The Center for Youth Mental Health offers a four to six-week group therapy program designed to educate young adults who are preparing to leave for college. Students are educated about anxiety and trained in how to use new techniques and tools to best manage their anxiety and time, as well as learn how to manage difficult emotions and frustrations they may experience in their new environments away from home.
Techniques include role-play and real-life rehearsal. For instance, a student under a therapist’s supervision may go to a local college medical center to make an appointment with a doctor or find a pharmacy that could fill his or her monthly prescriptions. The role play also includes having professors from Columbia University come to therapy sessions so that students can practice interacting with them.
Ultimately, the student learns ways to successfully manage these previously stressful situations.