Mental Health Needs Attention

Harvard can be a pretty stressful and depressing place, especially if you have nowhere to turn. A recent article in The Crimson reported that 12 to 15 percent of undergraduates are seen by mental health services during their years at Harvard.

Of these, about one-third, or 300 undergraduates, have some form of depression, estimates Dr. Randolph Catlin Jr., director of the Mental Health Service at University Health Services (UHS). With so many depressed undergraduates, Harvard clearly needs to do more to help its students than it currently does.

The College could improve its mental health care system by doing three basic things: guaranteeing therapy from UHS on demand, providing long-term extensive therapy when necessary and improving the support network to catch potential depression cases.

First, UHS does not guarantee specialized individual emergency therapy on demand. Students who want to see a psychologist, psychiatrist or psychiatric social worker can make an appointment, but the earliest a therapist can see a student is usually about 10 to 15 days away.

For students who cannot wait for an appointment, UHS does offer three one-hour urgent care periods daily. According to Catlin, the short-term system works well for most students who are depressed over specific events in their life rather than for pathological reasons.

Often, students who are depressed for a specific reason need immediate help which may not be provided by the daily urgent-care periods. Harvard's short-term care system could benefit from having a psychologist available at UHS on demand, for students who want an individual meeting with an experienced practitioner.

UHS also does not provide more frequent or more extensive therapy, choosing instead to refer undergraduates to private practitioners or one of Harvard's nearby teaching hospitals. One sophomore who suffers from clinical depression said she went to a private psychologist because she felt that there was a lack of psychologists in UHS who would see someone on a regular basis.

Other schools offer services of much higher quality than Harvard's. Yale's mental health services division, for example, is able to provide long-term therapy without making private referrals. At Harvard, students generally pay for private therapy themselves, whereas Yale's treatment is included in the school's health plan.

While Harvard's mental health services also handles faculty and staff, Yale's treats only students and is thus able to offer more student care.

Harvard should attempt to become aware of student problems before they lead to a more serious type of depression. This requires a strong support system for students dealing with the difficulties and stress of college life.

First-years have the largest support network, with both proctors and deans looking out for them. But although proctors live in the same entry as their students, they are not always aware of what is going on in their students' lives.

The tutor systems in the Houses are significantly worse. Many tutors do not know more than their students' names, let alone anything they are doing at Harvard. With one senior tutor in a House for anywhere from 300 to 600 people, the other tutors should definitely be more involved. But many don't make the effort required to do so.

The changes that we have called for may have their costs. But the mental health of Harvard's students is simply too important to be given short shrift. Harvard owes it to students paying $26,000 a year to provide the long-term care necessary to their well-being.