“Embedded” therapists advise students where they live and learn

As a child, Xiomara Garcia, 21, thought attending a four-year college was out of reach.

His parents had never completed high school and financial means were limited. But there she was – majoring in bioengineering at Santa Clara University on a generous scholarship.

In some of her classes, she was the only person of color. “It was like the biggest culture shock of my life,” Ms. Garcia said.

She began to worry that she was an impostor who didn’t belong. Then a family member died. All of this, coupled with a stressful course load and unresolved childhood trauma, made it difficult to control his emotions.

She tried online therapy, but finding a place to log into her sessions privately, away from her roommate, proved difficult. She once spoke to her therapist via video from beneath a stairwell on campus, just steps from a coffee shop. Finally, she decided to see someone in person.

Her new therapist had an office in the dorm where she had lived during her freshman year. The space included shells and rocks that her therapist had found, as well as dim lighting, comfortable chairs and a basket of snacks — a welcome change from hiding in a busy building or braving the clinical environment of the main counseling center, she said.

A growing number of campus mental health professionals, often called “embedded counselors,” now work in dormitories and other university buildings. Schools say this setup reduces the stigma of getting help while making counselors more visible and accessible at a time when 37% of students report struggling with depression. In a recent survey of school counseling center directors, nearly a third reported using embedded counselors, up from 20 percent five years ago. This shift shows how colleges are rethinking how they deliver mental health care, adopting a model designed to meet students where they are, ideally before they face a crisis.