In hindsight, the signs seem crystal clear: A loner on depression medication writes violent stories and frightens his peers. In the Virginia Tech shootings, as the machinery of blame turns, people are asking whether this could have been recognized and stopped.
But college counselors say that cases like that of Cho Seung-Hui are difficult to identify, even as counselors have seen more and more troubled students in recent years. And even when signs do point to serious problems, counselors say their hands are often tied.
“We are often restricted by the law,” says Maggie Olona, the director of the student counseling service at Texas A&M University. “The laws of confidentiality don’t let us do much sometimes. We often can’t tell the administration if something is going on.”
She says counselors can disregard their obligation to client confidentiality only in situations where abuse or imminent harm is clearly apparent.
“Writing scary stories is not against the law,” she says. “Odd behavior is not a crime. Not talking to people is not a crime. ... You have to wait for someone to do something, and sometimes the first step can be a murder.”
Greg Eells, who directs counseling services at Cornell University, says that he has been watching the news coverage of the shootings and has seen people wonder why people did not heed warning signs from Mr. Cho.
“Is there a profile of people who do this? Of course,” says Mr. Eells. “The problem is that there are hundreds of thousands of false positives. We get this all the time.”
Indeed, college counselors say that this generation of students seems particularly troubled, and the problems they bring to counseling centers are worse than those of past years. “College counseling centers are very aware of the increasing pathology coming through our doors,” Ms. Olona says.
More students are coming to college with histories of mental illness, with prescriptions for psychotropic medications, or with records of hospitalization. Mr. Eells says students are responding to stress with more extreme behaviors, such as suicide threats or eating disorders.
Many counseling centers, including those at Cornell and Texas A&M, have started proactive programs to reach out to their communities. Texas A&M runs a program that instructs faculty and staff members on how to identify students with serious problems -- and how persuade those students to seek help.
At Cornell, the counseling center has made a special effort to reach out to minority and international students, who suffer from extra levels of stress and are less likely to reach out to counselors. Satellite counseling offices have been set up in buildings on the campus that are regularly used by international and minority students.
Mr. Eells says that some of the problems of this generation are exacerbated by technology, which can be an isolating force in a student’s life. “If you are spending three or more hours on Facebook,” he says, “you are not spending three hours having pizza, throwing darts, and talking about the meaning of life.”
