Mental health care at UBC

Connect to support

Student Health and Wellbeing is your first point of contact at UBC for all mental health concerns, whether you’d like to see a doctor, a counsellor, or get more information about what’s available.

Student Health and Wellbeing can help you navigate challenges like:

• Feeling anxious, depressed, overwhelmed, or noticing changes in your mental health
• Support when experiencing emotional distress, thoughts of self-harm, or concerns about safety
• Relationships (family, friends, or partners), grief, or loss
• Life transitions or cultural adjustment
• Gender or sexual identity
• Discrimination or sexual violence
• Difficulty with concentration, procrastination, or test anxiety
• Difficulties sleeping
• Documentation or support related to academic functioning
• Prescriptions and medication questions
• Support with ADHD assessment pathways
• Referrals to psychiatry

If you have a mental health provider you already see within your community, we encourage you to connect with them before booking an appointment with Student Health and Wellbeing. This can support your continuity of care throughout your time at UBC and after you graduate.

Specialized services

Student Health and Wellbeing offers counselling tailored to your identity and background, with mental health professionals who are connected to or have similar lived experiences.

Our health professionals may be able to work with you in your first language. Please speak with our Welcome Desk staff about this possibility.

When making an appointment, you can request:

• Queer and gender-affirming counselling
• Neuro-affirming care and counselling
• Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing
• Affirming and culturally responsive support for Black students, as well as students from other equity-deserving communities 
• Varsity student athlete counselling
• Counsellors who work closely with and are located in your faculty or program, or counsellors focused on supporting specific identities and students in UBC residences

Mental health crisis or urgent help

If you or someone you know is experiencing severe distress, feeling hopeless, or at risk of harm, get immediate support using one of the options below:

• Call 911.
• Visit the emergency department at your nearest hospital.
• Visit the UBC Urgent Primary Care Centre during open hours.
• Call or chat online with a crisis line.
• Call or text 988 toll-free to reach Suicide Crisis Helpline.

Vancouver residents can connect with the Access and Assessment Centre between 7:30 am and 9:30 pm for walk-in services, or call between 7:30 am and 10:00 pm. If you live outside of Vancouver but in British Columbia, you can visit a Rapid Access Clinic in your area.

Book an appointment

Visit in person

Drop by the Student Health and Wellbeing Welcome Desk located on Level 3 of the Gateway Building at 5955 University Boulevard during opening hours, excluding statutory holidays:

• Monday: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm
• Tuesday: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm
• Wednesday: 8:00 am to 6:00 pm
• Thursday: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm
• Friday: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm

Call to book

Call 604 822 3811 during the opening hours above to schedule an in-person or virtual appointment.

Book online

At this time, online booking is available for faculty, program, or population-specific counselling appointments, and counsellors in residence.

Find your faculty, program, or counsellors in residence on the online booking platform. If it’s not listed, call 604 822 3811 to book an appointment.

Inclusive and equitable care

Confidentiality of information

Information you share with Student Health and Wellbeing is confidential. Your personal health information is protected and is not shared with your faculty or your Workday Student account.

Aggregate information may be used within Student Health and Wellbeing and shared more broadly at UBC for service planning, quality improvement, and reporting. This means your information is combined with other students’ information, without names,  to improve programs and services.

Personal information about you and your health can only be shared outside UBC with your permission, or when safety concerns or legal requirements arise.

If you have any questions about confidentiality, or anything else, please ask during your appointment.

Equitable support for all students

At Student Health and Wellbeing, we respect that students have unique identities, personalities, cultures, and lived experiences. We strive to bring a culturally responsive, anti-oppressive, and social justice orientation to the ways we support you.

Our providers represent a broad diversity of identity and human experience. We value and respectfully recognize Indigenous history, culture, traditional values, stories, and the lands we work on. Meet the counsellors on our team.

Additional resources