Counseling & Psychological Services

Counseling & Psychological Services provides confidential mental health counseling and related services for currently enrolled UW Tacoma students at no additional costs. We also provide consultation to faculty, staff, and university student families.

It is common for students to sometimes feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities of academics, work, family, and other relationships. Counseling & Psychological Services is here to help students cope with stresses and personal issues that can interfere with their ability to perform in school.

We provide intentional, problem-focused mental health counseling, aimed at building better skills and exploring alternative ways of coping. Counseling & Psychological Services provides confidential crisis, individual, couples*, and group counseling; educational workshops and classroom presentations; consultation for students, faculty, staff, and student families; and referrals (when appropriate) to community mental health and social service providers and other UWT student services and resources.

*We are unable to provide couples counseling via teletherapy.

Need support at 2:00 am?

UW Tacoma has partnered with MySSP to give students access to real-time, confidential mental health support, 24/7 and in multiple languages: Simplified Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Spanish & French. MySSP counselors are licensed mental health therapists who are familiar with UWT resources. There are several ways to connect:

Phone: Call 1.866.743.7732
- If calling from outside the U.S. or Canada, dial 001.416.380.6578.
Online chat: Chat with a MySSP counselor on the MySSP website or on the MySSP app (Apple App Store | Google Play)

We highly recommend that you download the MySSP app (Apple App Store | Google Play) to have the full range of services at your fingertips any time.

I want to talk to a counselor

Interested in starting services with CAPS, but not sure where to start? All the information you need is here.

How to make an appointment

Concerned about a student

Concerned about a student or friend? We have resources to help you support them

Resources

Interested in our Training Program

Looking for more information about our Doctoral Psychology Internship or Preinternship Training?

Training Program

Black Lives Matter - Statement from Our Staff

To everyone affected by social injustices, especially the members of the Black, African, and African-American communities: We at the UWT office of Counseling and Psychological Services will continue to work against racial injustice. We realize that our anger, fear, and sadness regarding the violence of racism, both recently, and throughout history, MUST be channeled into continuing to support the UWT community and our students. Our work welcomes all experiences and feelings in response to these repeated individual and societal traumas and we will collectively work to do better in supporting you with compassion and humility. We also realize that our field has a history of being complicit in racial injustice and thus, we also will continue to work on dismantling and challenging this history both within our field, and within ourselves. We will continue to stand with you

Standing in Solidarity and Supporting our AAPI Communities

We have seen a horrific rise in violence in the US against the Asian American/Pacific Island (AAPI) community fueled, at least in part, by some of our elected leaders who have blamed Asian countries for intentionally creating the Covid-19 pandemic, despite any evidence otherwise. While examples of this brutality and domestic terrorism have recently been in the news, it is a reminder that scapegoating, discrimination, racism, and violence directed at our AAPI friends, family members, neighbors, peers, communities, students, and others has always been a painful part of our history, both nationally and at the local level. Tacoma was incorporated as a city in the latter part of the 19^th century. Since the beginning and similar to the rest of the U.S., AAPI communities were subjected to acts of xenophobia and hate, providing the foundation for institutional oppression and attempts of systematic erasure that occurred in Tacoma and continues to occur all over our country today.

Counseling & Psychological Services stands in solidarity and support of our AAPI communities. We acknowledge that acts of discrimination and hate impacts the safety, health, and wellbeing for people of AAPI descent. Concerns about harm towards oneself or family, bracing for the next microaggression, being subjected to the Myth of the Model Minority, as well as having direct and indirect exposure to race-based violence are all examples of discrimination and can be troubling and traumatizing. We are available to listen and provide support in a confidential setting. As professionals, we are also committed to furthering our knowledge about discrimination and violence directed at AAPI communities and how we can best provide mental health services and social justice efforts for the university community that we are privileged to serve.

In addition to the resources provided for Mental Health Services, Self Help Resources, How to report Harassment and Violence, and Taking Action, we also included information about AAPI Tacoma History. We believe that one way to work towards Social Justice and Equity for AAPI communities (and other BIPOC communities) is to understand our local history.

Mental Health Resources