Small changes, new things for mental health

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Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu (Although it is small, it is precious)

Don’t try to dodge or deny uncomfortable feelings but embrace them and you will grow – that’s part of WITT mental health practitioner Jessica Edelbaum’s approach to good mental health.

Fellow counsellor David Sander at Te Puna Manaaki (Student Health Services) suggests clients try something new. If they enjoy it and feel their mental health is improved as a result, keep going. Small changes and simple activities can sometimes make a big difference, he says.

Both trained and experienced in counselling, they joined the WITT whānau earlier this year (David in March, Jessica in June) to provide support to ākonga. They want everyone to know there are times when everyone needs support, and it’s best to do so “even when you’re not sure what’s going on.”

Demand for their help, which is free, is steady. There is always someone who can see you. They (with colleague Hildah Ntuli) offer one-on-one sessions as well as visiting classrooms to share information about WITT’s mental health services and organise events to help create a sense of community on campus. And they know that having someone to talk to can make all the difference.

Students seek help for diverse reasons - whānau dynamics to financial stresses or feeling overwhelmed juggling study and personal life. Anxiety and depression, body image issues, and fear of failure based on previous learning experiences can come up too.

Learning to feel comfortable with discomfort

Jessica’s starting point is a simple technique she calls “feel your feels. Often, we’re taught that if there’s something uncomfortable, or less than our preferred or desired emotion, we must lock it away or ignore it. But then it can boil over and make a mess in our lives.”

She encourages clients to pay attention to bodily sensations and the mind/body/heart link. Modern living means we can all be a bit distracted and disconnected from bodily sensations that harbour difficult emotions. Being aware of our breathing helps too. “Feeling comfortable with discomfort is where growth happen,” she says.

For David, solutions need to be tailored to the individual, and not necessarily textbook driven.

“It’s not so much ‘here’s a list of techniques’, it’s more about ‘let me understand you and let’s find out what works for you’. There must be buy-in from the client.”

He notes that sometimes people aren’t sure how to articulate or pinpoint what they are feeling. “Sometimes solutions are simple and practical. It’s quite a vulnerable position to ask for support, and you don’t have to explore your deepest, darkest secrets. Often just feeding back to people what they’ve said in a different way helps them makes sense of things.”

Life experiences inspire counselling work

American-born Jessica has a Bachelor of Psychology from the University of Central Missouri and a master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Appalachian State University in North Carolina. She’s trained as a life coach, dance and yoga teacher and worked in an intensive outpatient progamme in the US for people seeking support with addiction challenges. She also worked with youth and their whānau in wilderness therapy programmes in Colorado and Utah. Teens took part in immersive programmes for up to three months that were life-changing, she says.

Her experience growing up with limited support to get through tricky teenage years is part of her motivation for working in this area. “Part of my kaupapa is that I look at the world through a lens of relationships, starting with relationship with self.”

David grew up in Taranaki and says that 20 years ago being part of the rainbow community and going to an all-boys’ school was difficult.

It’s these experiences that motivate him to work in the tertiary education context as a counsellor. “I want people to be able to be themselves and to find what they’re passionate about.”

He studied business at Massey University before teaching English in South Korea and Japan, where his natural empathy and listening skills became known and utilised by peers needing support in a foreign land. He found a sense of purpose in this unofficial role and decided to do a Graduate Diploma in Psychology then a Master of Counselling, both at the University of Auckland. His thesis was on gay men and their spiritual lives.

“There’s often a preconceived idea that spirituality isn’t important for people in rainbow communities. I believe it [spirituality} is important for everyone.”

Mental Health Awareness Week

Mental Health Awareness Week (Sept 23 - 27) has been a major focus recently,

As well as running daily lunchtime activities, including flax weaving, knitting, dance, boxing and kai sharing, they also encouraged longer lasting connections across the campus.

“Community is what we create together – that was the [national] theme of the week,” says David. “Health is often perceived as something individual that you must take care of by yourself, but I think it’s something we can do as a community to support one another.”

For Jessica, her role at WITT is life-affirming. “It’s an incredible honour to journey with people to become more fully expressed versions of themselves. I’m here to support ākonga through any challenges they may be experiencing. It’s magic to witness people aligning with their true values and feeling safe to be who they are.”

Caption: David Sander and Jessica Edelbaum

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