The psychological counselling provided by the student service organisations – the Studierendenwerke (or STWs) – is tailored to meet student needs. The aim of the counselling is to stimulate positive personal development and avoid the emergence of serious, long-lasting problems.
Awakening and maintaining resources: counselling before the crisis hits!
The psychological counselling offered by the STWs is primarily preventive and resource-based: in a targeted fashion and using established methods, students are helped to recognise their personal potential and make best use of it in their studies.
Psychological counselling supports, promotes and strengthens:
- the exploitation of individual educational and developmental resources
- the individual ability to work and capacity to perform
- self-confident handling of social and performance-related demands
- the key skills necessary to complete a degree programme
- the satisfactory shaping of social relations
- functional problem-solving skills and the potential to act to overcome personal and study-related problems and disruptions
- the prevention of health risks, e.g. due to stress and overburdening, and thereby minimising the development of negative coping strategies
If problems are more severe
Psychological counselling services also include stabilisation in the event of acute personal and study-related psychological problems as well as crisis intervention: as easily accessible professional support, it helps students to cope with psychological crises and (re)activate their personal potential for recovery and action, which prevents the escalation as well as consolidation of psychological problems, or the development of psychological disorders.
Psychological counselling can help determine mental health disorders and support the transfer to medical or psychotherapeutic treatments.
Typical student problems are:
- work and performance crises
- learning and concentration difficulties
- exam anxieties
- problems with work scheduling and time management
- identity crises
- self-doubt
- general anxiety
- depressive state
- psychosomatic complaints