Mental Health Forum

Writers: Alia Bonanno, Emi Levin, Sophie Ma, Chengyue Zhang

ESSO Active Minds and the Student Council Mental Health Committee held an open forum with Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) on October 6, intended to address tensions between CAPS and the student body.

Senior and co-head of the Mental Health Committee Maxine Park said, “First and foremost, we are committed to bringing students transparency about mental health support on campus. As I think back on my experience coming to Exeter as a prep, I realize this conversation was honestly overdue,” 

Senior and Mental Health Committee member Bradley St. Laurent agreed. “I went because I was really hoping it would reassure me that when I am suggesting CAPS to people, I'm not making a mistake and that things will be handled professionally and will not make the situation worse,” he said.

CAPS counselor Chris Thurber explained the purpose of the forum. “The CAPS faculty hopes that our candid answers to students’ questions [at the forum] will clarify our supportive role,” Thurber said. 

The forum lasted over an hour and was formatted in a question and answer style. Students sent in anonymous questions online to be asked to the panel of the five CAPS counselors. Leading up the forum, Thurber added, “The CAPS faculty hopes to learn, from students’ questions, about further enhancing our good communication with the general student body.”

Senior and Student Council President Siona Jain commented on the initial purpose of the forum. “I think this forum was important to rebuild trust among CAPS and the community, particularly the student leaders. I’ve had many students across my dorm come to me for emotional support because they distrusted CAPS with their trauma and were worried that they might be reported on or required to go on mandated med leave without consent,” Jain said. “I think the most concerning thing for students right now is that they feel they’ll lose agency if any reporting processes were to occur. Unfortunately, this means that most students end up turning to seniors in their dorm, and it also means seniors have a harder and harder time recommending they go to CAPS.” 

Senior and co-head of Active Minds Otto Do clarified both clubs’ goal in hosting the forum. “[The Mental Health Committee and Active Minds] want to emphasize that we're not recommending anyone necessarily go to CAPS or not go to CAPS, but we're are highlighting the fact that there's a lot of distrust in the community right now and that we can fully say that CAPS is not a good place for everybody. But again, some people do have good experiences, but that's not [the focus] right now,” Do said.

The forum began with a focus on medical leave, with many students having questions regarding the process and intentions of removing a student from campus. CAPS told attendees that medical leave is an option available with the student’s best interests in mind, emphasizing that it is not meant to be an isolating act. Director of CAPS Szu-Hui Lee said, “Medical leave was placed to support students. It’s okay to press pause on academics if that means you get to prioritize your health.” 

Counselor Marco Thompson continued, “Medical leave is an asset that is afforded to all students…it’s a tool…if we didn’t have the medical leave option, I suspect we would simply be asking students not to be students anymore. The connotation is that it’s a punishment, but it’s really an asset to students. I’d really like to change the language behind medical leave.”

Thurber also talked about the uniqueness of each medical leave case, saying, “Not every medical leave case can follow a specific flow chart...CAPS might not be involved in the process at all.”

Many students had questions about the process for placing a student on medical leave in the case of domestic violence. The counselors explained that they are required to report to the Child Protective Services for investigations, who have the ultimate say in the matter. “It's not our job to determine if there’s abuse at home, but it is our job to report anything we know that concerns safety so students aren’t sent home to that,” Lee said.

Thurber continued. “We wouldn't send a student home unless an investigation had been finished and we know they are safe… if CPS has determined that the situation is not legally defined as abuse we don’t have a choice,” Thurber said. “However, we know what happens legally, let’s do this humanely. We always talk to caregivers and try to figure out another option. Grandparents…. we’re always trying to make sure that where students go is safe.” 

Shortly after this, a student posed a question about whether medical leave is mandatory. Thurber responded with a graphic description of a past student’s self harm without any trigger warning. This comment led to several students exiting the forum briefly and delayed the proceeding of the forum for roughly 15 minutes.

  After multiple students had stepped out, a student asked, “Dr. Thurber, can we please get a trigger warning for those sorts of descriptions?”

Thurber then responded by saying, “You are here to talk about some very serious things and get some transparent answers. My apologies if this is upsetting…” The leaders from the Mental Health Committee then informed Thurber that they ask all people to refrain from using vivid and physical descriptions. 

The event was briefly paused, during which Lee and the student leaders stepped out to check on the others. Once the forum resumed, Lee informed the audience that they had debated stopping the forum due to the fear that students would not feel comfortable returning. Lee said, “If we had just called the event, it would have been unfair.”

The remaining part of the forum was dedicated to addressing Thurber’s comment. He added, “Maybe the language we used was unnecessary, direct, and raw. Sometimes this is the work we do and this is the world we’re in. For me sometimes, I forget that this is not what people talk about all the time. Let’s process this.”

Thurber stated that his answer was ill-advised. “Speaking for myself, I sometimes lose sight of what would make another person uncomfortable. I apologize for my sloppy choice of wording and not keeping in sharp focus the transparency without being graphic…” he said. “I think the request to be transparent is an important request, and I thought it was relevant to the question that the student themself didn’t want to go on medical leave, but others wanted them to. I didn't have to be graphic, I could have explained concerns in a dormitory without using such explicit language.” 

Senior and co-head of Mental Health Committee Ben Ehrman explained the issues within the forum. “The first thing that went wrong is that Dr. Thurber went way over the line with his comments in an unnecessary manner. What was worse is that there were four other licensed therapists on the stage with him. None of them interjected and said, ‘Hey, that's over the line.’ Again, we saw that the burden was placed on the students to intervene in that moment,” Ehrman said.

St. Laurent commented on the explicit nature of Thurber’s answer. “It's hard because I'm trying to not let one member of CAPS speak for all of them when I have that idea in my head, but it was jarring,” St. Laurent said. “This was their chance to say, ‘we know that we've kind of messed up and we're gonna help you. We're going to answer all of these questions. We're gonna make it crystal clear.’ And [the forum] didn't really do that [for me]. [Dr. Thurber’s remarks] were not appropriate. It was shocking. There were a couple people who were really, really, really upset because it was a really upsetting thing, especially to describe something like that.”

Thurber has since released a formal apology to the student leaders. In his email, he wrote, “I want to apologize again for the discomfort that I caused this afternoon… I made several mistakes…and I did not realize that my language was causing distress until a student spoke up. In my effort to be transparent, I was insensitively detailed. I deeply regret that my striving for clarity—which all students deserve—clouded my self-expression. In retrospect, I could have provided an equally transparent answer to the student’s question without any upsetting descriptions. Again, I apologize for my insensitivity.”

Thurber continued, “I also apologize that my actions interrupted the event. Students worked hard to organize this forum, assemble excellent questions, and moderate it professionally… And as we said at the start, we all felt grateful for the opportunity to enhance communication between students and CAPS. My insensitive language took attention away from the substance of our excellent conversation, for which I am sorry… I am grateful that students returned after the pause, both to process what we were feeling and to offer direct feedback to me…  I will continue to reflect on the candid feedback from students and from my colleagues, and I will strive to do better in the future.” 

The forum’s conclusion left students and counselors alike feeling as though the purpose was not satisfied. Ehrman said, “I think from what we saw, it can be very important and valuable to just have students asking counselors about their policies and how things work. But what needs to happen in order for it to actually be a valuable resource to have counselors, is for them to realize that trauma can still be very sensitive for people.”

Park said, “I don't really know how to explain this because I'm not a trained professional, but something like that shouldn't have happened. There wasn't really an understanding from the beginning of the event, which we didn't even know had to be an understanding, of what content would be inappropriate for students and what wouldn't. I think that fits into a larger theme of this disconnect between what students need, adults’ perception of what students need, and how they can meet these needs.” 

Jain shared thoughts on the outcomes of the forum. “I don’t think the forum was quite successful. I, personally, was looking for statements from CAPS that I could bring back to students to tell them that yes, they can trust this team. While I respect that CAPS has a huge workload, and it’s an impossible burden to carry. However, I’m grateful that CAPS followed up with an apology,” Jain said. 

St. Laurent said, “They're trained to do these things, but at a point when each one is having a thousand appointments a year, they're going to be pretty stretched out. It seems like the most important thing is trying to regain trust between the student body and CAPS, which was the goal of [the forum], but it wasn't particularly successful. I know for a fact that MHC and Active Minds are taking that very seriously. It's basically the number one goal at this moment is to make sure that students feel comfortable going to [CAPS] and feel as though they can be vulnerable and truly talk about how they're feeling without the worry of things going awry or something bad happening.”

During the forum, Lee said,  “What I don’t want is for students not to seek help because of the failures of our team. We are one resource, absolutely, but there are other resources as well.” She noted that if a student does not want to meet with a CAPS counselor, they can be referred to a counselor from outside the Academy.

Counselor Kathy Simon added, “Even if you’re not getting the support from me, you should be getting that support. I would hate that you wouldn’t have a way to do that.”

Park added that CAPS should consider the burden placed on student leaders to handle situations meant for trained professionals. “The fact that students were the first ones who had to speak up is part of the problem. I understand that there's ambiguity as to where the student leadership realm ends and where actual professional care begins. Students are more comfortable speaking to students, but at the same time, the level of training that students have, and the age that we [students] are, do not equip us to deal with really serious situations or emotions that are supposed to be dealt with by trained adults,” Park said. “It has become clear that what we meant when we said that students need transparency was not understood. There was a gross misconception that because we, as students, were there to take part in dialogue, we were willing to take on this burden of hearing things that we really shouldn't be hearing. Transparency is not amplifying the student burden by detailing harm unnecessarily. Transparency is about getting students clear, appropriate information about the support and care they deserve.”

Jain said, “I hope [CAPS] continues to listen to students, and I hope they amend some of their mandatory med leave procedures.”

St. Laurent said, “It's just hard when mistakes [like these] are just so present, especially in such a back to back manner with everything else that's going on and then this… But at the same time, I think one thing that people have said is also that there are a lot of successes that people have with CAPS. People don't tend to talk about the successes as much as they might the failures or the setbacks. I think that is another thing that should be kept in mind, but the frequency of these failures is just alarming.”

Park shared thoughts on the closing to the forum. ​​“I think as much as student trust might have been further diminished by Thurber’s words, there was an effort at the end of the forum by CAPS to discuss with the student body, candidly, what actually went wrong. And I think people respect that. I think it is important to recognize that there is an ongoing effort on CAPS’ part for improvement and reconciliation. Obviously, this doesn’t change that the mistake and ensuing response shouldn't have happened in the first place,” Park said.

Ehrman also spoke about the rationale for the forum. “The goal of the forum was to try to build a bridge that's been broken between CAPS and the student body and all that had seemed to happen per those who attended the events, and from what they have disseminated to everyone else on campus, is that the bond has been even further destroyed. I don't know where to go from here, honestly, like in terms of building [the bond back] with CAPS. I think this event only exacerbated [the issue],” Ehrman said. 

Park continued by sharing hopes for what CAPS took away from the forum. “I think [this forum] should first show them that change is possible. But second, I hope it pushes them towards a proactive mindset—a proactive striving for transparency. Adults can no longer just wait and expect students to initiate this kind of change,” Park said.