Everywhere, including at Chaminade, people struggle with problems that others are unaware of. The primary role of the Chaminade Counseling Center is to help these individuals in any way possible to navigate any crisis or situation.
The Counseling Center provides lots of different services to help students get through what is bothering them. One of the newer services, thanks to grants from the last two years, is different trauma treatments. This includes eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing, accelerated resolution therapy, internal family systems, and cognitive processing therapy.
“People have a lot of traumatic experiences, and so it can be something that really, really affects all areas of their life,” said Elisabeth Mather, who is in her fifth year as the mental health therapist. “We’ve seen them go from really struggling to get through their day to day and thinking really negatively about themselves to being really hopeful about the future and having a really positive view of themselves, in a matter of several weeks.”
Located in Tredtin Hall, Room 201, the Chaminade Counseling Center is run by two certified therapists: Mather and Leilani Riahi, the director of counseling services. The free service is provided for all Chaminade students to use as much as needed. The center is frequently busy but usually can see students within a week after contact. It can also squeeze in crisis or emergency appointments the same day.
After an initial meeting to discuss what challenges a student is going through, the counselors will construct an individualized care plan, which will determine how many sessions will be reasonable.
Last spring, Michael Oelberger, a student at Chaminade, went to the Counseling Center for eight sessions after transferring into the school from Butler University. He was struggling with a close family member passing away and rough events from his old school. Having the Chaminade Counseling Center was a great convenience to him because he didn’t have to search for somebody off campus to talk to.
“It was like in my schedule, so it wasn’t an added 30 minutes to get somewhere, and it was free,” said Oelberger, who is a senior Psychology major. “I think that made a difference. I think that made the difference between whether I would have gone or not.”
Alongside the two clinicians, eight student workers are certified peer mentors. These mentors help students who have sought help from the center and could use more personal ways of resolving their problem.
Kalai Duncan, a senior Psychology and Criminal Justice major, is the only peer mentor who is a student-athlete. He uses this as a way to connect with other student-athletes on campus and normalize their going to counseling. Collaborating with the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and Chaminade Athletics are some ways he has worked on bridging athletes with the Counseling Center.
“I feel like the Counseling Center is a very beneficial resource to go to, so me, as a student athlete, has kind of taken upon myself to strengthen relations and collaborate to get the Counseling Center’s name and resources out there,” said Duncan, a captain on the men’s soccer team. “I understand that a lot of us [student athletes] have a lot of stuff that we’re going through personally that the counseling resources can definitely help with.”
Looking to the future, the Counseling Center wants to continue growing at Chaminade and helping more students. Riahi said that it would like to add an after-hours crisis resource to help people who are struggling and aren’t able to come in during the day. Also, it is hosting events around campus to keep students knowledgeable about the center.
“Students deserve support,” said Riahi, who is in her fourth year as director. “I think students work so hard, and they’re amazing, and the Counseling Center is really just a space where no problem is too big or too small. We want to create a space where students can come in and really be the center and their needs are met, and we work together to enhance their well-being because they deserve it.”
The Chaminade Counseling Center will be hosting a workshop, titled Growing Forward: Skills for Life and Learning, on Nov. 12 at Kokua Ike from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.