On July 1, Dr. Jennifer D’Andrea began her full-time appointment as the new Director of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), formerly known as the Office of Behavioral Health for Students (OBHS). She will fill the position left vacant due to the passing of Dr. Philippa Coughlan this past March.
“The job description was developed last year with input from staff, students, and faculty and after reviewing the positions at several of our peer institutions,” wrote Director of University Health Center Joyce Walter in an email to The Argus. “In addition to the search committee which had staff, student, and faculty, membership, there were interview teams of students, faculty, and student affairs staff who met with each of the finalists.”
Seventy individuals from around the country applied for the job; from this applicant pool, ten candidates were chosen for phone interviews, and six candidates ultimately came to campus for all-day, in-person interviews. Walter received input from the interview teams before making her final decision.
“Everyone who interviewed the candidates evaluated [them] and shared that feedback with the search committee, which made its recommendation to me as the person responsible for making the hire,” she wrote.
D’Andrea, who worked at OBHS as a part-time psychotherapist for the past two years, brought a new vision to the table.
“It’s great because it gives me a direction to go in,” D’Andrea said. “I think one of the things that has been problematic for our office is that we’ve been doing so much individual therapy that we haven’t been that visible. We need to be more visible on campus, we need to be more relatable to students who don’t necessarily need to come in for therapy.”
Walter was impressed with D’Andrea’s plan for the department.
“During her final interview, she presented a strategic plan that will meet many short-term needs of the department such as outreach and education,” Walter wrote. “She has a vision to think in terms of the needs of the future and has already begun work on identifying doctoral interns for next year.”
D’Andrea specializes in adolescent/young adult patients and in treating severe mental illness. She previously worked
as a therapist at the Fordham University Counseling Center and also did psychosis prevention work at Yale University Medical School.
She hopes to partner with student groups and student leaders to increase the department’s visibility on campus and encourage more students to take advantage of the services the Counseling Center offers. She explained that the name change was also done to increase accessibility for students.
“OBHS: it’s not immediately apparent what that means,” she said. “When you break it down, Office of Behavioral Health—that sounds a little formal. Whereas Counseling and Psychological Services sounds a little bit more casual, more accessible.”
D’Andrea will continue meeting with students; she anticipates that she will see around 10-12 students per week in the fall and around 15 students per week in the spring. She has a long-term goal to develop a multi-faceted suicide prevention program and to do gatekeeper training for suicide prevention for all University staff and faculty. She also plans to create a formal framework for faculty consultation, so that faculty members feel more comfortable calling the office with concerns about students. She hopes students and faculty will become more aware of the stresses students face.
“People may not really grasp the extent to which Wesleyan students struggle with things,” she said. “To an outsider or even on the surface, they may seem to really have it all together. But I think most students here at one time or another really struggle. There are really unique stressors that come with this level of achievement and this level of intelligence, and its not easy.”
D’Andrea said that many students often schedule appointments with the staff psychologists when they feel they may be leaning on their friends too much and they need someone else to listen.
She said that students can request specific psychologists based on recommendations from friends, and students can also switch psychologists or see one of the many therapists in Middletown who have seen University students before and have agreed to be part of a referral list. She noted that most students only visit a psychologist a few times, and she encourages people to come to the Counseling Center regardless of how important their issue seems.
“The first time someone goes to see a therapist, whether it’s here or anywhere in the world, I think it’s very anxiety-producing because you don’t know what to expect, and that anxiety can keep you from going,” she said. “What I would say to people is don’t even worry about it, it’s not a big deal, you don’t have to have a big problem to come and see us, it could be a small problem—it could be a roommate issue, a relationship conflict, or adjustment to college-—it doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
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