This academic year marks the third year that Pacific University’s Student Counseling Center is offering Mindful Coping groups to students to help them develop skills and insights into how they handle distress in life, according to Staff Therapist, Allison Hajdu-Paulen.
The group sessions meet once a week for three weeks, and a new session is offered almost every month.
The next and last session of fall semester starts Nov. 8, and is every Friday from 10 to 11 a.m. for the Forest Grove location. For the Hillsboro location, it starts Nov. 5 and is every Tuesday from 12 to 1 p.m.
Days and times for sessions change every month to work around any possible time conflicts for students. The sessions are led by counseling center staff, and students keep a journal for their own personal experiences but are not required to share them.
The Mindful Coping group can also be done in conjunction with one-on-one counseling as students might find the center’s different resources helpful.
One student who wished to remain anonymous found the sessions helpful. For this student, they learned how to look inwardly and focus on their emotions.
“We students are just so overworked and always so busy that we don’t have time to reflect on all of our experiences,” they said. “So even if you just dedicate like five minutes to it and do one of these exercises, you’ll feel so much better than you did before.”
For students who want to participate in a Mindful Coping session, Hajdu-Paulen says they must RSVP by phone or in person at the either the counseling center in Forest Grove or Hillsboro.
The Student Counseling Center can be reached at 503-352-2191.
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