Columbia College Tries a Unique Way to Combat Suicide

Chicago Tribune - December 12, 2005

CHICAGO - The guy looked miserable. He sat cross-legged on the floor, silently hunched over, shutting out everyone in the Columbia College Chicago classroom.

His distress, though, was just an act. It was part of a workshop and was designed to convey the feeling of depression. And he nailed it.

Of course, college students are all too familiar with depression. According to the American College Health Association, 25 percent of them are in therapy for it, and 38 percent of all students are taking medication for it. Almost 40 percent of all male students and 50 percent of all female students said depression left them unable to function one or more times during the last school year. And suicide is the second leading cause of death among American college students, with more than 1,000 deaths a year.

Thanks to a $250,000 federal grant, Columbia is developing programs aimed at early intervention and suicide prevention. The grant means funding for a mental health coordinator and for two or three workshops per month on crisis identification and intervention. The grant also provides funds to expand and bring in-house the Shannon Hardy Making Connections Workshops, what had been an off-campus project offered by the school's Department of Dance Movement/Therapy and Counseling.

The Making Connections Workshops use elements of dance and therapy to address the suicide issue. Participants do breathing exercises, discuss topics such as depression, bipolar disorder and suicide and incorporate their lessons into demonstrations (such as the student acting out the feeling of depression).

"This is a way to do suicide prevention through body-based learning," explained Susan Imus, chair of the Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling Department at Columbia. "So often the approach is just didactic. ... This opens new pathways to learning."

Imus and Shannon Lengerich, a professor in the Dance Movement/Therapy department and now the school's new mental health coordinator, recently conducted a workshop for 17 students, most from Lengerich's Psychology of Creativity class. The purpose was not only to educate the students but also to get their feedback.

The lessons and methods were the same used in the Shannon Hardy Making Connections Workshops, which began in 2002. Hardy was a 25-year-old north suburban woman, a former dancer, who took her own life after years of suffering from depression and bipolar disorder.

Imus received money from a memorial fund set up in Hardy's name and devised the Making Connections project. She and Lengerich, who came aboard about a year later, have made presentations for students at more than a dozen dance schools and high schools. With the federal grant, Imus and Lengerich are now able to offer Making Connections at Columbia and plan to hire and train more dance/movement therapists so they can offer more than 100 workshops a year for three years.

"We have a quarter-million dollars now to educate not only you guys but parents, staff and the community about signs and symptoms of mental illness and suicide," Imus told students.

The sessions come at a pivotal time for Columbia College. It had always been considered a commuter school; as recently as four years ago, there were only 500 students in residential housing. Today, 2,000 of its 11,000 students are. And although there has never been a suicide on campus, there have been suicide crisis situations.

The Dance/Movement Therapy component of the workshop is obvious. The two-hour session included discussions of depression and suicide, but there also was a demonstration of balance, something that can be physical or mental; and Imus led the class in deep-breathing exercises meant to eliminate stress; and the students went through experientials that integrated dance movement and acting.

One such drill had students pair off in teams. One student was the sculptor who positioned his or her partner into the artist's image of depression, ranging from the aforementioned cross-legged guy with his head in his hands to someone in a fetal position or someone standing, staring at the floor. The artists then walked around the room and mimicked each other's artwork to try to get the feeling of depression that other artists were trying to convey.

"What they start to notice is how some of the postures on a body level are the same," Lengerich said. "They're really enclosed, there's not a lot of eye contact, you're looking down. Those things are very similar. So you can make the case there that a lot of what people experience with depression is the same. However, no two statues were the same. So at the same time mental illness or depression can be very different, depending on the individual."

Another lesson focused on the extremes exhibited by someone with bipolar disorder. It started with students stretched out motionless on the floor (signifying depression). They slowly became active, increasing their energy level until their behavior approached a manic state, leaping and running around the room, even breaking into a conga line at one point.

"I thought that was really interesting," said Chelsea Eckel, a freshman from Wheaton, Ill., "because I'd never thought of the highs and lows like that before."

The final classroom lesson involved what people should do if they or a friend are depressed.

"There are three words to remember," Imus told them. "First, `acknowledge.' Second, `care.' And third is `tell.' You don't stay silent, you don't hide if you or a family member are in need. You care. Tell them, `I care about you and I'm going to help you get some help.' Then you tell. The best way to help them is to tell."

"I know people who have had these certain disorders," Eckel said afterward. "It was very helpful to hear the things they had to say, and the information was valuable. I appreciate what they're doing, and I'm glad they're spreading the word."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Back to News