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West Virginia University Carruth Center
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To schedule an appointment, click "Make An Appointment" during our operational hours or call 304-293-4431. If you're experiencing a crisis, text WVU to 741741 or call 304-293-4431.

Current Groups

Group Counseling - Spring 2025

Every semester, the Carruth Center for Counseling and Psychological Services offers a variety of groups. Counseling groups are often the best way to work on areas of concern, especially when those concerns deal with issues that directly affect your relationship with others. Groups give you contact with peers as well as a therapist in a safe and confidential environment.

For our group counseling sessions, we ask that students sign up for the semester. The groups meet one time a week and vary in time. Students must meet with a clinician for an initial appointment in order to get signed up for the group. Please call us at 304-293-4431, schedule an initial appointment via our online scheduling tool, or reach out directly to the group clinician.

Spring 2025 Groups:

Creative Arts 

This group provides a supportive and expressive space for students to learn how to use creative arts to cope with difficulties, understand themselves, and connect with others. Through art-based activities such as drawing, painting, writing, and other creative techniques, participants can explore emotions, reduce stress, and develop healthier coping strategies. Some examples of activities that students may engage in during group include song lyric/poetry analysis, group drawings, creating mood-based music playlists, building coping kits, and origami. The group, facilitated by a Carruth Counselor, focuses on self-expression, connection, and personal growth in a non-judgmental environment, encouraging individuals to process their experiences creatively. Students will also have opportunities to process/discuss their personal feelings, experiences, and struggles during group and gain support and feedback from other group members. This group is appropriate for any student, but may specifically benefit students with social anxiety, depression, and with interest in creative/activity-based therapy. Please come as you are, no prior art experience needed.


Graduate Student Support 

The graduate student support group provides a space for students to discuss common experiences of graduate school including thesis/dissertation, research and teaching expectations, and concerns with graduate advisors, funding, and family and other relationships. Students have benefited from receiving support and guidance from others who have gone through similar events, as well as having a devoted space to vent and process their graduate school experience. 


Overcoming Obsessions and Countering Compulsions:
Managing OCD Symptoms

Living in the cycle of intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors can feel isolating, but you’re not alone. This weekly group brings together students who share an OCD diagnosis or struggle with intrusive thoughts/compulsive actions to support one another and work toward improving difficult symptoms. Together with a small group of peers, you’ll explore practical tools, reflect on your progress, and work through challenges using proven treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). With encouragement and tailored guidance, you’ll gain the skills and confidence to make meaningful changes beyond group.

(Prior diagnosis of OCD is not necessary to join. Interested participants who do not have an OCD diagnosis are encouraged to schedule a screening to assess whether their concerns would be a good match for the group.)

Get More Out of Life (Part of the Well-Being Adventure Series)

In partnership with Adventure WV and as part of the Well-Being Adventure Series, group members will learn tools from both positive psychotherapy and therapeutic adventure to increase their well-being. Group members will be supported to develop their strengths, practice more gratitude, interact more constructively with friends and loved ones, get more enjoyment out of their daily activities, and feel more optimistic about their future. These goals will be achieved through members' participation in ecotherapy, ongoing celebration of one another’s strengths during problem-based group development, and processing with each other their unique experiences utilizing the tools they acquire during sessions and in integrative activities assigned between meetings each week. The group experience will culminate with an outdoor experience such as backpacking, aerial adventure and camping, or paddling.


Your Inattention Please! ADHD Support 

This group is a process space for people with ADHD to talk about their experiences and challenges with ADHD such as inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity, difficulty managing emotions, sensory difficulties, and more. This group will also offer relevant, helpful skills to help you find ways to best manage your ADHD challenges and incorporate your ADHD strengths. Skill areas may include using effective planners, how to manage “To-Do” lists, addressing procrastination, organization (school, work, home, finances, etc.), study/testing skills, time management, navigating relationships, emotional regulation skills, and self-care. We appreciate your inattention!


Understanding Self & Others (USO)

Interpersonal process groups aim to support students with any social or interpersonal concern (e.g., challenges making or keeping friends, difficulty trusting others and being vulnerable, family conflict). This group involves reflecting on communication and relationship patterns, providing and receiving feedback, and practicing different ways of relating in the group space. Discussion topics include family dynamics, how early experiences impact current relationships, coping with changing levels of intimacy, and initiating conversations and relationship dynamics with an emphasis on here-and-now exploration.

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