Outreach coordinator, assistant director and psychologist at the UW Counseling Center Dr. Julio Brionez has worked with the university community for a little over two years.
Dr. Brionez initially became involved with this career field when he volunteered for a crisis hotline in 2008.
“A friend of mine died, and from then I wanted to be more involved in the crisis piece of it,” Brionez said. “I started volunteering at a suicide prevention hotline. Then I changed my major and went into psychology.”
A typical workday for Brionez involves between three to five appointments, an outreach event, taking notes and responding to phone calls and emails. Brionez said that the pandemic has increased the overall amount of sessions.
“There’s more appointments because students are able to join from literally wherever, from their phone or their laptop,” Brionez said. “The largest thing is less travel time for outreach events.”
The University Counseling Center (UCC) offers multiple resources, including individual counseling, group counseling, outreach events and internships for grad students.
“We do groups for anxiety, depression, mindfulness, self-compassion and self-love,” Brionez said. “In the future, we’ll hopefully have groups for body image and body positivity.”
The UCC also connects with the Black Studies Center, the Wellness Center, the Native American Research Center and the Laramie SAFE Project.
“For those who don’t come from backgrounds with either a lot of positive role models or come from backgrounds where family hasn’t been to college and you’re not sure how to do it properly, reach out to us if you’d like,” Brionez said. “Particularly for groups that have been marginalized.”
Brionez said he enjoys seeing people get healthier and go on to finish academics, accomplish their goals and find meaning in their lives.
“There’s that middle adulthood period when that person is literally just turning to an adult when they come to the university, or they just became an adult before coming,” Brionez said. “That’s a place where a lot of young people get to rethink their lives or rewrite their stories if they want.”
For students interested in pursuing a career in psychology, Dr. Brionez said volunteering and learning from people in the field are both important aspects.
“Volunteer for SAFE Project or for any kind of gender-based violence prevention hotline. Volunteer for a crisis hotline,” Brionez said. “Look for a model, if there’s any, that you can learn from. Look at people whose lives you want to in some way emulate and ask them how they got where they are.”
Brionez emphasized the importance of having more people in the mental health, social work and psychology fields with different cultural backgrounds.
“We need more Black and Native American and Latinx therapists. We need more folks that speak multiple languages to do therapy out in the world,” Brionez said. “Too often, there are a lot of cultural components that are overlooked, and those are some ways we can try and close those gaps by getting more people in the field.”
Contact for UCC: 307-766-2187
Contact for campus Psychology Center: 307-766-2149
