The Counseling Center is now located the third floor in Lester Hall. There has been a recent expansion of selection of group counseling sessions. (Photo by Taylor Cook)
With universities across the country now using group counseling as a means to help their students and faculty, the Counseling Center has recently expanded its selection of group counseling sessions.
Group counseling can maximize the benefits for some individuals.
Some of the center’s new sessions, like Calm and Chaos and the Social Anxiety Group Experience, can help people deal with anxiety by teaching them the skills on how to handle stress in their lives. Some of the sessions’ techniques include meditation, muscle relaxation and breathing exercises.
These free sessions are not just for students and faculty of the university; a select few are also open to the public.
Counselor Billy Meyers said one of the problems with anxiety is that people use avoidance to deal with it, which tends to make the anxiety worse.
“Exposure is a big part of the treatment,” Meyers said. “Doing that in a step-wise fashion, where people have some skills to deal with anxiety as it starts to come on, that’s the way we move forward.”
Counselor Dean Worsham has worked at UMCC for 16 years and leads four meditation groups during the week. He said group therapy can be helpful to an individual because it provides a support network where everyone is working toward the same goal.
“What we find is a lot of people asking themselves questions like ‘Am I doing it the right way?’ or ‘How does it feel?’” Worsham said. “Sitting with a group of people, there is a community in that. Being able to sit with a group of people in silence and stillness is something we don’t do a whole lot of in the Western world. So, being able to practice that with others and be in that moment, to sit and do this with others, is a powerful thing.”
