Mood and anxiety disorders are not signs of weakness, and they will not go away on their own.

Starting today in the University Union, Sacramento State’s Psychological Counseling Services, along with social work graduate students will be offering free confidential screenings for depression, anxiety and related conditions to students on campus.

Their goal is to provide easily accessible and anonymous screenings to students for a range of common emotional conditions that are often ignored and misunderstood. The event is called National Depression Screening Days and will run until Friday.

“Depression and anxiety are biological disorders and there are known treatments,” said Mimi Lewis, licensed social worker in the social work department who helped organize the event.

Lewis also said that meetings to organize the event started this past August between the Psychological Counseling Services and the division of social work. Psychological Counseling Services trained 20 of Lewis’ graduate level students, studying advanced courses in community mental health, to run the event.

The process for students who wish to participate starts with their initial screening for their issues to be identified. Then they offered steps they can take and places they can visit in order to find help and support that would effectively combat those issues.

Mary Valtierra, a clinical psychologist in the Psychological Counseling Services, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, said that there is a social stigma attached to seeking help.

Valtierra claims that many times if students are feeling overwhelmed, depressed or anxious about social or academic issues in their lives, they commonly make the mistake of believing that the feelings will go away on their own. In addition, Valtierra said that many times students feel embarrassed, even weak, about the notion of seeking help.

“If students are worried about the stigma of seeking help or explaining to their friends where they went, they don’t have to say that they were at psychology screening,” said Sean Basso, a third-year criminal justice major. “Instead, they can say they went to a survey for a group of graduate students.”

Basso believes that the event is a great idea. Like Valtierra, he feels students will not seek help on their own because of the stigma attached to seeking help. However, he does believe that it is easier for students when somebody on campus is going out of their way to reach out to them.

Lewis also wants students to recognize that National Depression Screening Days is not just about treating students that feel depressed or anxious. Its purpose is to essentially increase the level of mental health of students at Sac State.

Students who feel disconnected, alone, or even just having a few “bad” days are invited to take advantage in the program and learn what services are available on campus and in the community.

“Social workers, in general, are concerned about mental health in the community,” Lewis said. “Our primary goal with National Depression Screening Days is to increase the level of mental health awareness on campus, and provide a beginning to educate students how they can find health.”

In addition to the screenings at the Union, tonight the Psychological Counseling Services, along with the social work graduate students, will be taking their program to the residence halls.

They will continue to offer the screenings, but also provide information to the students to help educate them about the importance of mental health and where help can be found. They will be at Draper Hall from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. and at Desmond Hall from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

“Events like this have been organized in the past, but they never quite worked,” Lewis said. “This was mostly (because of) the fact that in the past they were held in a far corner on campus. We hope by putting ourselves in the Union, will only encourage students to want to stop by.”

Screenings will take place in the Union, under the stairs in the Main Lobby, today from noon to 2 p.m., Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., and on Friday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.