This naturalistic study was designed to examine the effectiveness of a 4-week skill-based group therapy that focuses on building resilience. The group, informed by Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993, 2015), targets general clients at college counseling centers and emphasizes mindfulness as a coping strategy to stress, cognitive…

In college counseling centers across the county, students' needs for services are far exceeding available resources. This leads centers to engage in creative problem solving regarding triage, waitlists, and alternate services. One such solution was the development of Pathways, an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based therapeutic skills…

Increases in the number of college students seeking mental health services require counseling centers to explore innovative strategies to provide effective and efficient treatments. Group interventions offer an alternative to traditional individual counseling, allowing centers to serve more students with fewer clinical staff (Burlingame et al.,…

Childhood grief disrupts and reshapes a developing child's primary attachments, emotional regulation system, and identity formation. Bereft college students have to build their grief identity simultaneously with their social, academic, vocational, and sexual identities. This article describes a bereavement group to help students work on these…

College counseling centers are facing rapidly increasing demands for services and are tasked to find efficient ways of providing adequate services while managing limited space. The use of therapy groups has been proposed as a method of managing demand. This brief report examines the clinical time savings of a traditional group therapy program in a…

Given the rise of incidents of mass violence affecting college campuses, interventions for students are gravely needed, especially ones with broader accessibility and reach. This pilot study examined two online narrative writing interventions for undergraduates experiencing distress a year after exposure to a mass murder at their university.…

The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) stress management group in a college counseling center setting. This study explored (a) the effectiveness of ACT in increasing participants' ability to tolerate distress, which directly affects their ability to function in a stressful college…

Creative-arts therapy groups offer university students powerful ways to address intrapersonal and interpersonal concerns. These groups combine the strengths of a traditional process group with the benefits of participation in the expressive arts. The creative process draws students in, invites insight and introspection, and facilitates outward…

University counseling centers are faced with the challenge of effectively treating bipolar students while also utilizing brief treatment frameworks and managing high patient volumes. Potential destabilization, particularly within the elevated mood phase, poses significant behavioral management issues for university clinicians and administrators,…

Students at the "ABD" stage of graduate school often struggle with isolation that may retard-or block-their efforts to produce a successful doctoral dissertation. This paper describes a therapy group, offered as part of a university counseling service, that seemed helpful in countering that isolation, and in helping members forge ahead…

The impact of including process observers (all master's-level trainees) and their notes on the outcome of interpersonal group therapy at a university counseling center was investigated. For a total of four groups, one method per group of delivering the notes to the participants was designated and assessed for perceived differences. A self-report…

Examinations profoundly affect students' psychological and emotional well-being. Not surprisingly, in today's test-centered climate test anxiety has become a widespread problem. A new, multi-dimensional treatment approach to test anxiety reduction is presented with both the mental health clinician and educator in mind. Suited to high school,…