She knew the counseling center existed. What she said she didn\u2019t know, or couldn\u2019t let herself believe, was that it was a place meant for her.<\/p>\n
Reema Al-Omari, a junior psychology major, said that at first, she hesitated to use the University\u2019s Counseling and Mental Health Center\u2019s resources. Al-Omari said she was raised in a culture where mental health was not openly acknowledged, but she did not let those attitudes stop her from eventually seeking care. It was only when a friend mentioned using CMHC themselves that she said she considered reaching out.<\/p>\n
For some UT students from immigrant, Asian, South Asian, and Latino backgrounds, getting mental health care can mean overcoming more than one barrier: cultural or familial stigma can make seeking help feel unacceptable, while gaps in awareness can leave students unsure of what resources exist or how to use them.<\/p>\n
A 2021 study at the University of California, Riverside, surveyed 159 Asian and Latinx college students and found that for each one-point increase in adherence to family- and group-oriented cultural values, students were 90% less likely to perceive a need for mental health treatment.<\/p>\n
A 2020 study by two UT Austin researchers examined mental health stigma and professional help-seeking among Asian Americans and Asian international college students. The study found that personal stigma helped explain the relationship between perceived stigma and students\u2019 intentions to seek professional help, highlighting how students\u2019 own attitudes toward mental health can shape their willingness to reach out.<\/p>\n
Researchers have also identified some of the cultural ideas behind that reluctance. A 2021 study at the University of Birmingham found that some South Asian communities, including Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities, carry the concept of izzat, honor, and sharam, shame, where mental illness is seen as damaging to the whole family. Filipino communities have hiya, a sense of shame tied to social propriety, while professionals remain \u201cibang-tao,\u201d outsiders, which is part of why Filipinos in King\u2019s College London\u2019s 2020 review of over 5,000 participants overwhelmingly turned to informal support first.<\/p>\n
Angelie Seno, a former University Health Services student clinical assistant who worked in the school\u2019s urgent care clinic for five semesters, described watching a similar dynamic play out from the other side of the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a lot of immigrant families don\u2019t pay as much attention to medical health until it kind of gets to a tipping point,\u201d said Seno.<\/p>\n
Seno said that there\u2019s always room for progress and that she wishes she\u2019d known more about the cost, session limits and types of care earlier in her own freshman year.<\/p>\n
Al-Omari said she initially misunderstood the scope of CMHC. Because the center was provided through UT, she assumed it was primarily for academic or school-related stress. Only after completing the intake questionnaire did she realize students could seek help for issues beyond school.<\/p>\n
That reluctance is compounded by a second, separate problem: many students simply don\u2019t know what\u2019s available to them. A 2026 literature review at the University of Arizona College of Medicine found that even though most college students face significant health risks, only about 32% access campus health services in a given year, and just 15.6% of those visits are for preventive care at all, with health literacy and awareness gaps consistently cited across studies as a key reason why.<\/p>\n
Jessica Hughes Wagner, director of strategic initiatives for Healthyhorns, said the problem comes down to scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality of a 55,000-person campus is that we just can\u2019t reach all of those people on day one,\u201d said Wagner.<\/p>\n
Nethra Middela, vice president of the Mental Health Initiative for South Asians, said the organization ran into the same wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of those programs and resources were actually unheard of for these students,\u201d Middela said. \u201c(It) isn\u2019t necessarily a lack of not wanting to get access to those resources, but rather a lack of the education (that) the resources exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wagner said one way around that gap is word of mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that across all kinds of what I\u2019ll call \u2018consumer behavior,\u2019\u201d Wagner said, \u201cWhether you\u2019re choosing what shoes to buy or deciding if our counseling is right for you or not, getting a first-person recommendation is really powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al-Omari said peer trust is exactly what led her to seek mental health services.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to (my friend) about what it\u2019s like because it\u2019s kind of intimidating going into it at first, but he told me not to worry,\u201d Al-Omari said.<\/p>\n
Al-Omari said encouragement from friends can help shift attitudes toward seeking mental health care, particularly among students from cultures less familiar with such care.<\/p>\n
UT has built resources around that same insight. The Longhorn SHARE Project\u2019s 30 specialists led peer support groups for 1,413 students last year, and Longhorn Wellness Peer Educators delivered 33 workshops to 1,027 students, according to Healthyhorns\u2019 2024-2025 impact report. That work runs through programs including the Longhorn SHARE Project, the Wellness Center\u2019s peer educators and Counselors in Academic Residence: licensed counselors embedded directly within individual schools and colleges.<\/p>\n
This year, Healthyhorns added a new student outreach team targeting peer-to-peer contact. \u201cWe have seen in our work that (it) is important and impactful for students to be interacting with other students,\u201d said Laura Kinch, Associate Director of Marketing and Communication for Healthy Horns.<\/p>\n
The program is new enough that its actual effect has yet to be measured. Wagner said Healthy Horns tracks how students use its services over time, but those numbers cannot necessarily show what is driving changes in help-seeking.<\/p>\n
Wagner said use of CMHC services has increased over the past five to seven academic years, which could reflect greater need, reduced stigma or a growing willingness among students to seek care.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing more willingness to engage in those topics,\u201d Wagner said.<\/p>\n
The Mental Health Initiative for South Asians created a pamphlet called QuietCare for students who don\u2019t have a familial support system.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The pamphlet) encourages and gives education to students who would like professional help, but don\u2019t necessarily have the parental support,\u201d Noni Seth, senior biology major and president of MHISA, said. \u201cIt kind of walks them through how to get care without the help of parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Al-Omari, CMHC\u2019s confidentiality made it easier to open up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a lot easier to tell somebody my quote-unquote issues that I know we can\u2019t go and say to other people,\u201d Al-Omari said.<\/p>\n
Kinch said students don\u2019t need to know exactly where to turn before asking for help. Healthy Horns staff can direct them to the services that fit their needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no wrong door,\u201d Kinch said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She knew the counseling center existed. What she said she didn\u2019t know, or couldn\u2019t let herself believe, was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-460817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}