Counseling on Campus: Client Persistence and Progress

Abstract

Two related studies addressed college students' persistence and progress in psychotherapy. In Study 1, using emotional health variables assessed at intake, students who persisted in counseling and demonstrated clinical improvement were compared with those who either did not return for their first session or who did return but stopped before improvement. Findings showed that those counseling completers, compared with the other two groups, reported at intake significantly higher levels of confidence that therapy will help, degree of well-being, and levels of life functioning. Study 2, focusing on students who received at least eight counseling sessions, found improvement on variables reflecting distress and life functioning, with students who rated themselves highly distressed at intake reporting the most benefit. The findings suggest approaches to improve realistic expectations for and engagement in counseling.

Counseling over Time as a Correlate of Non-Urgent Undergraduate Institutional Commitment

“…These overall improvement results are also consistent with Lucas (2012) who found significant improvement in the "highly distressed" undergraduate client sub-sample between intake and their eighth session, and Wolgast et al (2004) who showed that 14 sessions were needed for clients to show clinically significant change. Such research supports having the resources available in a UCC to avoid "time limited" treatment (Ghetie, 2007).…”

“…There were only 15 participants in the complete-data sample. Although such client loss is consistent with prior research (e.g., Draper et al, 2002;Ghetie, 2007;Lucas, 2012;Mahon et al, 2015), it was none-the-less discouraging. The four-year data collection has stopped due to several reasons, including the UCC moving to a new location and some key staff turnover, but general lack of client response was the primary issue.…”

“…Many college students successfully engage in short-term treatment (Mahon et al, 2015). However, knowing that additional sessions can lead to further benefits in terms of reduced mental health concerns and increased counseling help belief should help to justify a UCC having the resources in place, such as adequate staffing, to avoid having a fixed number or cap of sessions with non-urgent college students (AUCCD, 2016;CCMH, 2017;Lucas, 2012).…”

“…In a two-part study over three years, Lucas (2012) first compared three groups of non-urgent undergraduate clients: no-show first session (n = 492); stopped before improvement (n = 396), and counseling completers (n = 1,042), and found that completers compared to the other two groups, reported at intake higher levels of confidence that counseling will help, degree of well-being, and life functioning. Study 2 (Lucas, 2012) focused on students (n = 75) who received at least eight counseling sessions and found that students who rated themselves as highly distressed (n = 47) versus less distressed (n = 28) at intake reported the most benefits. Kopta et al (2014) Using a smaller sample of 20 matched-over-three time-periods non-urgent clients, Blau, DiMino, Abreu, and LeLeux-LaBarge (in press-b) found that levels of mental distress and mental health concerns significantly declined, while life satisfaction significantly increased.…”

Testing the Impact of Counseling over Time on Non-Urgent Undergraduate Life Satisfaction

“…Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval was given for all data collection, and data were collected using online surveys which went directly into Qualtrics' data bases. Lucas (2012) used a similar three-year period (2004 to 2007) to collect an undergraduate counseling sample. These undergraduate students had been designated at their initial counseling session (i.e., an in-person triage interview), as non-urgent (non-suicidal or risk to self/others) by the triage therapist.…”