Eligibility, Confidentiality, & Scope of Practice

In the Fall and Spring semesters, you must be currently enrolled as a student at the University of Kentucky to receive services. For summer eligibility, you must be enrolled in a class or if not, have been enrolled in the Spring and pre-enrolled in the upcoming Fall. Please call if you are unsure about your eligibility for services. 

All counseling services are offered to fee-paying students who are enrolled at UK, in undergraduate, graduate or professional programs. Masters and Doctoral candidates in thesis/dissertation status are eligible for services, as are advanced graduate students enrolled in either zero credit hour status or the two-hour residency course (767) and post-doctoral fellows. 

Employees, including post-doctoral scholars, can access mental health support through UK Work + Life.

Our records are separate from all other university records. We do not reveal any information about anyone using our services unless that person gives us written permission to do so or unless required by law.

Confidentiality means that everything you tell anyone at the Counseling Center is private. By law, Counseling Center clinicians and staff cannot provide anyone with information about you, including that you are meeting with a clinician, unless you give written permission for the Counseling Center to release information. That means that information will NOT go into your academic record and will NOT be given to your parents, friends, professors, or employers.

The only exceptions to this confidentiality law involve those few times when it is clear that a person's life is in imminent danger, when a person who cannot take care of themselves is in danger of being harmed by a caregiver (such as a child or elderly person), or when the information is required by a court of law (i.e., subpoenaed) within the United States.

Sometimes it is in a client's best interest for information to be shared with a third party. If you would like for the Counseling Center to share information with specific individuals or offices, the release form may be completed online or by downloading the PDF and returning it to our office. We may require independent verification from the client that this release is authentic and should be acted upon. Please note if the release should come to the attention of a specific clinician.

The Counseling Center provides a range of short-term mental health services to UK students.

For students with personal growth concerns, problems of daily living, and little to no symptomology, we offer drop-in services such as Let’s Talk, skill-building workshops, online wellness apps, and groups.

For students in distress or in need of additional assistance, we offer brief individual, relationship, and group therapy.

Typically, individual and relationship therapy occurs on a bi-weekly basis for 4-6 sessions. There is a yearly limit of 10 sessions. Some exceptions may be made for students with limited access to mental health care.

UK students who live out of state may attend skill-building workshops and utilize online wellness apps and Talkspace.

We provide 24/7 urgent/crisis care by phone at (859) 257-8701.

The Counseling Center does not provide the following services:

• Weekly, long-term care
• Testing/evaluation for learning disabilities/ADHD, disability claims, custody claims, or other legal proceedings
• Intensive outpatient therapy (e.g., regularly-scheduled individual sessions which occur more than once per week, and/or have a duration longer than 1 hour)
• Mandated therapy by a court, attorney, or judicial body
• Intensive treatment such as for substance use disorders and eating disorders
• Documentation for Emotional Support Animals
• Appointments outside Counseling Center hours of operation
• Therapy when a student is already engaged in therapy with another provider
• Therapy for students who reside out of the state of KY
• Specific treatments for less common diagnoses