How to support anxious students – tips from a former therapist

“If I don't get good grades at school, I won’t get into a good university. If I don’t get into a good university, I won’t get a good job. If I don’t get a good job, I won’t earn enough money. If I don’t earn enough money, I will be miserable.”

This is the narrative I hear from students every day. A shorter version is: “If I don’t get good grades, my life will be over.”

So what, as university and career counsellors, can we do to support our students’ mental health?

Currently, I try to ensure that I am always calm when speaking to students about their choices and future pathways. Even when it comes to deadlines, my aim is to stay calm and reassuring, while ensuring that students meet all deadlines for their applications.

This is not to say that I am always feeling calm. Certainly, on 31 January 2024, with 30 minutes to go until the Ucas deadline and two applications still to submit, I did not feel calm. But I tried to ensure that my anxiety did not transfer to the students whose applications were not yet ready. The students were already feeling anxious – they knew the deadline – so there was no need for me to heighten those difficult feelings.

University counselling for mental health

When working with the Grade 10 (Year 9) students who are having to make subject-choice decisions for the IB diploma, I help them to understand that they are not alone in not yet knowing what they want to do in the future. I tell them that they are in the majority – it’s only a minority of 15- and 16-year-olds who really know for sure that they want to be a doctor or an engineer.

Some students find this subject-choice journey a hard one – it’s the first decision many of them have had to make in their lives that could have an effect on what they can (and can’t) do in the future. A clear explanation and evidence of the fact that success is not a straight line (the theme of our annual career fair this year) help them to see that there are no wrong choices and many different pathways you can take to end up as a successful adult (whatever that is).

I also ensure that our students and families are as informed as possible whenever they are about to embark on any decision-making process regarding their futures. Knowledge provides understanding and understanding reduces anxiety. But these are not specific action points in my practice in which I say, “this supports mental health”.

They are also not action points that I can tick off as done at certain points in the academic year. As a professional who was once a practising child and young adult therapist, and as a mother with lived experience of children with mental-health difficulties, I have realised that there are three simple things that we can all do to support young students’ mental health, no matter what our profession. These are not tick-in-the-box action points – they are simply a way of being.

How to support students’ mental health

1. Be present

While of course it is essential to maintain a work-life balance at all times, we can make allowances at crucial times of the year (usually around application deadlines) by showing we are visible during times when perhaps we would normally not be. For example, you could send an email at the weekend to reassure a student who has sent an email at 11pm on Friday asking for help on their personal statement. You can hold a virtual meeting with a student during October half-term if they are working on their Oxbridge application and need to be reassured that everything has been completed correctly.

Scheduling a meeting before or after work with a family who can’t meet during the usual working day can help support those families struggling with all the perceived stress of future-pathway deadlines.

Being actively present in these small ways can have a huge impact on the mental well-being of our students and families.

2. Validate feelings

What do we do if a student doesn’t get any offers from the universities they have applied to or their final exam results are not the ones they need to do what they want in the future? Perhaps they are in your office and crying, saying that they are completely devastated. How do we respond?

What we don’t say is, “it’s not that bad. It will all be fine”. The student is feeling what they are feeling and, even if we know that a few months down the line everything will probably be OK again, we cannot invalidate what they are currently feeling.

What we can say is something that validates their feelings: “I am sorry that you are feeling so sad right now. That must be so hard.” And we can sit with them, quietly offering tissues until they are ready to move forward in conversations about what to do next.

Don’t rush them; simply let them know that you are there for them when they are ready to talk about next steps.

3. Explore different ideas without judgement

Maybe the student’s idea of what their post-school journey looks like is not one that we agree with. Perhaps we consider their future goals unrealistic, or maybe we think their future goals are not as high-reaching as they should be.

It’s important to not show what we think. We need to listen without judgement and then support and guide them towards their goals. Perhaps their focus on an Ivy League university is likely to result in a rejection – but we don’t say that. We just guide them openly into thinking about other options that have a higher acceptance rate. It’s always important to have a plan B, after all, no matter what your future plan is.

Sadly, today’s society can be a tough one for our young people to grow up in for so many different reasons. We can’t take away all the triggers of mental-health struggles for our students. But what we can do, in our role as university and career counsellors, is to ensure that our guidance is not one of those triggers.