The Counseling Center provides confidential services including the following: individual psychotherapy, group therapy, psychiatry, and emergency services for mental health crises.

We also serve as a testing center for students registered with Disability Support Services and for graduate school language exams. In addition, we provide referral services to outside agencies or practitioners when we determine that a student's needs would be better met by an outside provider.

Full-time students whose treatment needs fall within our scope of services may be eligible for individual psychotherapy, psychiatry, and group therapy. Full-time students (including law students enrolled for at least 8 credit hours) may receive weekly individual therapy appointments for up to 15 consecutive weeks following intakes. There is an overall limit of 60 individual therapy appointments (15 a year) (i.e., consultations, emergencies, Let's Talk appointments, and individual therapy sessions) over the course of a student's time at Catholic as either an undergraduate, graduate, or law student.

Part-time students have access to same-day (i.e., Let's Talk) consultation appointments, as well as participation in group therapy. 

Limits to Our Services

Counseling Center staff members are generalists who work each year with a wide variety of student concerns and issues. Similar to other universities nationwide, we have experienced rapidly increasing demand for services in recent years. Accordingly, in order to serve the greatest number of students possible each year, there are both session limits and additional constraints to what kinds of services we are able to provide.

Scope of Services

The Counseling Center is best suited to working with students whose concerns can be resolved within a relatively short-term timeframe. Student needs that might require open-ended, long-term, intensive, or specialized treatment will often result in referrals to outside providers in the community, and are often best treated outside of our setting. When students are referred outside of the Counseling Center for ongoing services, staff offer to hold one to two follow-up meetings with them to facilitate the referral process. Mindful of both individual student treatment needs as well as affordability, staff work with students to help them connect with the resources that will maximize the likelihood of their successful treatment.

Possible indicators for referrals outside of the Counseling Center include but are not limited to:

• A determination that more intensive and/or more specialized treatment than what is possible in our setting is currently needed or is likely to be needed
• Evidence or risk of progressive deterioration in social, academic, or work functioning
• The need to be seen more frequently or flexibly for psychiatry services, given that the psychiatrist has an extensive caseload during the academic year, or interest in medication-only treatment
• Frequent use of crisis intervention services
• Consistent attendance problems, or the desire to have appointments either more frequently than once per week, or less frequently than once per week
• The need for a formal psychological evaluation (to diagnose disabilities, to return to campus following certain withdrawals or leaves of absence, neuropsychological testing, court-ordered evaluations, substance-abuse assessments)

To schedule an appointment during the academic year, call 202-319-5765 or come to the Counseling Center, located at 127 O'Boyle Hall.