Reflections on college virtual counseling in Colombia

Abstract

The present article aims to describe the mental health services that are offered from the university welfare area in Colombia, as well as, its scope and limitations, such as the lack of a clear distinction in the law between physical and mental health services and, the low coverage of mental health services for the entire student community. In order to deal with these two shortcomings, a plan is proposed to improve the offer of mental health services that includes aspects such as the implementation of a virtual psychological counseling service and the increase in the number of professionals who attend university students. Finally, the challenges that exist to achieve the adequate implementation of this proposal in the future are mentioned, among them, the need to train professionals in virtual psychological counseling and the inclusion in the Colombian psychologist’s law of the characteristics of virtual psychological services and the guidelines that must be considered to offer good quality virtual psychological counseling services.