In January 2020, President Morehead announced the University’s full support of UGA Student Affairs and the University Health Center to lead new mental initiatives. 

Therapy Assistance Online (TAO) along with other resources provided by University Health Center, has been recognized as a tremendous resource for all UGA students, faculty, and staff for ongoing, daily mental wellness support. 

The goal of TAO is to provide online and mobile tools to help the UGA community with the day-to-day struggles of general stressors like anxiety and depression or specific struggles like relationships and addiction. 

TAO is free for anyone with a uga.edu email address including students, faculty, and staff. TAO can be accessed anywhere, whether you are on the Tifton campus, studying abroad, or at home. 

TAO includes over 150 brief, effective, educational sessions covering over 50 common topics and skills related to mental health, wellness, and substance use issues. TAO includes interactive sessions, mindfulness exercises, and practice tools all aimed at supporting the mental health of the UGA community. 

You can locate sessions and modules online or in the TAO Mobile App for easy access on your mobile device to a variety of wellness tools!

Some of these modules include: 

Calming Your Worry, where you can choose to focus on broad life experiences or the challenges of being a college student. In either version, you will learn to recognize and understand how your thoughts influence your feelings and behaviors. As you realize you have control over your thoughts, you’ll worry less about the challenges ahead, knowing that you have the ability to persist through difficulties.

Let Go and Be Well, resilience is the psychological concept of successfully processing and adapting to change and stress; this pathway guides you to a place where you can begin to accept and embrace your life fully- even its challenges.

Interpersonal Relationships and Communication, relationships can be challenging sometimes. This pathway will help you understand how to improve your relationships by building communication skills, learning to recognize unhealthy relationship behaviors, and finding ways to manage anger.

Leave Your Blues Behind, when life feels low, it’s easy to think negatively. This pathway will encourage you to find ways to think more positively; in doing so, you’ll notice that you don’t feel quite as blue anymore.

Improving Your Mood, this pathway will teach you that there is some truth behind the phrase “fake it till you make it.” When we feel down, it’s easy to begin to withdraw from others, which leads to a cycle of continuing to feel blue. By learning to challenge yourself to engage with your life, even when you don’t initially feel like it, you’ll actually begin to feel better and think more positively. 

Evaluating Alcohol and Drug Use, this pathway is for people seeking more knowledge and information about the role substances play in their lives. In these lessons, you will reflect on your own choices regarding alcohol and drug use and create a plan for any changes you’d like to make in these behaviors.

Pain Management, this pathway is a holistic approach to dealing with pain. Topics include understanding pain, lifestyle factors, and various strategies to manage or reduce pain, including cognitive strategies, meditation, and acceptance and commitment therapy.