PEA Takes Initiative Towards Mental Health

Senior Liana* recalled her first real panic attack from prep fall before an important biology test. “I came back to my room and it was a mess, so I couldn’t handle it. I went to my bathroom freaking out. My body was shaking and I couldn’t breathe,” she said.

While renown for its rigor, many PEA students cite increased workloads, competition and pressure—specifically in the college admissions process—as reasons for rising levels of stress. Dean of Health and Wellness Gordon Coole, among many other adults on the PEA campus, hopes to help students to counter stress.

Upper Gina* identified open discussion of achievement, and her subsequent self-criticism and comparison to others, as a major cause of her own anxiety. “Everyone comes to Exeter because they think they’re smart, and we still compete with each other to see who’s the smartest.” Gina believes this stems from insecurity, the constant questioning of whether one fits in at Exeter and deserves to be here. “Whatever you do in your own life feels mundane, like I’m a tiny fish in a big pond with lots of big fish who have trained their whole life to be here,” she said.

Though she described the official workload at Exeter to be manageable on the surface, Gina brought up that many students push themselves to fill their schedule with other activities. “Teachers assigning less would not solve the problem, because we’re still going to do more,” she said. “It’s promoted by ourselves.”

The Academy aims to improve the care available to students dealing with stress and anxiety. Two years ago, the school only had three counselors and one psychiatrist; now, five mental health Counselors and two part-time psychiatrists can assist students. “We’re significantly ramping up our abilities to intervene in cases where students do have mental health issues,” Coole said.

However, the solution to mental health issues, according to Associate Director of Counseling and Psychological Services Dr. Christopher Thurber, is not just about hiring more clinicians and advisers, but also about a fundamental change of principles. “I think [improving our program] will happen by modernizing our pedagogy. And that doesn’t mean abandoning Harkness, but we’re sometimes very slow to change.” Thurber offered two ways to advance Exeter’s curriculum: “improved schedule and improved workload guidelines, for both faculty and students.”

The additional pressure of elite college admissions, combined with uncertainty and increased workload, also burdens Exonians. College Counselor Betsy Dolan explained that the admissions landscape has changed over the years. “The admit rate for selective colleges is much lower and as such, adds to the stress of the college process for Exonians,” Dolan said.

Similar to Thurber, Mathematics Instructor Joseph Wolfson believed that it is up to everyone in the community, adults and students, to find courage and alter our mindset. “You will get into a good school, but you probably won’t get into Harvard anyway,” he said. “So you have a choice about how much you want to worry.”

Exonians find many outlets to decompress from their stresses. For senior Pavan Garidipuri, he sets aside time for self-care and reflection. “I make sure that I get eight hours of sleep or more; it does come with me sacrificing some homework quality, but 30 minutes of extra sleep is sometimes better than 30 minutes more homework,” Garidipuri said.

Many Exonians also find help by reaching out to other students or adults on campus. Benfield remembered a severe panic attack in her room in her lower year. “I crawled out of my door to the hallway, where there was another upper. She stayed with me until campus safety could come. I just held her and cried.” Benfield credited her counselors, coaches, teachers and dorm mates for helping her through the most difficult times of her Exeter career.

Yet seeking help is not an immediate response for all students. Senior Jordan Davidson only realized he should use Exeter’s counseling services after he opened up to his parents at the end of prep year. “They said, ‘Talk to the counselor.’ I was resistant at first. It took a bit of pushing, but I went…it was a great experience,” he said.

Coole expressed hope for change in the coming months with a three-part solution to improve Exeter’s ability of combating mental health issues by “bolstering our students, better recognition capabilities of our faculty and better support services for those do have mental health issues.”

This initiative targets stress management while maintaining Exeter’s high degree of academic difficulty. Coole notes that “[students] want a demanding academic curriculum. So we can’t back down on that because we have to service the students that find Exeter attractive.”

Skills For Success is a new component added this year to strengthen Exeter’s mental health program. Positive education is a large element of this component. “It’s really a mindset following [Stanford psychology professor] Carol Dweck’s mindsets of being not just growth-oriented, but also benefit-oriented. This piece right here is very, very big in being proactive in terms of supporting good student health and not just sitting down waiting for the mental health issues to happen,” Coole said.

Despite these efforts, Instructor of Biology Townley Chisholm remarked that many of the core stress-related problems are beyond the school’s control. “We can’t change college admissions, national politics, world peace or global climate change,” Chisholm said. “If we reduce homework or inflate grades (even more) all we do is to make our students more alike and less distinctive to colleges. Advisers can and do encourage students to do their work early, to get enough sleep and to exercise.”

Other recent developments are the Academy Life Task Force and Community Times. “The Academy Life Task Force advocated for more training of our adult staff to help students navigate life’s challenges,” Interim Dean of Residential Life Carol Cahalane said. “Linked to that, I was very happy with the required training about anxiety, stress and perfectionism that we had a couple weeks ago. I am excited to see how we can use our Community Times to address shared issues and concerns, student well-being being one of them.”

Lamont Health and Wellness Center Psychologist Dr. Szu-Hui Lee thinks thinks there is still more work to be done. “I would like to see ongoing programming, increased resources and most of all, I hope the stigma around mental health and the hesitation to seek help will continue to decrease,” Lee said. “The more we give ourselves permission and opportunity to talk about how we are doing and feeling, the more we can connect as a community and help one another out. Mental health is both an individual concern, as well as a community concern. We have to work together.”

*Asterisks denote name change to protect anonymity.