1. Staying Well at LSE LSE Student Counselling Service
This presentation looks at:
Being a student at LSE
Challenges that lie ahead
Tips for coping skills
Stress management skills.

3. Part 1: Starting at LSE Tips for success.
Common challenges in starting at LSE:
Academic challenges
Social challenges.
Tips for success.

4. Academic challenges Overwhelmed with material New style of learning
Independent critical voice
Anxiety can lead to procrastination:
We may disguise avoidance by being busy
We may find things to do that are interesting, but don't contribute towards the main goal

5. Social challenges 1/2 Meeting new people
Keeping contact with people from home
Balance of work and leisure

6. Social challenges 2/2 Loss of familiar
home, friends, family, routine
Coping with loss, after initial excitement subsides
Depression and anxiety
Cultural isolation
Relationships and Identity
Financial difficulties

7. Social Challenges: Homesickness
There is a natural grieving reaction
associated with change
extremely common
often in first weeks
can occur when leaving home, but also later (eg after Xmas break)

8. The Academic strategies
Reading strategies
Use SQ3R:
Scan, Question, Read, Review, Recall
Develop a positive relationship w:
fellow students.
Academic adviser relationship

9. Homesickness is associated with
distance from home
high expectations/ sense of anticlimax
time to adapt to culture, language, lifestyle
work overload and low control over it.
most people come through homesickness and go on to do well and enjoy their time

10. Tips for adjusting socially
Talk to someone - others feel the same
Call home but also get involved here
It’s not disloyal to to enjoy yourself!
Be realistic about what to expect
Balance work and leisure
Time to adjust
You don't have to get everything
right straight away
Food and sleep
PEER SUPPORTERS
Peer Supporters:

11. Part 2: Tips for dealing with challenges that lie ahead
The context for studying
What are you really doing here?

12. Ambivalence? Independence Relationships Being a student
Studying at LSE
Your course
Career

13. Underlying dynamics Trying to please others Being a perfectionist
Feeling under pressure to do everything right
Setting yourself impossible targets
Repeating anxiety, stress, fear of failure …
The family/ historic context for your success …

14. Dynamics of study, work, life ...
Past
relationships
Relationship
with LSE or
course of study
or work or …
Current

15. Under Pressure?
What pressures are you under as a student coming to LSE
From others
From yourself
Are these pressures realistic or excessive?

16. Part 3: Coping Skills
Practical ways of dealing
with study challenges

17. Practical approaches Revise study skills Time management skills
see LSE Learning World on Moodle
Time management skills
Set realistic and achievable goals
Short term targets, longer term strategies
Recognise your achievements
Talk to others, ask for help and support

18. Concentrate and focus on the task …
Concentrate on the task, not the outcome
Break down huge activities into small manageable tasks
Remember past successes
Time for breaks
space to breathe and think
mind maps, scribble ideas
go for a walk, talk out loud

19. Part 4:Stress Management Skills

20. Stress Management Skills
Physical, behavioural, cognitive…
Regularly switch off
Schedule some kind of physical activity
Good self care
Sleep, diet, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine
Time out without guilt
Acknowledge anxiety, rather than denying it.
Ask: ‘are my negative thoughts realistic?’

21. Challenging negative thoughts
Imagine them under test in a Court of Law
Identify the negative thought (I can’t do this course, I’m going to fail…)
Ascertain the evidence For and Against
Am I making a ‘thinking error’
Propose a more reasonable alternative thought

22. Thinking errors All or nothing thinking Discounting the positive
only seeing the negative side
Over-generalizing
‘If it happened before it will happen again’
Believing a catastrophe will happen
Emotional Reasoning
‘If I feel it then it must be true’

23. Part 5: Advice and help

24. Sources of advice and help
Academic Adviser Departmental Staff
Disability and Wellbeing Service Student Services Centre
LSE LIFE Learning World
Student Union and Advice Centre Medical Centre
Mental Health and Wellbeing Advisors
Don't wait until problems have grown impossibly large It’s OK to ask for help earlier

25. LSE Student Counselling Service
Free and confidential
Mainly short term counselling
Book appointments in advance
See Website for
Stress management handouts
Self help resources
Relaxation MP3’s

26. Two example workshops
BUILD CONFIDENCE FOR ACADEMIC WRITING This presentation looks at ways of thinking about the task of writing, with advice and tips to help manage blocks and unhelpful fears. It will include a range of management techniques for dealing with common writing difficulties, such as procrastination and perfectionism.
Managing Perfectionism workshop This workshop looks at common difficulties with excess perfectionism, and will cover a wide range of practical approaches to help you manage your studies. It will include a look at common myths and how to overcome self-defeating thinking errors..
Underpinning all this and what will lead to your success is – developing a self-directed approach to all aspects of your study
Good luck and where to go for more help will be covered at end.

27. Groups Therapy groups:
Open-ended Therapy Group
Themed groups:
Stress Management Group (3 weeks)
Self Esteem Group (3 weeks)
Places on all groups need to be booked in advance.
Please see the website, Call Ext 3627, visit KSW.507 or

28. Final thoughts
Transition can be stressful, but also allows us to grow as a person.
Imagine looking back in five years.
Ask for help.
Student counselling website
SCS Website: