As schools respond to the 30 percent increase in demand for counseling, artist Ella Baron gives a glimpse inside some students’ experiences.
Illustrator Ella Baron conducted a series of interviews with college students, many who had suspended their studies because of mental health concerns, to create a series of sketches about the mental health crisis at colleges, listening to the recordings as she drew. The images, published in June 2017 in The Guardian, are as pointed as they are perplexing, parsing the intricacies of mental health in ways that provide a unique access point for viewers.
Baron says for the students she interviewed, social isolation was a key driver of poor mental health. “People had lost the support structure at home, and then in university they hadn’t quite found one yet,” she says. This led to depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, which in turn isolated students even further. But labeling students can be alienating for both the individual and outsiders who don’t understand what it’s like, she says. “I was trying for a visual that was more complex.” She hopes the images will help destigmatize the issue and make it more accessible in a nonreductive way.
The University of Washington center for Advancing Integrated Mental Health Solutions (AIMS) has created a “collaborative care” model that creates a physical and mental health plan for an individual. “One of the most promising approaches … is the systematic involvement of family members, peers, community health workers, and community-based organizations,” the center says. Many universities offer peer counseling services in which students are trained to listen, ask questions and refer their peers to other campus resources. Yale and Drexel universities both offer confidential, anonymous peer counseling helplines that students can call most nights of the week.
Rutgers University offers community-based counseling, embedding counselors within academic departments and cultural centers. Instead of walking across campus to a single building designated as a care center, this system integrates individualized therapy plans into students’ lives within their particular communities on campus. Counselors are trained to assess the community’s needs as well as the individual’s needs; they offer group therapy.
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