Last year, approximately 10 percent of UW-Madison students visited UHS to treat at least one mental illness, but that's just skimming the surface, according to UHS Director for Clinical and Crisis Services, Dennis Christoffersen.
""Some don't come because they worry it will make them seem weak or ... they're too busy or they don't know how somebody could help with their problems,"" Christoffersen said.
Active Minds, a national organization raising mental health awareness among college students, estimates 27 percent of 18-24-year-old adults have ""a diagnosable form of mental illness.""
One of those students is ""Michelle,"" a UW-Madison Senior introduced earlier in this series on mental health. Two years ago, Michelle was suffering from depression when she attempted suicide, dropped out of an East Coast university and transferred to UW, only to be hospitalized again for depression and anxiety. She recovered and re-enrolled in UW last year.
Like many students, Michelle, who requested anonymity, is sensitive to a stigma surrounding mental illness, even when it came to telling her parents.
""There are a couple of times when I needed to go to the ER and didn't because I knew it would appear on my mom's bill, and I knew how controversial that would be and it wasn't worth it to me.""
UHS has a strict policy of not revealing any medical information to parents without student permission, but problems can still arise, as Michelle knows from helping a friend with an eating disorder recently.
""She finally decided to go for counseling at UHS, and [after a couple of sessions] wanted to see somebody through her dad's HMO, but her parents are very much against counseling and would be furious if they found out ... this holds a lot of people back from treatment.""
Spokesperson for the Wisconsin Office for the Commissioner of Insurance, Jim Guidry, said insurance companies dealing with group employer plans are required by Wisconsin law to send mental health-related information to the ""recipient of the services."" This is little comfort if the information goes to student's hometown address, but Guidry said students can usually request the insurer change the billing address and, if not, most insurance companies would list counseling services in ambiguous term such as ""clinical appointment.""
Confidentiality concerns can also come up when students need to drop classes because of a mental illness, as Michelle was forced to do during her second semester.
UW's Compassionate Refund policy states students who drop courses after the fourth week of classes may be given partial refunds if they have ""written verification"" documenting a ""life-threatening or disabling illness.""
Michelle said she's also concerned about applying to grad school after the recent university shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois brought some calls for admissions screening for the mentally ill.
""You hear about grad programs and employers going on Facebook and finding people's profiles and seeing pictures of people drinking and not getting hired ... I worry about schools doing the same kind of screening for mental illness.""
To learn more about mental health confidentiality or UHS' mental health services in general, call UHS as 265-5600 and press ‘9' for the mental health crisis hotline.
