Refereeing the Rat Race

Dr. Paul A. Walters. Jr. chief of Mental Health Services (MHS) at the University Health Services (UHS), prides himself on his awareness of the little things that go on around the college. "Students don't usually think much about it," the 20 year Harvard veteran tells you in what remains of a childhood Southern drawl, "but over here, we know the difference between Eliot and Winthrop House." Why? "Because we have to."

Walters, who heads a staff of 20 therapists charged with advising students and treating their problems, may have one of the toughest jobs outside the Yard. But as he sits in his well-worn office tucked into the third floor of Holyoke Center, one is immediately at ease. In a service that will handle over 3000 visitors this year--including students, faculty, and staff--Walters' soft spoken but frank manner and his years of experience are tested every day.

By the time the average class completes its four-year tour in Cambridge, a quarter of the men and about a third of the women will have visited the MHS. ("Women," Walters explains, "are more sensitive to interpersonal issues and more willing to ask for help.") While a lot of students have the notion that most MHS patients are counselled on a semi permanent basis, Walters says the majority of the cases his office handles are short-term and 'crisis"-oriented. The average student, Walters notes, "may see us in his junior year for three or four visits and then again briefly in his senior year."

In recent years, however, more seniors have been visiting the MHS. The predominant malaise of students today is uncertainty," Walters says flatly. Most of the students who use MHS "feel in distress from a choice of purposes--a career problem, the future, self-confidence or a family situation," he explains. Pre-professionalism has clearly had an impact outside of the classroom. In what he labels a society gone back to a "scarcity model," Walters asks, "What does a young person base his self respect on?"

Life in the Cambridge rat race, as one might assume, doesn't bolster many people's self-confidence. Harvard is a place populated by very ambitious people," says Walters. 'You have to be ambitious to get here and to stay here--and keep your self-respect." It's not that Harvard induces depression, but rather that depression is a reaction to disappointments and college students have an inordinate amount of opportunities to be disappointed. "It's not a simple reaction to an 'F' in a course," Walters insists. "When students come to us, they're concerned not only about their courses, but with the quality of their life." Walters says he and his staff do not hesitate to advise that people take time off from school. "I don't feel it's my job to keep people here," he notes.

Not surprisingly, Walters has dealt with more than a few cases where students expressed suicidal tendencies. While he and other college health officials are reluctant to release actual figures, he says that the number of suicides a year at Harvard is almost negligible. Because there are so few cases, UHS officials hesitate to reveal any facts, for fear that identities may be discovered. "You hear a lot about the suicide rate going up among the young people in the country," Walters admits, but he adds quickly that this trend has not hit Harvard. He doesn't beat around the bush; when you ask him why students here don't fit into national molds, he says simply, "I don't know."

Like most of the therapists that work for UHS, Walters is a long-time Harvard employee. A native Southerner who fears that he is becoming the consummate New Englander, Walter received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and studied medicine around the corner at Duke University. After he was lured to Harvard in 1956, Walters moved up through the ranks to become assistant director of UHS and chief of psychiatry. When his division was fused with the psychological section in 1976--and the MHS was conceived--Walters was appointed chief of the new division. In the late 1960s, Walters taught a General Education course which covered the topics of drugs and adolescent development. Although he still lectures occasionally at the Medical School, he says he misses teaching undergraduates. "I felt that I learned more about the Harvard community while teaching that I have here," he says.

Students who visit the MHS, says Walters, are very concerned about the confidentiality of the contents of their visits. Therapists treat such meetings with great care. As the "Guide to the University Health Services" notes, "Communications between a therapist and a client are kept in strictest confidence unless someone's life is in danger or serious bodily harm to someonw is threatened." Harvard students, Walters asserts, are not concerned with the stigma attached to seeing a psychiatrist. "Most people that come to the MHS, he says, "know how to use it, how what they want, and use it well."