CAPS faces higher demands, falling budget

More and more people nationwide have been seeking out help for mental health problems, and the increases have been particularly steep among college students.

While part of this dramatic increase is due to the demise of the stigma of mental illness, the trend is also indicative of the increase in severe psychological and emotional difficulties which college students have found themselves facing in the past five years.

In Penn's Ivy League atmosphere, students frequently see themselves as immune to these problems. In recent years, however, the increase in students with severe psychological problems who are seeking help from the University's Counseling and Psychological Services has proven that Penn students are not as removed from these problems as they may think.

"There is definitely a lot more going on for young adults these days compared with a few years ago," CAPS Director Ilene Rosenstein said. "Penn is a stressful place, and we are really seeing an increase in the frequency of severe symptoms as a result."

Despite the increasing prevalence and severity of the problems Penn students must deal with, in recent years, CAPS has actually had to reduce its staff -- instead of expanding its professional staff to accommodate the needs of the student body -- due to limitations in University funding.

"Two years ago, we had three temporary positions that we don't have this year because of budget cuts," CAPS Deputy Director William Alexander said. "As a result, we've gotten really jammed up lately, which unfortunately affects the length of the client waiting list."

Although CAPS currently employs a team of 13 psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers -- in addition to several supervised interns, residents and graduate students -- CAPS officials say that the increasingly severe problems facing Penn's students clearly demonstrate the need for more resources to assist students in dealing with these issues.

"We have the lowest staff numbers we've had in years," Rosenstein said. "We are extremely effective at helping those whom we actually see, but in order to be even more effective, we just need more staff. In this day and age, where there's more demand for services, we just try not to shut the door on anyone."

Indeed, the prevalence of severe symptoms has skyrocketed over the past five years, evident by the fact that in 1998, only 6 percent of CAPS patients showed signs of severe depression; by 2003, that number had soared to 35 percent.

Nor is Penn's experience unique. A recent University of California, Los Angeles survey of college freshmen found that over 30 percent frequently felt overwhelmed. Last spring, the American College Health Association's semiannual National College Health Assessment found that the percentage of students who reported having diagnosed depression had increased by 30 percent within three years.

The pervasiveness of these more extreme problems is not just limited to Penn's campus. On the national level, depression among college students has been on the rise, with over 10 percent of America's student population having been diagnosed with depression. Similarly, anxiety disorders are also more prevalent, with more than 7 percent of college students reporting that they have experienced anxiety.

Although the total number of students who utilize CAPS' services has remained relatively constant across the past five years -- with an estimated 10 percent of the total student body seeking help each year -- according to officials, there has been a marked increase in the number of students being treated for serious issues.

"The number of students with serious symptoms and serious problems has been growing at Penn and our peer institutions over the past five years," Alexander said. "People now are trying to cope with the significant stresses of being a college student while dealing with more serious issues at the same time."

And while students have long turned to the CAPS professional staff for assistance with their problems, in recent years, their reasons for seeking help have shifted. In the past, the principal issues were the more traditional collegiate concerns of adjustment and academics. Recently, however, students' motives for seeking counseling have changed, as more severe depression and anxiety are now more prevalent.

"The number one reason why students come to us is still for traditional developmental problems like career counseling, homesickness or relationship problems," Alexander said. "However, though still a minority, the frequency of more serious problems -- like depression, anxiety, mood, attention and eating disorders, and even suicide -- is increasing."

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