MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Across the country, the pandemic intensified a growing trend of increased rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and serious thoughts of suicide.
In response, the West Virginia University College of Law has hired its first in-house behavioral health counselor, Kathy Servian.
“An embedded counselor is a long-felt need in our student support system,” said Amelia Smith Rinehart, William J. Maier, Jr. Dean of the College of Law. “Law students deal with stress in a competitive and challenging environment and that stress continues even as they graduate and head to future legal careers. Kathy’s exceptional counseling experience makes her the perfect addition to our Student Services and Engagement group. Ultimately, our efforts to destigmatize and address mental health concerns will impact not just students in their daily lives as healthy professionals but the legal community throughout our state and region.”
A Licensed Professional Counselor, Servian has more than 23 years of experience in the mental health field. She has provided individual and group therapy to clients experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, grief and loss, relationship problems, substance use and gambling addiction.
Servian earned her master’s degree in Counseling from WVU in 2006 and completed her internship at WVU Medicine Chestnut Ridge Center, where she also worked for 15 years.
As the behavioral health counselor at WVU Law, Servian will work closely with the University’s Carruth Center for Counseling and Psychological Services to offer one-on-one meetings with students to address individual needs as well as programming designed to create a healthy living and learning environment within the College of Law and across the University and its community.
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