CAPS’ Faith Challenges Group helps students find support
As Cache Valley experiences its annual fall colors, it is a clear sign of the upcoming winter, which may be a point of anxiety for students.
Along with current midterms, students could be stressed about next semester’s classes, roommate troubles or even finding a kiss for the next True Aggie Night. With a heavy religious population at Utah State, faith troubles are another common dilemma students can find themselves facing.
Counseling and Psychological Services is an on-campus resource students can use for stressful and anxious times. CAPS offers counseling in all forms, including groups.
CAPS’ Faith Challenges group is co-led by staff psychologist Monique Frazier and doctoral intern Alex Calder. The support group welcomes students experiencing faith challenges of all varieties.
Faith challenges, as Frazier explained, are any issue related to faith, in a spiritual or religious sense, that a student may be experiencing.
“That could be someone who has left their faith tradition and is experiencing stress with that; that could be someone who is in a religion, but having some kind of difficulty with one or more parts of it,” Frazier said. “It could be someone who is here on campus, and they’re new to the area and don’t know much about the dominant religion and are trying to fit in.”
Having been with the group for six years, Frazier said they mostly see challenges related to the area’s dominant religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the support group does not limit itself to just one type of faith challenge.
“Our group does not have an agenda for its members,” Frazier said. “We’re not affiliated with any particular religion and like trying to convince people to stay. We’re also not an anti-religion group that’s trying to convince people to leave.”
Students who are not affiliated with any type of religion or who are spiritual and non-religious are also welcome to attend the support group. In this year’s leadership with Frazier and Calder, the two come from differing religious backgrounds, and both co-leads believe that this works to benefit the group.
“We really try to practice self-reflection and what our experiences have taught us, and I think having such varied experiences between the two of us kind of allows us to facilitate different aspects of the conversation,” Calder said.
As a doctoral intern, Calder had past experience working as a therapist before becoming a part of the group. He emphasizes how closely tied religion and identity are, and he hopes to help members of the group navigate life experiences and transitions while working through identity challenges.
“There have been people in my life that have provided that kind of support and instruction, and I hope to provide something like that for the people,” Calder said.
New members will be welcomed all semester. There is no required attendance and no cost to attend. The group meets on Mondays in the TSC, and weekly discussion topics are influenced by who is in attendance.
“We really want to allow people the freedom to show up, try it out, see if it works for them,” Calder said.
*This story has been updated to reflect new information*