Counselling Services Waterford Campus

Counselling provides a safe, supportive and confidential environment in which students can discuss any emotional or psychological difficulties they are experiencing.  This service is offered free of charge and operates by appointment only, details of how to make an appointment can be seen in the 'Appointments' section. Through your engagement with counselling you will be supported to develop a set of skills to help you manage your emotions, and to cope with the impact of adverse life events, be they current or past. Students present as a result of various life circumstances. Our staff team recognises that it can be very daunting to ask for support in dealing with difficult experiences. 

Counselling is provided remotely by either video or phone appointment. Appointments last 45 minutes. Your first appointment will include an assessment of your psychological support needs. You will arrange with your psychologist / psychotherapist how often and when you will meet, this will be based on your ongoing support needs. 

It is important that you are ready on time to start your video or phone appointment.  If you are not available to start the session on time your appointment will be shortened as your counsellor works on an appointment basis.   If you have an appointment that you can't keep, we ask that you please contact us at least 24 hours in advance to cancel so that your time can be re-allocated to another student who needs our support.

You are very welcome to book an appointment to meet with one of our team. Please use the link below to open the Counselling Service booking portal.

Book an Appointment

In order to book an appointment, you will first need to create your own user profile on Counselling Service portal. Once you set up your user profile, you can log in and out of the portal whenever you wish. You must use your official SETU student e-mail when creating your account. This is the only e-mail format accepted by the portal. If you are having difficulty accessing the portal, please e-mail us directly for help on [email protected]

Cancellations

If you are unable to keep your appointment, we ask you to please give at least 24 hours notice of cancellation so that your time can be re-allocated to another student. This helps us to keep waiting times for counselling appointments as low as possible.

Policy Docs 

Please review the policy documents in the below section. The privacy policy applies to your engagement with any of the services we offer. The Conditions of Service Use and National Student Counselling Dataset Project Consent apply only to attendance at individual counselling.

We have put together some useful resources below that you may find helpful to support you in looking after your mental health and well being.

Abdominal Breathing for Relaxation 

Abdominal or Diaphragmatic breathing is a type of a breathing exercise that helps strengthen your diaphragm, an important muscle that helps you breathe. This breathing exercise is also sometimes called belly breathing or abdominal breathing.

It has a number of benefits that affect your entire body. It’s the basis for almost all meditation or relaxation techniques, which can lower your stress levels, reduce your blood pressure, and regulate other important bodily processes. The link below shows you how to use this type of breathing which may help. 

Abdominal Breathing for Relaxation 

Unhelpful Thinking and Alternative Thoughts

Over the years, we tend to get into unhelpful thinking habits. We might favour some over others, and there might be some that seem far too familiar. Once you can identify your unhelpful thinking styles, you can start to notice them – they very often occur just before and during distressing situations. Once you can notice them, then that can help you to challenge or distance yourself from those thoughts, and see the situation in a different and more helpful way. Below is some helpful information on how to use alternative thoughts. 

Unhelpful Thinking and Alternative Thoughts

Self Help for Anxiety

Anxiety is your body's natural response to stress. It's a feeling of fear or apprehension about what's to come. The first day of college, going to a job interview, or giving a presentation may cause most people to feel fearful and nervous. Sometimes anxiety can become difficult to deal with and we need to learn how to gain control of it. Below is some information on how you can start to help your anxiety while you wait for an appointment with us. 

Self Help for Anxiety

Aim for a Healthy Life Balance 

Balanced living means considering all aspects of your life: relationships, work, fitness and health, and emotional well-being. We all get bogged down with work and family responsibilities from time to time, but making time for yourself is necessary so that you can keep up with all your responsibilities. All batteries get run down, even yours. So recharge your body physically and mentally and make the commitment to enjoy some “you time” every day. We have attached some information on how to aim for a healthy life balance through achievement, connection and enjoyment. 

Are you experiencing Social Anxiety? Want to learn skills and gain experience to reduce its impact on your day-to-day life?

Join our upcoming Social Anxiety group. Dates to be confirmed.

This small group will include a maximum of six students plus two members of our team.

In a safe & comfortable environment you will learn skills to help you reduce your social anxiety.

We know a group setting is really challenging if you feel social anxiety AND it's the very best environment in which to learn and practice easy skills and build your social confidence.

To join the next available group, please e-mail [email protected] to let us know you're interested. 

Togetherall’s online community is clinically moderated by mental health professionals, and offers students a safe and anonymous place to express their thoughts, concerns and triumphs. Resources are free for students to use and are available 24/7/365. Students are able to draw strength and insights from peers that have real lived experiences, as well as access a range of self-directed, clinically validated tools to promote positive mental health and wellbeing. 

Why Join Togetherall?

Togetherall is:

• Completely free to use
• Anonymous, with no judgement or stigma
• Online for easy access with no waiting lists
• Monitored by mental health professionals 24/7

On Togetherall you can:

• Share your experiences with others in the community
• Read others’ stories and find comfort in knowing you’re not alone
• Join a group based on a topic that’s important to you
• Respond to others’ posts with a kind word, phrase or advice
• Create art to express yourself because sometimes words aren’t enough
• Read helpful articles, take wellbeing courses and self-assessments to feel better on your terms, in your own time.

Join Togetherall

Speak Out is an online anonymous reporting tool which you can use to report an experience of bullying, cyberbullying, harassment, discrimination, hate crime, coercive behaviour/control, stalking, assault, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. The tool will help you to find relevant supports and highlight formal reporting procedures, should you wish to use them. It is important to remember that as the tool is completely anonymous, we have no way to identify or contact any member of the University community who chooses to make a report via Speak Out. 

Please report one incident, or series of related incidents at a time; this is to ensure that we can understand the nature of your experience. All information reported in Speak Out will directly inform our understanding of inappropriate behaviours within our University community and will be used to direct training and awareness raising programmes.

To make a report in Speak Out please use the link below.

Speak Out