As a follow-up to last month’s article on the importance of developing healthy coping techniques in moments of stress, The KAIST Herald visited the Stress Clinic at KAIST Clinic Pappalardo Center and anonymously interviewed students who received help from Pappalardo. For those who found themselves rethinking their strategies towards dealing with stress or found absence thereof, we hope this article will serve as the equivalent of holding your hand and paving the way so you don’t have to do it on your own in time of need. Hopefully, the stories shared by “Stress Clinic Alumni” will rid you of the feeling of loneliness as well.

Now, how to get there? Initially, I found it ironic that the one place that is almost always needed in a timely manner is so far away from the rest of campus facilities, all the way at the southeast corner of the campus. But thankfully, students and staff can get there using the on-campus shuttle bus OLEV (the schedule and map are available on bus.kaist.ac.kr), which stops right at its doorstep and is completely free to use (not even mentioning the cleanliness of the bus or its AC units). Removing additional and totally unnecessary stressors on the way to a therapist may well be therapy on its own.

The Stress Clinic is located on the third floor of the Pappalardo Clinic, on the left side of the elevator as you leave it. The receptionists speak Korean and enough English to offer solutions and answer any questions. The lobby is nicely lit, cool on a summer day, and has water and snacks. Regarding the language in which therapy is conducted  — it depends. According to the three interviewees, their doctors speak English at a more than adequate level; of course, they may be able to give you better advice and counseling in the language they are fluent in, but luckily KAISTians aren’t exactly strangers to overcoming language barriers.

But, what about the cost? According to one interviewee’s experience, if you are subscribed to the Student Health Insurance Association (SHIA), your fees per visit shouldn’t exceed 4,000 KRW. You can sign up for SHIA around the first two weeks of Fall and Spring semesters;  SHIA costs 40,000 KRW per semester and is not reimbursed, but covers 100% of the medical costs if you’re injured on campus. Any prescribed antidepressants are either fully covered by the insurance or cost around 5,000 KRW. They can be conveniently purchased right next to the Clinic; however, expect variations in price of the prescribed medications based on dosage and amount, while therapy costs mostly depend on your number of visits.

Counseling and therapy plans vary from person to person; some may visit once a month while some visit on a weekly basis. For our interviewees, counseling consisted of getting the chance to talk their worries through and trying to find a way to cope with them so that the destructive becomes productive, or at least benign. In some cases, the doctors also analyzed the visitor based on their responses to psychological questions, which helped them determine the visitor’s emotional well-being. Sometimes, antidepressants were prescribed. But in most cases, thankfully, therapy is mostly verbal: the doctors are well-experienced and will help find the root of the problem to work around it, and by one’s will only — be it expectations from your family, personal ambitions that require patience and time, or a recent wound that also needs time to heal.

One interviewee shared that their therapist helps them mostly by asking questions that continuously uncover the underlying meaning of each answer: “Why do you think you think so?”, “Why do you think you reacted this way?” And if you are lucky, you may realize that your true worries hide under the many layers of this lasagna of questions and as you answer them for yourself repeatedly, you may find the root of your worries to be your own perception. Thankfully, the human mind is a squishy little thing — you can trick and mold it to your desire; it’s just that sometimes we need a little guidance. Hope you can find it at the Stress Clinic.