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Christopher Willard et al., "College Mental Health 101: A Guide for Students, Parents, and Professionals" (Oxford UP, 2025)
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [00:05]
B
I'm Caleb Zakrin, editor of the New Books Network. Today I'm speaking with Chris Willard, co author of College Mental Health 101, a guide for students, parents and professionals. Chris is a psychologist who teaches at Harvard Medical School. This book is a useful tool for anyone looking to understand and treat the myriad mental health issues that often appear in are exacerbated during the transitional and transformative college years. As the new school year starts, this is a timely conversation to have. Chris, thanks for joining me today on the New Books Network.
- [00:35]
A
Thank you so much for having me. It's fantastic to be here.
- [00:38]
B
Yeah, it's great to have you on. And I felt with this book that it's the type of book that I wish that I had when I was first starting out in college. I think it would have saved me a lot of tears for sure. So I think it's an important book. And I think that one thing that people oftentimes don't talk about is that college really can be this period where mental health issues start to express themselves for people that never had issues before. And it's not just a matter of being in a strange and unusual place. It's also just biology too. So I think it's a really important book for that reason. But before even jumping into the topic, I was wondering if you could just introduce yourself a little.
- [01:17]
A
Yeah, so I. Well, I'm a college graduate, but for myself, actually, part of where the book comes from is it took me six years to get through undergrad with my own challenges. And so writing this book feels like a kind of homecoming to me. I then, after college, went to graduate school for psychology, worked in the university counseling office for many years, continue to work now with a lot of kids heading off to college, in college and after college, sort of that's who I work with and, and just watching the acuity of mental health issues get worse, watching, you know, even though I think we have much less stigma and much more awareness, still so many people are not able to access treatment, not getting good treatment, getting a lot of misinformation online. And so my friends and I decided to put this book together and that's, you know, that's. That's kind of the story behind it. You know, my previous work, I've written also other stuff. I've written some books for children. I've written books for parents. I've written child development books and stuff like that. And I have a private practice, so I do, I do all kinds of stuff. But this was really close to my heart. As someone who had a bumpy college experience, you could say so. Like you, it's sort of the book I wish I'd had, Although I don't know if I would have read it, to be honest, but I wish people around me had had. Maybe so. Ye.
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B
That obviously can be. One of the problems of these types of books is that people that should read it oftentimes don't. So I assume that's part of the reason why, in addition to being addressed to students, you also address it to parents and you address it to educators that they can have more knowledge. Because I definitely think sometimes both parents and educators, they don't really know what to do. They don't know how to deal with students that are struggling, and it can be very scary for them.
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A
Right.
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B
For this book, I'm wondering if you could just talk a little about, in a broader sense, why college mental health is such an important topic. And, you know, not just with your own experience, but just from, from a, you know, from a very practical point of view. Why you think a type of book like this needs to be explored and written?
- [03:34]
A
Yeah, I mean, you know, we wrote the book. We interviewed like hundreds of students, dozens of professors, deans, therapists, sort of professionals, parents also. Probably because there's a lot of books that write to students, but not so. And people are having a hard time, but not so much from students to students or from parents to parents. And so that was sort of some of the thinking behind the book was how can we really amplify some more voices about what the experience is like? I think of myself as young, I'm definitely not as I head into my 20 something reunion from college next year. And so we really wanted to have it be kind of voices of students front and center. And also, you know, one of the things I think that's happened, I mean, I sort of alluded to this earlier, but like, we've got more mental health issues, which is unfortunate. We've got, you know, in some ways, some more resources, which is good, but still not enough. We've got, you know, but we've also got more misinformation about mental health, even though we have kind of less stigma at the same time. So part of the idea of the book was helping just kind of clarify, like what's going on, what is depression. We all get anxious at parties. That doesn't mean we all have social anxiety. Of course some of us do. We all procrastinate. It doesn't mean everyone has adhd of Course some of us do, but how can we clarify this and still offer some skills and reach more people? Because with a mental health crisis that we have right now across the country and really all age groups, but particularly young people, there's really not, we can't really therapy our way out of it, unfortunately. We'd have to. Karen Burst like, we have to train like 3 million new therapists in the next few years and that's not going to happen. We need more education, we need more groups, we need more, I think also good information in books that hopefully can provide that too, to kind of catch people before it gets to be too late. As you said too though, it's like this is the age where genetically this is likely to happen, you know, between kind of 16 and 28, where people are likely to have depression for the first time or anxiety or other kinds of struggles that's built into us as humans. It's also a huge transition time. So all that stress kind of contributes to that, kicking that off for some people. And it's also a time that people are like, oh like, you know, they, they meet someone else and they, they do realize they've been, you know, anxious for years because actually stigma has been reduced. So that's a good thing because it's like, oh, maybe I do have depression and sometimes there's some self diagnosis that's not accurate. But getting more education and meeting other people that have had struggles too since it's like, oh, maybe that is what's going on. Or the perspective of I thought I'd be happier in college, but I'm just as anxious, I'm just as depressed. I'm. So I thought I would, you know, my self harm or substance abuse, I'd leave that behind. But actually it's still with me at college. How, you know, maybe this is something more than just a high school thing. Passing phase. So it's, it's all of those things are happening at that time as well as being independent, which is great and also can be really overwhelming sometimes to have all that independence too. So it's a little bit of all of this going on at that, at that time. And that was, that was a big motivation for writing it for high school.
- [06:58]
B
Seniors who are looking at colleges and deciding where they might want to go, especially high school seniors who have maybe struggled with mental health issues in the past. And they're deciding, you know, do I want to go across the country, go across the world to a different school, do I want to go to a big school, a small school you know, a school that's a party school that might, you know, students might be doing, using drugs, might be drinking a lot. How should students think about these various decisions? You know, is it something that they should factor factor in or does it not really matter? Because, you know, most schools have resources and if students use them, how do you think students should think about picking schools?
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A
Yeah, I think these are such good questions because the book is also written for junior and seniors starting to think about that college process. We actually have things actually like a calendar of what to think about when as well as these questions. And what we kind of landed on is that there's not necessarily a right or a wrong answer. But what's really important is to ask these questions. Big school or small school doesn't matter. It's like what matters for you. Big school might have more resources, but they probably have more bureaucracy to access those resources. Small school in the countryside might be wonderful if you love nature as part of your self care and you find cities overwhelming and don't want to be around too many people. But it might be harder to find resources for certain kinds of mental health issues that you face. So, you know, it's not that there's always one answer or another. We try to just sort of say, here's a few hundred. The book is actually organized as a set of questions and some of them have clear answers and some of them are just like, look, here's some, you know, here's some of what we've heard from students or our experience. And it's not that public school is better, private school is better. It's that, you know, public school is cheaper and that's great, but you might not get as many sessions on campus. Private school, it's super expensive, but you, you know, there's a lot of supports included, often student services, you get sessions included and you get executive function coaches as part of your tuition package, you know, but you know, you don't get as much choice. So public school is cheaper, but you know, you have to go off campus, but then you can spend money on your therapy or whatever it is that you need. So it's just a series of kind of trade offs that not necessarily one is right, one is wrong with a mental health issue. It's also about knowing that you're a unique person who has a mental health issue and that these are just questions you want to ask yourself as opposed to what pros and cons of big, small, be far away, be close by, stay at home, you know, live at school, part Time, full time. They all have drawbacks and they all have advantages. And it's trying to think through what those are for you is more important than one is right and one is wrong.
- [09:51]
B
When a student is actually on college campus, sometimes they can find themselves falling behind in classes because of mental health issues. And this falling behind can exacerbate the mental anxiety, depression, all sorts of issues. And sometimes students are in a position where they decide, maybe I should take a semester off, maybe I should take some time off. But this can be really scary because of the fear that this might have long term consequences to their grades, that they might not know what to do, that their teachers might judge them, that it might harm their, their friendships at school. So there's a variety of things that can be really scary for students who are considering going on leave. So how might a student who is struggling, maybe in that first year or later, how might they think about whether or not it's a right decision to go on leave?
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A
Yeah, I mean, this is another one of the questions that we have in the book. I think just putting it in your back pocket. To me, I think going on leave can sound like this is the right thing to do. But I think what you do on leave is really important. So yes, you can save your grades, maybe you can save some money for yourself, for your parents. And they now do have tuition insurance, which is bonkers that we were at that place that that kind of thing exists. But I've also seen, so I've seen some kids go on leave and do fantastic, right? And I've seen other kids and young people go on leave and start to kind of struggle to keep their head above water. And to me, a good leave has some structure, has some treatment. What I say to students and parents is if you're going on leave, you know, the first week, you're not going to have any structure. But really think about what you want to do. Working 40 hours a week, maybe not right, but trying to stay busy and structured for 20 hours a week, maybe that's volunteer time. Some of that should definitely be therapy time, getting exercise time. You know, maybe it is having a part time job, maybe it's taking a class, but wouldn't necessarily jump into that right away. There's just these things that we want to consider going on leave because yes, you're away from the stresses, but often what happens is that you're in new stresses and you're away from a lot of those social supports. Your friends are all back at school, your friends from high school are probably back at school, you're sort of feeling like a child again, living in your bedroom that you grew up in. And then that doesn't exactly do wonders for self esteem or depression. Sometimes family conflict is part of the issue, so that can exacerbate that. So it's just really thinking about what kind of leave that you take that's really important to do. What I suggest to kids when they have supportive families is try to stay busy about 20 hours a week. And again, as I said, that can include therapy, work, exercise, volunteer time, classes, different kinds of things. But it is important to stay somewhat busy because otherwise you can really end up with a self esteem collapse or depression. The symptoms of depression are often sleeping too much, not getting out of bed, not seeing people, these kinds of things. And then you think about just being at home on leave and you're probably not socializing, you're probably not getting out very much. It's hard to get exercise and eat because you're not going out with your friends. And so it can kind of create a depression in some ways. So you just have to be careful. And I generally do err on the side of, yes, take a leave. But I think that there are some. But when students do that, I think it's really important think through how they're going to spend that leave. And sure, maybe it's November and you know, you're not going to figure a whole lot out before January and that's fine. But if you're taking a longer leave to really think about how you make best use of that, to care for yourself, get the help and support that you need, and all of that before.
- [13:47]
B
Students might even decide to go on leave, of course, they might decide to go and find a therapist or some sort of support groups. How can students, especially ones who have never seen a therapist before, how can they go about this process? Obviously, schools sometimes will offer resources. So how might they decide between going to, you know, the student health center versus going and finding their own therapist?
- [14:10]
A
Absolutely. And also, you know, finding a therapist from home or going back to their therapist from home, because we all have zoom now and a lot of therapists, you know, can work with you still from away. So the reality though is that as I said, we still have a huge delta between the number of therapists who are available and for students who need support. And then a huge delta also even between therapists who are available and therapists who take your insurance or who are affordable, in addition to who maybe can fit your class schedule, which changes every semester. And These kinds of things, or your optimism as you go into school of I'll be up at 9 o' clock like I was in high school. And then college is almost in its own time zone. And actually, you know, it's really hard to get up before 11 in college for many students. So, you know, these are factors to consider. I think, you know, oftentimes schools do have those resources. It can be hard to get in. There's oftentimes a limit to the number of sessions that you have. Some schools it's trainees and those trainees can be wonderful sometimes, but. Or sometimes they can also not have a lot of experience. But it's often included in your health care package, included in your tuition and fees and that kind of thing. And it's usually right on campus, which is great. On the other hand, going off campus, if you can find someone who takes your insurance, you can probably work with them longer. You can work with them longer term. You might have someone who's more of a specialist in your particular OCD or an eating disorder or another kind of issue that requires just much more specific treatment. But that can often take longer to find that person, find that doctor right or doctor right now as we kind of joke about in the book. But I think that that can be then a longer standing relationship as you're applying to school, even if you don't have any issues, you know, when you get there freshman year. And it's so much that's overwhelming. But asking those questions, ask your ra. How many sessions do we get? If I wanted to use a session, what do people say about the therapists on campus? When I was working at Tufts, oftentimes students would come because they were, you know, they're referred by a friend, walked over by a resident advisor or something like that. Or you know, they'd say, my friend said that you were helpful therapist to them. And that can also be some boundary stuff around that obviously no therapist is going to disclose. But you may not want to go to your friend's therapist, but it just matters on what it is that you need. But it is a great place to start is to go to the counseling center, ask them if they feel like they can help you and if they can't or they can't help you in the long term. More and more centers have someone that there to help make referrals to help you get into the community. But of course, if you're not in a city, then Ubers are more expensive and there's not public transportation. And again, that goes back to some of those other questions. But oftentimes they're clinicians who just set up shop. I went to school in a kind of suburbanish rural area and there was a building right next to campus where there was just full of therapists who pretty much saw everyone from the college. So that's often true in different places, but it's a matter of what your needs are. But certainly starting on campus is a great place to start with leads, for sure.
- [17:37]
B
In the book, you go through about a dozen different styles of therapy. Obviously you can't in this interview go through every single one. But I was wondering if you could introduce a little bit why there are different therapy styles, why they might be useful in different contexts and you know, the importance of students maybe having some awareness of the different styles just so that they can know that just because they go in and see a therapist who might be specializing in one, it doesn't mean that therapy doesn't work. It might just not be the right therapy style for them.
- [18:12]
A
Right. I mean, the most important thing is a good personality match. And actually the research says that that's more important than whether you do cognitive behavioral therapy or psychodynamic therapy or IFS therapy or dialectical behavioral therapy. IFS is internal family systems. Right. The match and the fit and feeling comfortable, that's what's going to be the most important thing. So I would say pick that over the style of therapy. It's a little bit like what hopefully someone has given you advice if you're a college student of pick your courses by the professor. Not necessarily the description. A good professor can make anything interesting. A bad professor can make the most amazing kind of content in a course really boring. You want to pick by the professor. You also want to pick your therapist by the kind of personality match and the vibe that you kind of feel with them. So I want to put that out there at first. But then also there's different things you might need. If it's like you're experiencing panic attacks and anxiety, probably you can actually fix a lot and maybe five sessions with what's called maybe a cognitive behavioral therapist. Right. So that would be my recommendation there. If you're just really kind of working through a lot of family of origin issues, trying to figure out sort of like a sense of identity in the world and you're someone who likes talking and that self exploration, then you would want probably more of a psychodynamic, is what we'd call it, that more traditional talk therapy, not necessarily the whole Freudian thing, but kind of talking through those. Those kinds of things, you know, so different people might have, you know, kind of different skill sets too. I think, you know, for folks who are struggling with borderline personality disorder, self harm, things like that, that's a place where what's called dialectical behavioral therapy is really helpful, really helpful with relationship issues. If you've got a lot of kind of unstable friendships and sort of feel like you're always kind of moving through different friend groups and struggling to making keep friends. So these are all different. Other people might discover, actually what I need is not so much therapy, but really coaching because I have ADHD or some neurodivergence or something like that that maybe requires a bit more of a coaching approach to help me just function in terms of organizing myself and my classes or figure out my social life in some different ways. That that's more of approach that might be helpful again to me. And what the research says is the fit kind of a personality between the therapist and the student is actually the best predictor of success.
- [20:58]
B
One thing I was also interested in that you. That you explore is spiritual counseling. I think sometimes students who. I certainly saw this, who on campus are religious, can find it difficult. I mean, it depends on what school you go to. There are some schools that are religious schools, but a lot of schools, you know, it's. I've seen it be difficult for religious students to find their way. So what about students that are religious who might, you know, instead of going to a therapist, want to go to a, you know, religious council or something like that? How might they navigate the system?
- [21:31]
A
Yeah, I think, you know, this is a big blind spot of mine, you know, because I grew up in a pretty secular environment, went to a pretty secular school, but then realizing as I started to interview more students and talk to people at more colleges, like, oh, this is really central to so many people's lives. That's just again, total oversight till we started writing the book. And it was really helpful to have people educate us about their spiritual backgrounds and how important that is to them. And a lot of what's wonderful about campus life is talking to Julie Lifket Hames, who's a dean at Stanford Law School. But she was saying, look, everyone who works at colleges, none of them are getting paid a lot of money. Everyone from the dining hall to the staff to certainly the spiritual life and athletics, they're all there because they like working with young people. And they actually, many of them, even if they're not therapists, actually want to mentor young people. And Certainly the spiritual office of spiritual life or whoever that is on campus. You know, in ministry, pastoral counseling, those folks, they often are trained and collaborate a bit with the counseling center, the more secular, you know, kind of therapy center and that kind of thing. They've learned a little bit about mental health, and it's so central to so many people's lives that it can be really helpful and powerful and to remember that, you know, for some people, you know, with severe mental health issues, maybe a really specifically trained professional is what's helpful. But for other people with adjustment issues, or maybe they're even facing discrimination or, you know, kind of microaggressions or feeling like they don't quite fit in on campus because, you know, it is a more secular environment oftentimes and sort of sex, drugs and rock and roll and that stuff that doesn't quite fit with their upbringing or their spiritual background, you know, can be really important to find a sense of community, a sense of place, and something that makes sense to them culturally and spiritually in terms of making sense out of their lives and getting some of the help that they need. And some of that kind of counseling can also, again, most of those folks on campus have some connections with the counseling center, the mental health center. And when they start to get over their head with, ooh, this sounds like a really severe eating disorder or something deeper is going on, they'll make that referral, and they'll often know who in the counseling center is. Is understanding of that student's religious, spiritual, cultural background that they might be facing. And so that also feels really important and helpful to remember, too. One of the young women who I wrote the book with, Chelsea, she was like, I don't think she's Jewish, but she was really close to the rabbi on campus. And it's like, that's awesome. These just kinds of unexpected relationships that can occur in these different ways. So I think so many folks on campus are really wanting to connect with students and help them as much as they can.
- [24:35]
B
Oftentimes, students, in the course of going to therapy, they might decide or it might be suggested to them that perhaps they should try taking medication, whether that's an SSRI or other types of medication, to deal with whatever issues that they're. That they're facing. Oftentimes this can be, you know, the first time that a student has ever take. Taken any medication. And of course, they're adults, too, so it's their decision. So what sort of advice might you give to students who maybe for the first time in their life have to start taking some sort of medication.
- [25:12]
A
Yeah, I mean, you know, I think medication is really tricky. I think, you know, there are, you know, there's sometimes a kind of, you know, to the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, sort of. Some psychiatrists can jump right in with prescriptions before students feel ready. There are very real side effects, for sure. But also to me, there's very few diagnoses where medications have to be something that you take forever. And that's something I often talk about as a. As a non prescriber. And Blaze, who also we wrote the book with, is a prescriber. He's a psychiatrist. But to me, it's also, let's not jump into this, but let's give it some thought. And maybe you want to try this for six months and then re up or maybe want to try it for a year and then see. So I think for a lot of students, they can feel like, will this take away my personality? Will I be less creative? Will I not be myself? These kinds of questions, which are really important when you're discovering what is my sense of self. I've just discovered this new creativity that I have. So that can feel like, you know, but that's not something I want to mess with right now. And so I really try to think of it as like, this is. This is not a forever thing. And I actually, in everybody I work with across the lifespan, I really try to say that. And all of the folks I work with then do, you know, have a go through a period of some depression and they do take an SSRI for a couple years and then they moved through it and passed it with therapy. I was actually just talking to a friend of mine who started experiencing anxiety in his 30s, and he was like, you know, SSRIs and therapy, that's the best combination. And I did that. I figured out what other structures I needed in my life, like getting exercise and some cognitive reframing exercises that the medication helped me to access. And I just weaned off the medication and I'm feeling great about it. So I think the reminder that this isn't a forever thing, just like therapy, some people are therapy people and go to therapy forever. I'm one of them. Right. Other people, they go for six months, they go for six weeks. Medication can actually be the same thing. And also, no, it won't change your personality. No, you won't be a different person. But there are also things to consider. Like I was talking to a student who just upped his medication and he was talking with a psychiatrist about drinking, and the psychiatrist said, no drinking at all. And he was like, well, I'm a college student. And he actually talked to a relative of his who is also a psychiatrist and said, here's how you want to manage and think about drinking if you're taking medication. Right. So these kinds of things, lifestyle. Some medications do have sexual side effects. Right. Which, you know, some clinicians can be a little bit dismissive of. And I remember working once on a college campus, I was like, for young men, like, sexual functioning is really important at this point in their life. Like, that's something you really want to consider here before you prescribe that certain class of medication. So these are just things to also think about, ask about. And I also want to say ask a professional. Don't go online and look at, you know, Reddit or discussion boards about medication. Please talk to professionals about it. And don't kind of self educate too much or go in with the questions you want to. A prescriber.
- [28:47]
B
For students who maybe personally aren't going through mental health issues, but they have a friend who is, or even a student that has their own mental health issues and has a friend that might have some really severe mental health issues of their own, how might they go about trying to help them? Obviously, I've seen this. I remember in college seeing sometimes students that had mental health issues almost feeding into it for each other in a way that could seem really negative, and that seemed like something that maybe would want to be avoided. So what are some of the best ways that students can help their friends who might be struggling?
- [29:24]
A
Yeah, it can be a time that we really want to be helpful to each other. And I think it can also be a time that's really important. That's sort of, again, evolutionarily how we're wired. We're particularly tuned into relationships and peer relationships at that time in life. But we also don't want to either get sort of pulled in in a kind of drama way. And we also don't want to get in over our heads without professional help when we want to be supportive of our friends. I think what we want to do best is validate kind of what their concerns are. We've actually got a chapter in the book about how to support your. Your friends, your siblings, your kids, other people in your life who are your students, even who are maybe struggling with mental health issues, and then kind of where to start to know your limits and also how to talk to people about. Sometimes it's not. You don't Want to lead off with like go to therapy, but like maybe you want to share a little bit of your own experience if you've had some with therapy or recommend a friend talk to the ra or recommend if you know someone else that has had some mental health struggles that they talk to them. Maybe you don't want to reach out to parents right away, but sometimes reaching out to a sibling can feel if you're a little concerned about a friend of yours and reaching out to the rest of the friend group to pull some supports into place, not to do a big necessarily intervention TV style, but just so that everyone's on the same page. The resident advisors often can just put on programming and education. I didn't really know this until I started working at the university many years ago, but it was like, oh, someone on the floor has an eating disorder. People are concerned about it. Oh, isn't that interesting that there happens to be a little talk about eating disorders in the dorm at Sunday night snacks or gathering or whatever it is just to get everybody thinking about this stuff and kind of educate everybody on this. So people aren't necessarily feeling singled out in that same way. There can be kind of community support that can kind of pull around someone either explicitly or a little bit more subtly in different ways. But all of these, I think are ways to support friends. And I think the thing we often want to do is just jump in with solutions and you should get therapy and you should do this and you should don't do that and. And actually mostly what people need and I'm actually doing my next book is about this is just to be listened To. And actually one of my favorite kind of shorthand things, I can't remember where I picked it up, but we added it to the book is when someone reaches out to you in pain, the three H's, it's like, do you want to be helped? Right? Here's some advice. Do you want to be heard? Right? Just want me to listen or the last stage, do you just want to hug? Right? Do you want to be hugged right now? And just asking someone that so that we're not then talking when they want to be listened to or listen to listening when they really just want a solution or sometimes they just really need a hug. It's a combination of those helped, hugged or heard can be the most powerful thing just to ask someone in terms of which of those they need.
- [32:47]
B
It seems that these days people are oftentimes engaged in a process either of self diagnosis or of diagnosing each other. Even when they don't have the expertise to do that. This, I think, can sometimes be concerning. I think sometimes people can think that they oftentimes are dealing with one issue, but they might actually have a separate issue. And sometimes that can actually like, lead them to not actually deal with whatever challenge they're facing. So can you talk a little bit about the various diagnoses that someone might have and how someone might think about just going about their own diagnosis, their own research, before actually consulting a professional?
- [33:32]
A
I mean, one of the reasons why we wrote this book is so that this book could be a resource so people aren't going to. I mean, maybe AI is a little bit better than social media, but social media, where there's just a lot of people with maybe somewhat mixed agendas sort of saying that sort of like, look, if you've ever farted in the shower, you must have adhd. And then everyone relates to that, and then follow my like and subscribe, and now actually pay $50 a month to join my community, or here's some snake oil. And so people have a financial incentive and agenda oftentimes on social media that doesn't align with actually necessarily helping people. And so I do think it's important to look at what are real symptoms. Like, what we did in the book was we took the symptom list straight from the dsm, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which is the kind of bible of mental health diagnoses. And we said, here's the symptom, here's what it feels like, here's what people say that symptom is like, and here's what you might see in someone else. And here's sort of what it's not, right, sleeping, you know, disruptions in sleep. Well, you're in college. You're going to have enormous disruptions in sleep. It's going to be completely different than it was in high school. And you probably had a bedtime and had a place to be in the morning, right? So, you know, we want to kind of break that up a little bit to look differently at, you know, what does that mean? So I think, you know, to me, I think, you know, not to shamelessly plug the book, but part of why we wrote it was to break through some of the misinformation that's out there to help people really see more subtly what a diagnosis is like. But also I think we really encourage people just to go, you know, start by talking to friends, then go talk to your ra Then go, you know, please go just get a consult at the counseling center with a professional who can. Who can really be helpful and get you the treatment that you need. Partly because what happens is, I mean, you look at the symptoms of almost any mental health issue. They all have something about disrupted sleep. They all have something about appetite being messed up. They all have feeling bad as part of them. Right. Except for maybe, you know, hypomania or mania or something like that. And so it's really important. And, you know, and like, unrealistic thoughts are part of every. So it's like you can pick up a book, you know, or look online, and you'll see these symptoms that are like difficulty with sleeping, difficulty with eating, feeling lousy, distorted thinking. And it's like, that could actually mean five different things. And so a professional can help you parse that out a little bit better so that you're getting the depression treatment, not the anxiety treatment or discovering that actually this is depression mixed with adhd. And that's kind of what's. What's creating it. It's not one, it's not the other. And sometimes when we jump to diagnoses, we miss actually what's underneath it. Right. Trauma can look like ADHD and ADHD can look like trauma. Then sometimes it's both, and sometimes it's neither, and sometimes it's just a bad day. And so a professional can help with that. Yeah.
- [36:45]
B
This is less directly related to, you know, the mental health issues that you deal with in the book. But I think a really important topic is just students finding ways to become more resilient, to prepare themselves for the adult world when their boss might not be nice to them, when their landlord might not be sympathetic to certain things. And I think that sometimes this transition to the adult world can be very difficult for students where they're used to having maybe almost every single need and desire met. So how can students just think about building and developing resilience?
- [37:25]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think what a lot of what college can do is get us out of our comfort zone. In fact, it automatically gets you out of your comfort zone. But often after being in a pretty. For a lot of students who've been in it in their comfort zone for a lot of high school, that can feel like, whoa, there's something really wrong here. And it's actually, no, it's just you getting adjusted to living with someone who's really difficult or having to share a bathroom when you're not used to that, or these other really big differences, managing your own time and the stress of that. And so I think part of what's important is just putting yourself out there, being in uncomfortable situations. Part of what you're learning is not just in class, and part of what you're learning is not just in those fun late night philosophical debates. And part of what you're learning is not just in the clubs, but part of what you're in extracurriculars. But part of what you're learning is like, how do I live independently? How do I manage a budget in a really different way? How do I navigate friendships and relationships in a very different way than I did at home? How do I manage my mental health and my physical health and my medical health in really different ways? Because your buttons are going to get pushed. You're going to get pushed intellectually, you're going to get pushed financially, you're going to get pushed relationally, you're going to get pushed out of your comfort zone. And hopefully all the best ways, whether it's trying new foods for the first time, trying new activities for the first time, learning all kinds of other things about who you are and who you want to be. And that can be really uncomfortable. But the more we get ourselves out of our comfort zone, there's that meme online that's this little square and it says your comfort zone. And then there's an arrow pointing to outside of it. And it's like where the magic happens. And I kind of like that. But I also, as a therapist, it's important. Remember, there's your comfort zone, there's your sort of growth zone, where the magic happens. But also there is a safety zone around that that you don't want to get out of. So you want to be out of your comfort zone, in your growth zone, but not out of your safety zone. And that's hard to figure out. But that really is where growth happens, where resilience happens, where you learn how to advocate to your professors and to your RAs and to the housing office or the accommodations office is then really good practice to be resilient for dealing with maybe more difficult bosses or more difficult people that you meet out in the world and landlords and folks like that. So to me, resilience is being able to kind of face adversity without kind of wilting in the face of it. And so I hope that's what students can do, is get out of their comfort zone, stay in their safety zone. And that's really where we grow.
- [40:18]
B
My last question is just how you think people should best use this book. It seems like the type of book where you can sort of open it and turn to different sections depending on what your own particular needs are. So it's not necessarily the type of book where, I mean, you can read it from start to finish and, and get a lot out of it. But you know, how much you recommend someone who has heard this discussion and might have some questions and just wants to go and start getting some. Some useful answers. Should they just go in and turn to the sections that they find most, most valuable to them?
- [40:50]
A
Yeah, I mean, we wrote it. I mean, like, obviously you can read it start to finish, but you can also just, you know, open to the table of contents and look at like, what. What are the questions I have? How do I get the accommodations I need? Or what is the role of medication in mental health? What really happens in a hospitalization? If I'm hospitalized for a mental health crisis or if you're worried about a friend, do they need to go to the hospital? Well, they're scared to go to the hospital. Well, what actually happens in there? And it says on page 69 what the hospitals really like in terms written by me and Blaze, who have worked in hospitals and with the words of students who have been through hospitalizations, and then what happens afterwards. So it can be just. We really want it to be a resource guide. Again, read it cover to cover. Sure. But probably, realistically, just what question do you have? And hopefully we have an answer. And if we don't, send us an email because we'd love to answer it and maybe we'll get a chance to write another edition and include it.
- [41:58]
B
This is a really wonderful book and I think really should be a resource that universities and colleges make available to students because I think oftentimes students, they don't go and seek help until they've already spent a lot of time suffering. People oftentimes don't go and deal with things in a preventive manner. So I really do think that if students, you know, before they even step foot on a college campus or when they first there, first get there, if they familiarize themselves with some of these questions and realize that it's okay to be asking a lot of these questions, then, then they could really, you know, maybe help themselves before they get into a situation that, you know, where they really are having to deal with some of these, you know, some of these more consequential, scary outcomes that could. Could occur from. From a mental health issue.
- [42:49]
A
Yeah.
- [42:50]
B
So, Chris, it was really so wonderful to get the chance to speak with you about this book. I think it's a really great guide and hopefully students will find it useful in educators and parents as well.
- [43:00]
A
Thank you. It was really fun to write. This has been a great conversation, great questions. Sometimes it's like you do an interview and it can feel a little dull or dead, but this felt really alive. And thank you so much for the invitation.
- [43:12]
B
Thank you so much. That's really kind. I appreciate it.
- [43:15]
A
Sam.