.

Jane said the RCC helped her out of the pit by providing her with a place to "feel safe about what you say and do." She said she was surprised to find so much effort to help her. "Lindley [Doran] has been wonderful."

_J ohn was reluctant to visit the RCC, feeling that "[going] means I have a problem," even though it was his roommate's breakdown which first led him there.

Last year, at the end of spring break, his roommate, a philosophy major, began acting "weird," having spent the entire break working without sleep on a personal research project about St. Teresa of Avila.

"He was comparing his life to hers," John said, explaining that his roommate began calling people in the middle of the night to talk about the saint.

During the school week that followed, his roommate disappeared for two days and reappeared injured and incoherent, having been beaten up and robbed near campus. John spoke to his rommate's parents, who asked John to keep his roommate there until they could come. That day, Dr. Paul Homsy, the RCC psychiatrist, came to intervene, bringing John's sleep-deprived and hungry roommate to a nearby hospital.

During the incident, John had also lost sleep and fallen behind in his work. "I wasn't really functioning," he said, "you could read [distress] all over my face."

Two weeks later, on the advice of a Resident Associate, he visited the RCC. He felt uncomfortable at first, thinking "I hope nobody sees me walking [to the RCC]" and finding it "kind of nerve-wrecking sitting in the waiting room."

Within two days, he began regularly seeing Dr. Robert Zozus, a staff psychologist, and continued working with him weekly until the end of the semester. At first, he spent time going over the incident, working at "not blaming myself," and later they discussed more "personal stuff," helping him to understand his priorities.

"It got me through the semester. I couldn't have done without it. ... They helped me help myself regain my own focus," he said.

_T oday Dr. Doran and Dr. Zozus are two of four full-time psychologists at the RCC. Counseling is offered to both graduate and undergraduate students, as well as to their family members when necessary. The service is covered under the health fee paid annually by all students.

Individual counseling is generally limited to 12 sessions per year. Exceptions are made when students would be unable to pay for care elsewhere or have a well-established relationship with a counselor at the center.

Students can also participate in an unlimited number of small group therapy sessions which meet weekly, often focusing on specific concerns such as coming out, eating disorders and "interpersonal growth." Dr. Homsy, the center's lone psychiatrist, comes in once a week to consult with students needing or considering medication.

The RCC's different psychologists all serve the same primary purpose, but each may listen to students using a different framework, according to Dr. Michael Winters, assistant director of the RCC, whose admitted bias is toward existential and humanistic psychotherapy. Some of the other doctors utilize theories on psychodynamic or cognitive behavioral therapy, he said.

Winters said that he tries to help students discover their own "freedom of choice," saying that often "we try to deny that we can choose what we do."

In particular, he's interested in the way that "human beings are trying to create meaning in their lives" and that "the individual has to make a choice about whether to accept customs, values and traditions they've been taught before and new ones here at Rice."

Winters, along with the other three counselors, teaches part of the Rice course Psych 480, Advanced Topics in Psychoanalysis, said Dr. Doran This is a part of the RCC's effort to be more active in the school community, which she says distinguishes Rice's center from those at other universities.

Doran said that she wants to conduct research to collect more information about students and to determine the prevalence of common problems ranging from clinical depression to alcoholism. The RCC does not really know the specific needs of the student body, she said.

In particular, she believes that international and minority students could be better served. "I feel that minority students have unique needs," she said.

_A nother of Dr. Doran's goals is to strenghten the College Assistance Peer Program, which is a "peer counseling" service coordinated by Dr. Winters and the RCC. Doran prefers to call them "informed listeners" to emphasize that they are not trained therapists.

"We're there to provide emotional support. We've been trained in how to listen and we're also sources of referral," said Christine Garcia, a Lovett college CAPP representative.

She said that CAPP members are kept informed through workshops about specific issues like eating disorders and suicide.

CAPP members are also familiar with local resources, like the Houston Area Women's Center and Alcoholics Anonymous.

Students don't often come to see them specifically as CAPP members, saidGarcia and Kara Miller, another Lovett CAPP rep. Only four to five unfamiliar people per semester visit her as a CAPP member, Miller said.

Instead, Miller "allots time in the week to hang out by the benches and talk with the people there," she said, adding that she tries to notice when people are down or behaving differently.

One concern is that students "sometimes expect that I have answers," which is untrue, Miller said. Garcia would like to improve student awareness of CAPP, although she believes it's improving because "last year we had a big push during O-Week."

For the first time, CAPP is coordinating forums and discus-sions for students this year. On September 24, the first forum was held on "How to Succeed at Rice." It was not well attended, however.

"I would say that CAPP serves a huge role in the colleges, but it's pretty subtle ... I think it should be that way," Miller said.

_T he student counseling center at the University of Pitts- burgh describes counseling variously as "sharing your thoughts and feelings in confidence," as a means to "certain types of information," as an aid to changing certain feelings or behaviors and as help for "long-standing problems and crises."

Dr. Winters said he aims to "create an environment where you can be who you really are" without worrying about what others will think. Doran often helps students do some "personal stock-taking" as they work at forming their own identities.

Sometimes she encourages students to use literature "to better understand what they're going through." She also emphasizes the importance of confidentiality, saying that fear of the "rumor mill" is one barrier to student usage of the center.

Jane said that people often ask about counselors, "What do they do? What do they say?" to which she responds, "They hold a ladder up for you, but you have to climb it."

Not all of her experiences were positive: Hearing other students share their experiences in group therapy often made her feel depressed, she said.

John felt uncomfortable for several sessions. "I didn't look him [Dr. Zozus] in the eye," he said. He often doubted the counselor, who would occasionally challenge what he said, particularly when discussing his priorities. John, however, acknowledges that he has since been forced to think about "why something's important."

On the bright side, he found his visits "relaxing," citing the ticking clock and the agreeable color scheme on the walls as causes.

Most of his sessions consisted of simply recapping his week. "You leave feeling better than when you came in," he said.

"I'm always telling people to take advantage of it [the RCC]," said Jane, who reminds friends that, outside of Rice, people typically pay well over $100 per hour for psychiatric care. She also said that people should not think that they do not have "reason enough to go."

"For some people, failing a test is very serious and upsetting. ... You can't say something is more important than another," she said.

John agreed, saying, "Even if you sort of think you have a problem, it's worthwhile. You only lose an hour of your time."

This item appeared in the Features section of the October 27, 1995 issue.

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