Mental Health Care for Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Year in the Student Counseling Room

Image: Hiyoshi Campus during closure (April 2020)

How has Keio University faced the COVID-19 pandemic, which has thrown the daily lives of all humanity into a whirlpool of confusion? I would like to report on the situation over the past year as glimpsed from the Student Counseling Room.

As of February last year, when infections were reported on a large cruise ship, COVID-19 still seemed like a fire on the opposite shore. However, it invaded our society in the blink of an eye; at Keio University, the March graduation ceremony was held online, and on April 7, the campus was closed. Since counseling, by its nature, has been based on the principle of face-to-face consultation within the counseling room, the foundation of our activities was stripped away.

The first things that crossed my mind were the current state of the student clients I had been interviewing until just the other day, and the students I had yet to meet who were likely bewildered by the new environment of the new school year. No matter how excellent the students gathered at Keio University are, not everyone can maintain a resilient spirit and think rationally. Sometimes the brilliance of "Mita Mountain, overflowing with light" casts a shadow that is twice as dark on the heart. The Student Counseling Room conducts a total of over 4,000 interviews for approximately 1,000 students every year across the four campuses of Mita, Hiyoshi, Yagami, and Shiba-Kyoritsu, with about 200 applications in April alone. In the midst of this sudden emergency, the full-time staff devised "what we can do now" through daily emails and phone calls (at that time, we were not yet accustomed to web conferences).

First, we created online materials titled "Message from a Counselor: About the Stress and Anxiety You Are Feeling Now" to explain that current anxieties are not unique to oneself, to objectively review the situation, and to explain how to deal with stress, which we released on April 28. Additionally, from April 24, we began phone consultations on the limited days counselors could come to work. Initially, it was one day a week each at Mita and Hiyoshi, but since the number of consultations began to increase to the point where the phone rang every five minutes, we gradually increased the number of days, and by July, the rooms were open four days a week at Mita and Hiyoshi. During that time, at the end of May, the university provided mobile phones so that counselors on standby at home could also conduct consultations, and from June onwards, full-scale operation of web consultations began. We also conducted consultations via international calls with international students who could not enter the country.

The most noteworthy content of the consultations from students was the pain and suffering associated with the shift to online classes. Some were unable to keep up with the heavy assignments on top of the large amount of learning per session, while others could not find meaning in learning from assignments that were too easy. Because many classes distribute on-demand materials that can be viewed at any time rather than at a fixed time, students would accumulate them without watching and become unable to move. Things that could normally be handled by students imitating each other's methods (or ways to cut corners), complaining to each other, or consulting with faculty members became impossible. These problems were particularly prominent among new students, and the sense of stagnation from having their expected campus life suddenly cut off, being unable to make friends, and having no club activities was severe. We also received voices from parents saying, "My child said they are going to drop out" or "They might commit suicide," which heightened our sense of crisis.

On the other hand, after June, we began to hear voices from new students saying they were able to grasp the class patterns and their feelings were gradually settling down. As is often said, as the online socialization progressed under this COVID-19 situation, we caught a glimpse of how a gap widened over time between those whose mental health deteriorated due to maladaptation to the environment and those whose mental health actually improved by using it as an opportunity to cut off difficult social relationships.

It wasn't just the students who were bewildered by the sudden online classes. Designing an educational environment in a situation where live interaction with students is impossible—including how to use Zoom and Webex—had to start almost from scratch, as was the case for myself. Creating on-demand materials and responding to submitted assignments continued day after day, and it felt like receiving a dull body blow. Above all, not knowing the students' reactions made the situation even darker.

Before I knew it, the Student Counseling Room had become a crossroads where both the raw voices of the students themselves regarding the problematic situation and the requests from faculty and authorities who wanted to reflect those voices in the improvement of the educational environment were gathered. The Vice-President in charge gave us warm encouragement for our activities and asked us to disseminate a summary of information regarding the problems students were facing. On June 10, we created web materials titled "To All Faculty and Staff: A Collection of Materials for Responding to Students" and uploaded them to the website, and further informed faculty members of a detailed summary of the situation through each Dean. It goes without saying that the report content was based on specific cases as much as possible and expressed in a way that protected personal information.

From October, campuses were partially opened, and face-to-face classes for small groups and experiment/practical training classes began, so the Student Counseling Room also started face-to-face consultations on a limited basis. Guidelines for this were carefully created through weekly web meetings and daily email exchanges. I wonder how many emails were exchanged between staff members in a single day.

As an attempt made possible by the online environment, we held seven virtual student social gatherings called "Online Chat Session 2020" using Zoom. This event is a place where students can meet across campuses, faculties, and school years, as well as across the locations where they live, and after loosening their minds and bodies with light stretching with a counselor, they can freely talk about how they are spending their time. As it is the first year, the number of participants is not necessarily large, but it seems to be well-received, and repeaters are appearing, giving us a sense of accomplishment.

As the uncertain situation enters its second year, it is expected that both student and faculty problems will become more apparent and entrenched. Student mental health is not a problem that can be solved by the Student Counseling Room alone. We must overcome this difficult situation by bringing together the full strength of the Juku. (The online materials distributed by the Student Counseling Room introduced here can be viewed from the Student Counseling Room website: Student Counseling Room: Keio University Student Website)