Now more than ever, campus mental health is dominated by the narrative of a crisis, painted as a dire picture of never-ending anxiety and depression among students, staff, and faculty. We now have opportunity to deconstruct the singular “crisis” narrative and consider more complex and nuanced understandings of campus mental health.

Despite this common belief, when talking to students in distress, we are more effective when we are active listeners. It is a path of less responsibility and greater effectiveness when we use active listening rather than the more commonly used approach of attempting to fix, make better, or solve.   Active listening helps students tell and expand their stories about their distress without our expectation that we will fix or solve the issues. Often students do not readily tell others about their struggles, so their stories largely reside in the vast, bottomless place of their heads, where they often grow to unreasonable proportions.

Workplaces can be like families and neighbors in that we typically do not get to pick who is a part of these groups. Often these relationships work marvelously and sometimes they can be difficult, stressful, and even contentious.