Deerfield can be overwhelming and stressful at times, as students juggle rigorous academics, demanding co-curricular activities, and busy social lives. However, there are a handful of resources offered on campus to support students through their ups and downs, from the Health Center staff to Peer Counselors.
There are three types of counseling that the Health Center currently offers. The first is individual counseling, where students can schedule sessions with a counselor and may continue seeing them for however long they need to. Contrary to a widespread belief that therapy is a long-term commitment, many students only meet with counselors for a couple of sessions because its aim is to develop an effective, personalized strategy to produce positive results in the short term.
A second option is group counseling, which was recently introduced. It includes the Managing Anxiety Group, the Grief Group, and the Managing Intense Feelings Group (which will be introduced in winter of 2022). Director of Counseling Jennifer Daily said the purpose of establishing group counseling at Deerfield is to, “[help] pierce the veil of loneliness, and it helps people feel more connected, more normal, more like we’re in this together.” The Managing Anxiety Group is a skill and strategy based group that will meet for a total of four to five sessions. During these meetings, students will learn about the science behind how human brains function, and how they can manage certain situations that provoke anxiety. Students are also given worksheets as reference points and tools to practice with. The Grief Group differs from the Managing Anxiety Group, as meetings are conversational and revolve around shared experiences of loss to foster connection between students.
One of the initiatives aimed towards developing students’ emotional intelligence is “Notice and Connect,” an evening long conversation given annually to all juniors. It teaches students how to recognize when their friends are struggling and strategies for how to talk to them in a helpful way, thus providing tangibile guidelines to support each other when needed.
In addition to counselors, the Health Center houses an eating disorder specialist, a sports nutritionist, and a psychiatrist to ensure that students have access to a range of support. Looking forwards, Counselor Daily said that the counselors are working on implementing a wellness co-curricular next fall. She said that the co-curricular is still a work in progress, but if it does happen, it will be a recreational level co-curricular in which activities might involve — but are not limited to — doing crafts, going on walks, learning coping skills, sharing music, and watching movies. The primary purpose of a wellness co-curricular, according to Counselor Daily, is that “it gets you connected to your classmates, but it’s a way to have some space.”
Peer Counselors are also a resource that students can turn to for help. These select students are a group of students chosen for the position through an interview and application process during their sophomore year. They then spend their sophomore spring being trained by Peer Counselors in the year above them and are taught how to handle various scenarios, what attentive body language looks like, and how to be a good listener and recognize when a situation is beyond their help. This is to best prepare them for junior fall, when they become active Peer Counselors. They offer office hours from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. every week night in the health center. Their phone numbers are posted in all dorms for convenience, as students may reach out to PCs at any time. Additionally, PCs visit the freshmen village every two weeks to hold small group sessions. Regrading these various methods of communications, Head Peer Counselor Jackson Collins ’23 further explained, “Our duty hours are just a set place where we are, but you can literally stop us on the path and talk to us; there is no time that’s unavailable for us.”
Now, with the new peer counselor website, the process to reach out to one of them is easier than ever. On the website, students can select a specific counselor they want to talk to, and then that counselor will receive an email. They will then get back to the student as soon as they can to schedule a time to meet. According to Collins, “we know how incredibly hard it is to go to a person who you see pretty much every day and spill information and secrets and insecurities that no one likes talking about,” so this website aims to ensure that the process of reaching out to a peer counselor is friendly and comfortable.