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- Express your concern privately
- Try not to use labels (e.g., you have an eating disorder, you're depressed)
- Use "I" statements
- Talk about the specific observable behaviors that suggest the need for counseling
- Normalize counseling (in the course of regular conversation)
- Offer to make the referral for him or her
- If appropriate, go to the counseling center with him or her
- Try to follow-up - offer to listen again
- Remember that you are not responsible for making the person ready to change, but you can provide him or her with the opportunity to contact the appropriate resource
- Seems distressed about school or personal life
- Dramatic decline in academic performance and/or classroom attendance
- Exhibition of highly unusual behavior
- Excessive sleeping and/or social isolation
- Demonstration of extreme emotion (open crying, loud expressions of anger, lack of awareness of current location, date, time, etc.)
- Exhibition of bizarre behavior (visual or auditory hallucinations, delusions, disruptive behavior, agitation, fighting)
- Physical appearance dramatically different than the norm for that individual (cuts, bruises, severe body odor, dramatic weight loss or gain, seasonally inappropriate attire)
- Paranoid statements, talk of suicide as a viable solution to their current situation, incoherent or processes information slowly
- Out of touch with reality
- Talking about killing themselves or someone else
- Passive suicidal statements (for example, I wouldn't care if I got hit by a truck)
- Unable to take care of him/herself in routine ways (eating, sleeping, safety)
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