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It’s a shame that hundreds of students who need psychological treatment at UCLA either go untreated or must seek help elsewhere because of the limited facilities the UCLA’s Student Psychological Services offers.

The SPS offers help to students in various areas, ranging from sexuality to separation of parents. Among other things, they provide students with both individual and group counseling to deal with psychological, social and intellectual concerns.

For anyone who could use some help, the SPS sounds like a marvel at first. The services for students are confidential, and it is convenient with two different locations in The Mathematical Sciences Building and Center for the Health Sciences. And last but not least, it’s free to UCLA students when the average outside therapist charges $60-$200 for one hour sessions. So then what’s the problem?

The problem is that all the services mentioned above are like 99 cent chicken nuggets at McDonalds: available for a limited time only. Students are only allowed from six to eight sessions for a particular problem.

Many people can’t get sufficient help in that little amount of time. By the time they have maxed out on their sessions, they have finally just developed a rapport with their therapist and are ready to delve deeper into their problems. According to Harold Pruett, the director of SPS, about 20 percent of approximately 2,600 patients seen yearly at the SPS still need treatment after their sessions are up. This means that about 520 students must seek help elsewhere.

Students can be referred to another therapist within the UCLA medical community. Their Student Health Insurance Plan would take over payment for as long as it was deemed “medically necessary,” according to Executive Director of the Ashe Center Al Setton. However, students would now have to start over with a new therapist and they would have to deal with their insurance company. If they weren’t severely depressed before this process, they certainly will be afterward.

The 14,000 students funded through private insurance would face other problems. Private insurances often limit the money allocated for therapy, leaving the student with the same problem with SPS: a limited amount of sessions. Those people don’t have many options available to them and they can either suffer or start paying the fees themselves. This further poses the risk of having to switch therapists for a third time. Students could go from UCLA’s SPS therapist, to UCLA’s referral therapist, and then to an outside practitioner, who hopefully may be merciful on a college students when it comes to rates.

Regretfully, I fail to see how moving from therapist to therapist and worrying about your session bills could be helpful to anyone, especially someone who may be anxious and worried about the future.

If SPS is really interested in helping students, they should make a few important changes. First of all, the SPS should allow SHIP to pay them once their six to eight sessions are up. That way students will not be confused and have to switch from one therapist to another.

Furthermore, more money should be allotted to the SPS so they can hire more psychologists on the assumption that more than 2,600 students will need services. The sessions that are never used by some of those students can be saved for the students that really need them.

For a school with a population of over 37,000, the 23 psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers SPS has is hardly sufficient, even if only about 15 percent of students utilize them.

It’s ironic that UCLA may not be able to fulfill the demand of therapists, considering the stress of being a college student is a main reason why a student seeks help in the first place.

Shasha is a fourth-year psychology student. E-mail her at rshasha@media.ucla.edu.