Recently, emotional support animals (ESAs) — animals that provide therapeutic benefits to their owners, including reducing anxiety and depression — have become a significant component of how many people manage their mental health.
Pets can be designated as ESAs by mental health care professionals who provide letters certifying that a person is a good candidate for an ESA. These letters afford pet owners certain benefits.
Currently, however, UT’s Counseling and Mental Health Center does not provide students with ESA letters. Students seeking this service are instead referred to area providers.
The CMHC must offer students access to a mental health care provider with expertise in making ESA assessments. This would ensure that students who have an authentic need receive easy access to this service, while mitigating fraudulent use of the system.
Marla Craig, senior associate for clinical services at UT, noted that there has been an increase in demand for ESAs by students over the past decade.
The absence of letter service on campus is burdensome for students to whom an ESA could be a crucial part of their mental health care.
Advertising junior Shelby Milhoan’s experience highlights the challenges students face securing an ESA designation from an off-campus provider.
“It cost about $300, so it is definitely not the most accessible option,” Milhoan said. “And I have to update it yearly.”
The CMHC’s reasons for not offering this service are threefold. First, some providers are not confident in the science documenting the benefits of ESAs.
“Really, a lot of the evidence and research out there is pretty inconclusive,” Craig said. “Animals are good for everybody. So that makes it hard to say what makes it good for one person and not another.”
This response lacks nuance. Dismissing the science as “inconclusive” leaves little room to acknowledge the meaningful and beneficial impact that ESAs can have for students.
Secondly, the impact of ESAs remains understudied and, as such, ESAs are not yet a mainstream aspect of mental health care delivery or education. Therefore, CMHC providers are not trained in this area.
“This is not an area of expertise for us,” Craig said. “This is not something that we are very knowledgeable on.”
Finally, the CMHC’s decision to not provide ESA letters to qualifying students is informed by the fact that some people leverage this designation solely for the potential benefits (no pet rent, for one) rather than a real need.
However, there is an easy fix for all of this.
The CMHC should hire a professional who has expertise in this area. If UT brought this service on campus, instead of relying on students to find ESA letters wherever they can, the CMHC could oversee the process.
“It is important to maintain integrity if we offer that option, because of course people are going to see this and use it to just take their pet with them,” Milhoan said.
There is no reason that the CMHC can’t address both the growing demand for ESAs and concerns regarding the ESA designation process.
Ultimately, this action would bring UT closer to meeting its goal of providing students with a holistic care experience.
“I feel like the University is searching for ways to help students and their mental health and this is something that they could do,” Milhoan said. “This is something tangible that students know and that they could do on their own terms.”
Strelitz-Block is a Plan II and anthropology sophomore from Austin, Texas.
