Extra Counseling Services Added Closer to Campus

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The Stony Brook Psychotherapy and Wellness Center is located above the Kaplan office on Route 25A

By Sze Chun Chan

The University Counseling Center is expanding its services on Oct. 8 to include long-term psychotherapy for university students with the opening of a new private office within walking distance of Stony Brook.

The new office will be called the Stony Brook Psychotherapy and Wellness Center and will offer services that extend beyond the resources of the University Counseling Center. Students with long-term needs will be directed to the new counseling center.

The Psychotherapy and Wellness Center not be affiliated with the university. The office will still use Stony Brook’s health insurance plan with no co-pay or deductible.

According to L. Anne Byrnes, director of the center, 20 percent of the patients that the center treats require long-term treatment that extend past the counseling center’s resources.

Previously, students in need of extended psychotherapy were referred to the Pederson-Krag Center, a mental health clinic on Route 111 in Smithtown, which is about seven and a half miles away. “They always have a long waiting list which is really not helpful,” Byrnes said.

This new office will be located northwest of the Stony Brook train station upstairs to the Kaplan Learning Center, on the north side of Route 25A. “Being close to campus will be very helpful to students.” Byrnes said.

The office will be headed by John Cottone, a licensed clinical psychologist, who interned at the University Counseling Center as part of pre-doctoral program from 2004 to 2005.

The center treats students for a variety of psychological cases, from mild to more severe cases - such as drug addiction, depression, and bipolar disorder.

“We want people to come here because they need to,” Byrnes said. She has been working at the center since 1974. “It’s very rewarding,” she said.

Correction: (sorta) A paragraph regarding the office's private status was moved higher to make that status clearer to the reader. and the headline was modified to better reflect this as well. While the previous versions were not semantically inaccurate they could have been misunderstood, especially given the official sounding name of the new office.