This piece was co-written with Meryem Harim.
More and more, we often hear discussions of mental health and its importance, and students have been increasingly interested in its activism by the day. However, while we know how to preserve our body’s health, doing the same for our mind might be a bit tough. Al Akhawayn University is making new efforts in accommodating its students with the necessary means to prioritize their mental health.
Existing AUI counseling services offer therapy and a part-time psychiatrist to students with diagnosed mental health conditions, but because of high demand, students are placed on a priority list, and they are often unable to seek a specialist if their needs are considered less urgent. Hence, the Student Listening Unit (SLU) was established by the Dean of Student Affairs office after the University spotted the necessity of helping students with “non-pathological” mental hygiene.
“I am centered on the person, and not the problem. What matters to me is the feelings about that problem.”
– Ms. Ghita Ettahri, Head of the SLU
“If students have certain pathological issues and if they need medicine, they are referred to Mr. Jallal Toufiq,” said Ms. Ettahri, a psychotherapist who joined the AUI community on February 1 as the Head of the SLU. “The big majority of health problems is caused by difficulties adapting to university life.”
For students with issues in acclimating to the University and stresses related to ordinary life, the SLU steps in to help with maintaining their “mental hygiene.” Ms. Ettahri calls the method she uses to help these students a “person-centered approach”, meaning that she focuses on the feelings generated by a problem, rather than the problem itself. A method that she believes is central to help students preserve their emotional well-being.
Although she is currently the only psychotherapist working at the SLU, Ms. Ettahri has a list of potential collaborators whom she plans to invite if the demand for group sessions runs too high. These collaborators range from therapists whom Ms. Ettahri trusts, to DSA’s Student Support Service staff members who have interacted with students every day for the past 20 years.
“These collaborators are used to listening. Without techniques, they have intuition and experience, and experience [in human relationships] is the most important matter,” Ms. Ettahri stated. “We will recruit them because they have natural abilities that we will help them improve.”
The ambitious psychotherapist plans to offer her collaborators special training sessions as she welcomes them to the SLU team. It must be pointed out that the SLU could not be complete without Nouha Boulkaid, Ms. Ettahri’s Administrative Assistant and a junior year AUI student minoring in psychology. She affirms Ms. Ettahri’s excitement for the new project, and she hopes that the new unit will allow more students to seek the help that they need.
“There is an overload of demand. I think that’s why there are [SLU] group sessions. There will be around 20 people in the group sessions, and there will be five types of groups, so hopefully that will take a load of students,” described Boulkaid. “Then, there are individual sessions depending on the needs of the student. Since Ms. Ghita is not a professor, she does not have responsibilities besides SLU, so she is really going to take as many students as she can.”
What types of services will the SLU offer to promote mental hygiene?
The SLU will offer both individual and group therapy sessions for students. Group sessions have five main branches, all of which have the same goal: helping students with their trauma, physical and emotional pain, while taking advantage of the benefits of speaking with a group. Consequently, these branches are:
- Art therapy workshops will include painting, writing, and collage. Concrete art pieces will help students express their feelings and earn a deeper understanding of their sentiments. The focus is not on the quality of the created elements, but on personal expression.
- Phototherapy workshops will take place both indoors and outdoors. Like in the art therapy workshops, the goal of the sessions is not to snap perfect pictures, but to encourage students to look at their surroundings from a fresh angle while reflecting on their emotions.
- Silvotherapy workshops give a voice to participants by encouraging them to recount their stories and struggles using a tree as a metaphor. By telling life as a narrative with the “Tree of Life”—roots, soil, trunk, branches, leaves and fruit each has a symbolic meaning—participants open old and new chapters in their own life.
- Sophrotherapy workshops teach participants strategies to manage stress by balancing the mind and body. These relaxation techniques are based on psycho-corporal methods, and they can help students discharge negativity and control their emotions.
- Groupe de parole et d’écoute consists of thematic discussions under the supervision of Ms. Ettahri. They are limited in size to maintain confidentiality is to be maintained within these sessions that could become the participants’ haven.
In all workshops, the SLU remains open for any thematic or topic suggestions, both from individual students and student representative groups (e.g. the SGA).
What are AUI students’ expectations for the new SLU?
To facilitate a mental health discussion—as well as the meaning of student well-being generally, relative to the University’s new Strategic Plan—President Amine Bensaid and DSA Abdessamad Fatmi held a hybrid-format town hall on February 15.
At the town hall, several students voiced concerns with current mental health services, as well as their hopes for the new SLU unit. Independently of the town hall, and in the shadow of a student suicide last semester that has been permanently imprinted on the AUI community’s memory, AUI students also offered their insight on how they hope mental health discussion and services at the University may change for the better.
“I honestly believe the SLU is so far a great initiative,” said AUIer Hiba Jabrane. “The question that remains in my mind is how can we attract students who encounter issues, and how can we make them trust that unit.”
Jabrane wishes that the SLU can reach more students who seek help from the University, but in addition to the question of trust, also worries about the efficacy. There have been only two psychologists and one part-time psychiatrist who have served the University for many years, but with the number of students on campus, the demand for counseling services often runs higher than what counselors can supply.
“I remember Ismael never wanting to get into contact with the AUI counseling service because he deemed it to be unreachable,” recalled Jabrane about her best friend’s death last semester.
Additionally, although the SLU aims to account for students’ input in what concerns thematic activities and workshops, some students feel that the University should take students’ opinion even further into account when hiring new counseling staff. Because the younger generation—including students on campus—are more receptive to mental health counseling, they feel that they may have better insight for hiring counselors that will effectively meet their needs, whether they be as simple as campus-related stress or more serious chronic issues.
For students facing these more serious mental health issues, they feel that the SLU might target mental hygiene on the campus as a whole, but still does not address the needs of students who seek help from the University.
In this vein, Ghita Skalante, a business administration sophomore, hopes that the University improves its policies for suicidal students with urgent needs. She feels that students might have trouble trusting administration, especially since school policies state that suicidal students should be sent home, at least for a period of rest.
“Home is not a safe place for most suicidal students,” remarked Ghita. “In fact, campus serves as an escape from, in some cases, abuse, whether it be verbal, emotional or physical by parents and family, so students would rather keep their thoughts to themselves until it is too late.”
Students also raised concerns over the effectiveness of mental health counseling as a gendered issue. AUIer Taha* (last name removed for privacy) expressed that male students often have a harder time expressing their emotions. He would like to witness a change and see more people verbalizing their inner feelings. He also counts on the SLU to help accomplish that task, while displaying empathy and compassion toward those who seek them.
Regarding the gendered nature of expressing feelings, Ms. Ettahri believes that “art can replace words.” She relies on the workshops organized by the SLU to give students a chance of expressing their feelings without resorting to “words,” particularly for those who have a hard time vocalizing their emotions.
In what concerns mental health treatment in the future, DSA Fatmi stressed that AUI strives to maintain non-discriminatory policies and a welcoming atmosphere for all students, staff and faculty at the community town hall.
“We do not discriminate on the basis of gender, religion, orientation, well-being, and so on and so forth,” said DSA Fatmi. “That’s the very reason why, and let me quote something that Jallal Taoufik said, the only university I know of in Morocco that has successfully graduated students with schizophrenia is Al Akhawayn.”
Fatmi hopes to see students of all backgrounds continue to graduate and succeed at Al Akhawayn University despite their diverse personal struggles, to spread the University’s vision of “inclusive excellence.”
“We do not discriminate on the basis of gender, religion, orientation, well-being, and so on and so forth.”
– DR. ABDESSAMAD FATMI, DEAN OF STUDENT AFFAIRS
Although students have felt in the past few years that counseling services have not met all of their expectations—sometimes complaining about scheduling appointments with a counselor, limited number of staff and the quality of the sessions—the SLU represents new efforts to improve such services. There may be many more targets for the for the University to reach for on its mission to improve its mental health services, but with the activism of student voices and prerogative of the DSA’s office, AUI students may be looking forwards to the fruit of the university’s actions.
How can students book a session with the SLU?
- The official email for the SLU is listeningunit@aui.ma, but there are two other ways for students to book 1:1 or group therapy sessions.
- For 1:1 sessions, email counseling@aui.ma to schedule an intake session with Dr. Aure Veyssiere. Dr. Veyssiere will determine whether the SLU or the Counseling Department is the appropriate unit for continued regular sessions.
- The five different types of group therapy sessions—art therapy, phototherapy, silvotherapy, sophrotherapy and the groupe de parole et d’écoute—will be offered weekly on a rotational basis. Students will soon be able to sign up for these sessions in person or with an online form; SLU plans to provide information about this soon. However, the Unit eventually plans to transition to using Kudos as the primary booking platform for group sessions. (When indoor, these sessions will be held primarily in the Events Room of Building 2.)
- Currently, the Counseling Department offers walk-in hours for mental health crises Mondays 10:00-11:30, Wednesdays 16:00-17:30 and Fridays 12:00-13:30. Eventually, SLU also plans to offer walk-in times, but this schedule has not yet been finalized.
- All Counseling Department and Student Listening Unit services are confidential and anonymous.
