The Counseling Service offers individual, couple, and group counseling, assessment, consultation, referral, and campus outreach to the Vassar community. Any of these are free of charge and available to full-time students. Individual Counseling is confidential and short-term. In addition, the Counseling Service has a 24-hour on-call crisis response line (845-437-5700) while residence halls are open.
The Counseling Service has very limited psychiatric services. In order to meet with the psychiatrist for the Counseling Service, you must be referred by a Metcalf counselor. It is also required that you continue working with a counselor at Metcalf while working with the psychiatrist.
While Metcalf maintains a rule of confidentiality, there are several circumstances in which this confidentiality can be broken. The exceptions to the rule of confidentiality are the following (taken from the Counseling Service’s website):
1. If appropriate, your counselor may consult with your treating physician or other healthcare provider at Vassar College Health Services or with the Eating Disorder Response Team to coordinate your care.
2. If you are clearly likely to do physical harm to yourself in the near future, it is your counselor’s duty to keep you safe. Your counselor, or the director, will communicate with the Student of Concern Team to express concern about your safety. This step would be taken only if absolutely necessary.
3. If you are clearly likely to do physical harm to another person in the near future, it is your counselor’s duty to warn the person involved. Your counselor, or the director, will communicate with the Student of Concern Team to express concern about harm to others. This step would be taken only if absolutely necessary.
4. If you share information about the abuse or neglect of any juvenile or disabled adult(s), your counselor may be required by state law to report that information to the Department of Social Services.
5. If you are seventeen or younger, your parents may have legal access to your counseling records.
6. If ordered by a judge to testify or provide counseling records as part of a judicial proceeding, your counselor would be required to comply. Such a situation may arise in child custody proceedings or in proceedings in which your emotional condition is an important element.
Student says: I would feel comfortable going to Metcalf; however I would probably first go to someone I already know in AEO simply because I would feel more comfortable and then I would make an appointment at Metcalf. Had I been introduced to someone in the counseling office freshman year, I would go there first.
Student says: I do feel comfortable going to Metcalf. AEO actually connected me with a new Chronic Health therapy group that was starting at Vassar at the beginning of my freshman year. It meets once a week and I’ve been part of it for 5 semesters, and plan to continue it next year. For me, it really has made all the difference to have people I can not only trust, but who understand my experiences and the challenges of living on one’s own with a chronic illness for the first time. Additionally, while I have an “invisible” chronic illness disability and while I avoid advertising that I go to Metcalf, I actually usually feel proud when I go into Metcalf because I know I’m taking care of myself emotionally that way.