A large competitive university such as UCSD is both an exciting
and challenging environment. Academic mastery, social relationships,
and participation in the University community can provide fulfilling experiences
that contribute to personal growth and wellness. 
However, at times these
positive experiences can be interspersed with feelings of distress and
self-doubt when students are confronted with the demanding academic and
personal tasks that are commonplace at UCSD. The recognition of growing
intellectual and emotional resources can sometimes be mixed with an awareness
of needed personal development.
Young adulthood, the traditional age of college students, is a time of momentous change and development. Such change can be both exhilarating and confusing. A wide variety of surprisingly intense experiences is typical of this developmental stage.
Graduate students have successfully negotiated the earliest years of adulthood. They are now addressing the tasks of increasing their personal integration and intellectual productivity, while creating an image of their ultimate place in our larger society. It can be a challenge to maintain a sense of competence among such intellectually talented peers and faculty.
The Staff of Counseling and Psychological Services is on-campus to help you respond to challenges with resilience, to problems with effective solutions, and to choices with adaptive decisions.
Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) provides individual,
group, couples, and family psychotherapy to registered undergraduate
and graduate students, including students of the Medical School
and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Services are free
of charge to currently enrolled students who have paid their
registration fees. During the summer, students who were enrolled
the previous Spring quarter and are intending to return in the
Fall quarter are eligible for services.
If you believe that there is room for improvement in your personal effectiveness and resilience in some areas of your life, a psychological consultation may help you work toward such improvements. You may notice that you have certain patterns of thinking and behavior that interfere with your success with and the enjoyment of certain endeavors. If so, you should consider making an appointment.
Students also consult with us about a variety of more specific personal, academic and relationship problems such as:
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Poor academic performance and study skills
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Roommate conflicts
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Homesickness and difficulty adjusting to the university
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Disappointing social relationships
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Alcohol and other substance use and abuse
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Difficulty in love relationships
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Loneliness and isolation
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Eating and body image problems
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Depression and suicidal thoughts
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Anxiety
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Sexuality and sexual identity
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Family conflict
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Grief and loss
Our Staff is made up of doctoral level psychologists and supervised pre- and post-doctoral psychology interns. All are referred to as psychologists in the text that follows.
Individual counseling is a collaborative professional relationship, which is focused on your concerns and problems.
The initial appointment will last approximately one hour. Your psychologist will ask you about your reason(s) for seeking counseling, and will get to know you by asking about your personal history, social relationships, educational goals, and expectations for counseling.
At the end of the initial appointment, you and your psychologist will formulate a counseling plan. CAPS is focused on assisting students with problems typical of undergraduate and graduate students that can be managed with short-term counseling. If you require assistance that is within the treatment guidelines of CAPS then additional on-campus individual appointments and/or group counseling will become part of the plan. If you can best be helped by longer term care, or if you have chronic mental health problems, then CAPS will assist you in finding suitable care in the off-campus professional community.
CAPS offers structured workshops on such topics as building social skills, managing stress and improving body image. We also offer a wide variety of groups and forums, which may be focused or general, open-ended or time-limited, drop-in or attended by the same people each week. For more information on groups, workshops and forums, visit our Groups page.
If you are unsure whether to start with an individual meeting with a psychologist, or by joining a group or workshop, we suggest making an appointment with a psychologist first, and then collaboratively deciding on the best course of action.
In keeping with ethical standards of the mental health profession and the law, all services provided by the staff of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) are kept confidential. We do, however, consult as needed within the staff of CAPS (and Student Health Service if they are collaborating in your care) about the best way to provide the assistance based on client need. No information is released to outside parties without the client's prior, written consent. Neither the fact that you seek counseling nor any information about the counseling sessions will appear in your student academic record unless you direct us to communicate with other staff and faculty at the university.
Psychologists have a legal responsibility to disclose client information without prior consent in certain cases to protect clients and others. These include cases where a client has communicated to the psychologist a serious threat of physical violence to other individuals, or where a psychologist has reasonable cause to believe that the client is dangerous to him- or herself or may be gravely disabled and unable to care for him or herself. Additionally, psychologists are obligated to report any cases of child abuse or elder abuse. Fortunately these situations are infrequent. Please consult with your psychologist if you have any questions about confidentiality.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that is designed to protect the privacy of patient information, provide for the electronic and physical security of health and patient medical information, and simplify billing and other electronic transactions by standardizing codes and procedures. A piece of this law recently took effect and is known as the HIPAA Privacy Rule. The HIPAA Privacy Rule creates a minimum federal standard for the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI) by health care organizations. One of the requirements of the Privacy Rule is that we give to you a Notice of Privacy Practices (NPP) which describes your rights and protections regarding your health care records (PHI). This document is included as part of the Intake Forms Packet that you will need to download prior to your initial appointment.
As always, we remain committed to maintaining your confidentiality and the privacy of psychological and medical records and will continue to adhere to psychologist's ethical guidelines, as well as, state and federal law. Please review the Counseling and Psychological Services Information, Consent Form, and the NPP for more specific information.
If you have questions about the NPP or HIPAA regulations, please click on the following HIPAA link. You can also contact our HIPAA compliance officer, Dorinda Howse at (858) 534-3755.
Our office hours are 8:00am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday. Our Central Office is at Galbraith Hall 190. You may call (858) 534-3755 or stop by our central office to make an appointment. Appointments are generally available within two weeks of your request. However, at times of peak demand the wait can be longer. You may request a specific staff person on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or location, but it will possibly mean a longer wait until an appointment becomes available. For locations and maps to our offices, click here.
Although CAPS generally operates on an appointment basis, there are occasions when a problem or crisis feels too overwhelming to wait for a scheduled appointment. If this is the case, please make this known when you call and you can be seen quickly or within a few hours depending on the nature of the crisis during our hours of operation (8:00am-4:30pm , Monday-Friday). Call (858) 534-3755 to speak with the on-call psychologist who will assist you with the concern or crisis.
After hours, CAPS psychologists can be reached for urgent psychological consultations through the UCSD campus police at (858) 534-HELP(4357).
For life threatening emergencies or if anyone is in immediate danger, please call 911 or the UCSD Campus Police at (858) 534-HELP(4357).
For more information about emergency services, please go to our Emergency Assistance page for more information.