University Counseling Center

The Host: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Student Affairs Podcasts. My name is Daniel Pinto. I am fifth year biology major and I will be your host today. In this episode we are joined by Dr. Aesha Uqdah, clinical psychologist. Dr. Uqdah is the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs for Student Wellbeing, and the Director of UofL’s Counseling Center. Today we will be talking about services the Counseling Center provides and how the Counseling Center can help our students to deal with stress. Hello, Dr. Uqdah, thank you for joining us. How are you today?

Aesha Uqdah: Hello everyone!

The Host: We are here to increase awareness about various campus resources and to get students more access to the services that our University Counseling Center provides. The first question we would like to ask you is: What can the Counseling Center do to help students if they are stressed?

Aesha Uqdah: Aside from our regular therapy services, you can start with using a platform called Therapy Assistance Online (TAO). TAO has several self-paced, self-help modules that are free to anyone with a louisville.edu address. No one will be able to connect you to the modules you complete if you are using the self-help functions of the platform.

For urgent or crisis situations, we offer urgent consultations Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. No appointment is required for an urgent consultation, but they are offered on a first-come, first-served basis each day.

Our website has links to various sites and suggestions for self-care and management of your mental health needs.

If you are interested in off-campus therapy providers, you can visit https://louisville.thrivingcampus.com. You can search by presenting an issue, the location, insurance accepted, or therapist demographics.

If you find that you need additional support, we are available for consultation, triage, and therapy services.

The Host: What services does the Counseling Center offer and what sort of things can the Counseling Center help with?

Aesha Uqdah: The Counseling Center provides individual, group, and couples counseling, crisis intervention, urgent consultation and referral, medication management referral, consultation, and outreach.

A "couple" is loosely defined as two people who want to work on their relationship. One individual must be a currently enrolled student in order to receive services as a couple. We do not provide family therapy.

Services are covered by student fees and do not require additional payment, with the exception of psychological assessments, typically for LD/ADHD. We offer assessments for a reasonable fee on a sliding scale.

We have staff with licenses in Clinical and Counseling Psychology, Counseling, Social Work, Art Therapy, and Marriage and Family Therapy. The Counseling Center is also a training site for students in the Educational and Counseling Psychology (ECPY) programs at the University of Louisville, the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville, and the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at Spalding University.

What we can help with:

We are able to assist students with a wide range of challenges including anxiety, depression, stress management, addictive behaviors, interpersonal relationships, trauma, family, grief and loss, identity, academic challenges, and off-campus resources. We do not prescribe medication, but have a close working relationship with the Campus Health Psychiatry staff.

If you notice you are having a difficult time or generally feel stuck, it may be helpful to work with a trained therapist at the Counseling Center in an individual or group setting. Sometimes it may be hard to identify why you feel overwhelmed or "not like yourself," and a therapist will collaborate with you to build a better understanding of what you are experiencing.

The Host: Yeah, absolutely! Even with all these exciting helpful resources on campus, it is still a difficult journey, and it is okay to not feel like you are enjoying your time here, yourself, or the relationship you are having. That is why the Counselling Center is a place where you can go and feel safe, and people are here, and they want to help you. So, our last question is how do I make an appointment and where are you located?

Aesha Uqdah: If you'd like to begin services at the Counseling Center, you can call us Monday to Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM to schedule a brief 30-minute triage. From there, you and your clinician will decide next steps, which may include scheduling an Initial Assessment, referral to one or more of our groups, other on or off campus resources, and/or adding you to our waitlist (if applicable). If you have questions about this process, you can call or email us. Our contact info is at https://louisville.edu/counseling.

We are located on the West side of the Student Activities Center, 2nd floor, suite W204

The Host: Great. On that note we would like to end our podcast episode. Thank you, Aesha that was very helpful to learn a little bit more about your department and the services you provide. Thank you and have a great day, Aesha.

For more information about student services go to https://louisville.edu/studentaffairs.

Also did you know that there is academic, university event, HSC event, and university holiday calendars online for your convenience. For more information go to https:///louisville.edu/calendars.

As always Be sure not to miss the Creating a Career in Startups and Technology... No Matter Your Major, Wednesday, March 23, 2022 at 4:00 PM–5:30 PM, online—log-in and register on Handshake for a MS Teams link.

Finally, we’d like to give a shout out to the Engage Lead Serve Board for their successful event Feed Louisville.

That’s it for this podcast. We hope our listeners take all our self-care tips. Thank you, everyone, for listening and sticking with us to the end. Take care. Be sure to check out another Student Affairs podcast next week.

A Department of STUDENT AFFAIRS

Student Affairs

SAC W302

University of Louisville

Louisville, Kentucky 40292

Office Hours

M-F 8:30am to 5:00 pm

No holiday hours

Phone

tel (502) 852-6933

tel (502) 852-5844

Inclusion Statement