A Closer Look at Bethel’s Coun­sel­ing Ser­vices

MISHAWAKA—For sev­eral years, Bethel has pro­vided coun­sel­ing ser­vices to its stu­dents. Ac­cord­ing to a flyer dis­trib­uted by the Well­ness Cen­ter, the Well­ness Cen­ter Coun­sel­ing Ser­vices pro­vide: “Pro­fes­sional, short-term men­tal health and life skills coun­sel­ing ser­vices; ser­vices within a frame­work of well­ness re­gard­ing spir­i­tual, emo­tional, men­tal, be­hav­ioral, and phys­i­cal health; and con­sul­ta­tion ser­vices to Bethel fac­ulty and staff who have ques­tions or con­cerns re­gard­ing how to sup­port stu­dents, no con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion will be ex­changed.” 

Stan Blom, Ph.D., HSPP, is cur­rently the Di­rec­tor of the Well­ness Cen­ter; Blom pro­vides coun­sel­ing and over­sees the other two coun­selors. Blom says that he hopes stu­dents know that they are wel­come to make use of the coun­sel­ing ser­vices “any­time.” 

“Anx­i­ety, de­pres­sion mood­i­ness, ten­sion prob­lems, any­thing they won­der might be a prob­lem they’re wel­come to come in, make an ap­point­ment,” said Blom. “We can help them sort out what kind of an­swers they’re look­ing for and help them de­cide whether they want to con­tinue coun­sel­ing.” 

Blom said that he would rather have a stu­dent come in and in­quire about whether coun­sel­ing is right for them than not come in at all be­cause they aren’t sure. 

Blom said, “Whether what some­one is go­ing through has to do with how they feel, what they think, be­hav­ior choices, we would like to have a chance to help them sort that out and make their own best choices for them­selves.”  

Blom added that the eas­i­est way to make an ap­point­ment is to call the Coun­sel­ing Cen­ter at (574) 807-7370. In­di­vid­u­als can also go to the of­fice in per­son to make an ap­point­ment or email the Of­fice Man­ager, Robin Dykes, at robin.dykes@bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu. 

There is a small amount of pa­per­work that Blom prefers stu­dents do be­fore their first coun­sel­ing ses­sion. 

“First of all, we’re try­ing to see which coun­selor would work best with the stu­dent, be­cause the coun­selors have dif­fer­ent skills and in­ter­ests,” said Blom. “And also to help us pre­pare be­fore the stu­dent walks in for try­ing to go down the right path with him.” 

Blom said that there are many ben­e­fits to tak­ing ad­van­tage of the coun­sel­ing ses­sions. 

“It’s a chance to sit down with some­one who re­ally wants to lis­ten, try to un­der­stand, help them un­der­stand, and then make any changes they might like to make in their life, to re­lieve stress, solve prob­lems, man­age their life bet­ter,” said Blom. “It’s a chance for a stu­dent to come into a very safe space, talk with some­one who is com­pletely not judg­men­tal, to lis­ten to their story only to help the stu­dent un­der­stand.” 

Blom also stressed that the ses­sions are com­pletely con­fi­den­tial. 

“The only ex­cep­tion is if a stu­dent is threat­ing harm to him­self or her­self, or to some­one else,” said Blom. “Short of a dan­ger is­sue, it’s com­pletely con­fi­den­tial.” 

“A va­ri­ety of things tend to go bet­ter,” said Blom. “Peo­ple feel re­lief that maybe some­one un­der­stands their sit­u­a­tion, they don’t feel so alone; they feel less anx­ious, be­cause now they re­al­ize they're not car­ry­ing the bur­den alone; they re­al­ize there are other re­sources to help share the stress... that of­ten leads to more en­joy­able re­la­tion­ships [and] leads to im­proved aca­d­e­mic func­tion­ing.” 

“I think the peo­ple that are at the Well­ness Cen­ter now, the coun­selors, the of­fice man­ager, the nurse, are re­ally, re­ally car­ing peo­ple that would like to be able to help to sup­port stu­dents,” said Blom. “They have a heart for work­ing with peo­ple and they sim­ply want to be there.” 

Please note that if you're feel­ing de­pressed or hav­ing sui­ci­dal thoughts, you should call the Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Life­line im­me­di­ately at 1 (800) 273-8255. They will give you free and con­fi­den­tial sup­port.