In the last eight years, the number of students at BYU, BYU-Idaho and BYU-Hawaii seeking mental health services has increased 70 percent. In the last year alone, 10,000 such students sought counseling, most frequently for anxiety, depression and relationship problems.
This is a trend seen all across the nation among young Americans, President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said during a BYU-Hawaii devotional on June 11.
“Your Savior, Jesus Christ, wants his leaders to be helpful in preventing and treating these problems,” he said.
President Oaks was joined by his wife, Sister Kristen Oaks, and Elder Kim B. Clark, General Authority Seventy and Commissioner of Church Education, and his wife, Sister Susan Clark.