When she first started going to counseling, sophomore business administration major Susan Dunsworth knew it had been a long time coming when she walked in with a friend for the first time. Dunsworth, who is minoring in music, went not for herself, but to support a friend. It would eventually lead her to set an individual appointment in the counselling center.

“I’d been meaning to go to counseling for a few months but I kept chickening out,” Dunsworth said. “But then I had a friend who needed to go to the counseling center for a pressing issue. So I went with her, and after I went with her I set up a meeting for myself.”

Dunsworth is a junior by credit, but is in her second year at Waynesburg University. A couple of weeks into her first semester she decided to go to counseling to help deal with anxiety along with personal issues. Before she came, Dunsworth didn’t view counseling as a viable option to deal with problems.

“I kind of grew up with a stigma around it to some extent,” Dunsworth said. “So it was a hard decision to make for me to get out of that stigma and to be able to take care of myself. Even though I had grown up with the attitude, that’s something you push under the rug.”

Over the 30-year career of Jane Owen, director of the educational enrichment program, clinical services and counseling center, she has noticed a difference in what students come into the counseling center for. Often students would come up to talk about gifts, abilities and skills and for advice in making career choices. When Owen began working for the university, it was required for students to declare a major by their sophomore year, which was largely the cause of so much career-focused counseling. Today, however, they need to declare as freshman, but what Owen believes has changed the most over her career is personal counseling.

“It’s not just the Waynesburg University counseling center, its counseling centers across the United States,” Owen said. “We’re seeing a significant increase in numbers of students seeking counselling service. Students diagnosed with anxiety and depression and other disorders, I think there is much less of a stigma. Students see it as a service to use while on campus.”

Students who have been to counseling before include sophomore psychology major Kevin Stephanik. He goes to counseling after not being able to find anything closer that took his insurance. Stephanik has been to counseling on and off since he was 13 for a variety of different personal reasons. According to Stephanik, he didn’t care much in high school, saying it didn’t really matter too much to him. Stephanik has been going to counseling sessions with Owen around fall break and has been dealing with the pressures of school life. He has come to the conclusion that being someone who thrives to be excellent can cause more problems than solutions.

“I deal with all or nothing thinking,” Stephanik said. “I struggle to be a perfectionist. I try to do as well as I can, I need to easy up on that, because it’s stressful.”

With more and more students open to talking about mental health and going to the counseling center, there is the possibility there may be continued higher attendance to the counseling center.