The Triangle

Issue date: 10/7/05 Section: Sci-Tech

Media Credit: mentalhealthscreening.org. The online screening service offered by the University.

The 15th annual National Depression Screening Day is organized by Screening for Mental Health, Inc. located in Wellesley Hills, Mass., as an effort to put mood and anxiety disorders in the national spotlight, held Oct. 6. Mental Health Screening estimates that over 100,000 people are screened in-person and another 130,000 people online as a part of this event.

All of the University's campuses participated in NDSD with in-person and online screenings.

"All students will, at some time, find that they themselves or others around them will feel in depressed," said Associate Director of Student Counseling Center at the Hahnemann Campus Evan Forman, who coordinated the effort at Hahnemann.

The Center City campus has participated in NSDS for five years, providing screenings for hundreds of students. Last year, Forman introduced screening for anxiety disorders, as well as depression.

"Anxiety disorders, like panic disorder, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, are as common, if not more common, than depressive disorders and can sometimes be severely crippling. These disorders are also often never treated, which is a tragic situation since they are highly treatable by specific psychotherapies, primarily cognitive-behavioral therapies," Forman said.

The Student Counseling Center at Hahnemann, like its counterpart on the University City campus, offers free and confidential counseling, couples and group therapy, and free educational workshops, as well as low-cost psychoeducational and neuropsychological testing. They have also developed guides and training for University staff who recognize depression in students.

Forman believes it is important for students to know the difference between normal periods of sadness that come and go and true clinical depression.

"It is essential that students be aware that clinical depression is a highly treatable disorder; the vast majority of students who receive appropriate treatment will recover. We hope to help students determine whether the symptoms they are noticing in themselves or others are the sign of a significant problem that can and should receive treatment. We want to help students to realize that clinical depression is a serious medical disorder, very often with biological and biochemical causes, that cannot be 'shaken off' or 'willed away' and that is not a sign of personal weakness. In doing so, we want to reduce the stigma that students may feel in seeking help," Forman said.

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