Student Counseling Center

What is Counseling?

Student Counseling Center utilizes a short-term model of therapy. This means that counseling is goal-focused and brief. Counseling, whether individual, couples, or group, focuses on resources, solutions and strategies to deal with your presenting problem. While your intake counselor will ask about many areas of your life, the focus of therapy will be on working toward your specific goals. In order for counseling to be effective, it is necessary for you to take an active role. Participation involves discussing your concerns openly, completing assignments, and providing feedback to your counselor about the progress of counseling. Many students find group counseling an effective format for making changes and achieving their goals.

Your First Appointment:

During your first visit, called the Intake session, you will discuss your concerns and goals for treatment. This session will help both you and your counselor decide how you can best be helped. These services may consist of individual, couples or group counseling or possibly a referral to an on or off-campus service that may be more appropriate to your needs.

Sessions:

If it is mutually decided that additional individual sessions at the Counseling Center are needed, you will be assigned to one of the staff counselors for this purpose. This counselor may or may not be the same person you saw for your intake. Depending on your issues and goals, counseling may consist of one or up to twelve sessions per academic year.

Confidentiality and Records:

Counseling often involves sharing sensitive, personal, and private information. Recognizing this, laws and ethical guidelines require that all interactions with the Counseling Center, including content of your sessions, your records, scheduling of or attendance at appointments, and progress in counseling are confidential. No record of counseling is contained in any academic, educational, or job placement file. While information will not be released to anyone outside the Counseling Center without your written permission, in order to provide you with the best possible treatment, we may confer with clinical professionals within the UTD Counseling Center. Counseling records are maintained for 10 years after which time they are destroyed.

Exceptions to Confidentiality:

For the vast majority of clients, no exceptions to confidentiality are made; however, there are some exceptions to confidentiality, which you should know about before you begin counseling. We are legally required to disclose information to:
  a. protect you or someone else from imminent danger
  b. report suspected abuse of children, the elderly or the    disabled
  c. respond to a court subpoena
  d. If there is known or suspected sexual exploitation of a client by a past therapist.
In any of these situations, your counselor would reveal only the information needed to resolve this immediate crisis or risk of danger. If your counselor believes you are in danger of hurting yourself or others, your counselor may contact people in a position to prevent harm. This includes but is not limited to the person listed as your emergency contact, family members, close friends, and appropriate medical, school, and legal authorities.

It is not possible to schedule an appointment by phone, please come to SU1.608 to schedule.