Asking for Help at Harvard

Living in a community that has endured two apparent suicides over the past year and a half, I have at times been haunted by those faces that disappeared so abruptly from the Winthrop House dining hall. Their absence makes me feel powerless. What could I have done differently to avert these tragedies? What can I do now—what can any of us do—to prevent more tragedies like theirs in the future?

My intuition is that many students share this frustrated sense that there is so little that we as individuals can do. We look to Harvard’s administrators for answers. We eagerly await the complete report, due next month, of the Student Mental Health Task Force, which has been charged with improving the University’s bureaucratic—and at times impersonal—support system. The report likely will lead to significant improvements in the clinical services and residential resources available for undergraduates. But students, who have long complained about Harvard’s sub-par mental health safety net, would be foolish if they believed the answers will come from the administration alone.

I am writing about my own experience with University Health Services (UHS) because it is the least I can do to help de-stigmatize what our high-pressured academic environment inevitably stigmatizes—asking for help. It is my hope that my story will encourage others to talk more openly about their mental health experiences and give still other students the confidence to confide in somebody.

Like hundreds of undergraduates, I have seen a psychologist through UHS Mental Health Service. Last spring, depressed and confused, I found myself losing my grip. Despite considerable support from my friends and roommates, it became clear to me that they could not provide the kind of counseling I needed. I could not attend classes. I wandered the streets of the Square. I had to talk to a professional. Making that decision was one of the most difficult choices I ever made.

But seeking help should have been easy.

Both my parents work in the mental health field; I never would have thought twice about any of my friends seeking help. However, to go to the fourth floor of UHS and request counseling was to admit to myself that I lacked confidence in my ability to sort out my problems alone. I needed help, and—like most Harvard students I know—I was uncomfortable admitting it.

Thankfully, I made the right decision, and in retrospect I should have sought help a long time ago. But it is a decision that, tragically, some students never make. Many of us pride ourselves on self-sufficiency. We didn’t get to Harvard having to ask for directions; we’re resourceful, we’re clever and—most importantly—we’re stubborn. It’s what gave us that edge over our classmates, but today it’s often the greatest impediment to our success.

This problem of students’ reluctance to ask for help is also the Mental Health Task Force’s greatest impediment to effective reform. Creating a structure in which more students are encouraged to utilize services requires an extensive devotion of resources—far more than has yet been publicly proposed.

This summer I worked as a counselor at a camp for gifted and talented middle and high school students—the kind of camp that many of us attended in our awkward youth. Students and counselors lived in a residence hall on a college campus, and to my surprise, the camp employed a live-in psychologist who provided periodic advice to the counselors and students. Not a day went by when his services weren’t called on.

The intensity of the camp environment, both socially and academically, provides a distilled—and admittedly simpler—version of the Harvard experience. Nonetheless, the University could learn much from the camp’s commitment to its students’ mental health. Every House ought to employ live-in mental health professionals to serve as all-hours resources for students and staff. These individuals could work alongside senior tutors, who are already overburdened with administrative responsibilities, to keep up with particular students, provide training to tutors and coordinate between academic and health professionals. If Harvard were to embrace such a concerted—and expensive—effort, it would make a bold statement about its priorities and its commitment to reform.

But in addressing mental health here, it would be careless not to ask as well: What about Harvard contributes to mental illness? Administrators often shy away from this approach—instead choosing to focus on the more palatable public-relations response that the sharp rise of mental illness at Harvard can be attributed to scientific improvements, which have allowed more mental illness sufferers to achieve admittance to Harvard than ever before. While certainly a factor, this trend does not explain why so many undergraduates encounter mental health problems for the very first time after reaching college.

I offer my own analysis for the Task Force: The Harvard undergraduate community is, by and large, rather unwelcoming. First-year meals in Annenberg Hall are marked by cliques and social networking. Vertical entryways, as opposed to hallways, discourage even casual interactions among acquaintances. Even volunteer student organizations, steeped in traditions older than any of us, do their best to appear imposing and exclusive. Although some notable exceptions exist, Harvard’s social and extracurricular life is less than conducive to establishing a genuine support community. Indeed, social contacts at Harvard tend to be superficial and self-serving.

All of us can begin here—taking a more active interest in one another, looking out for our collective well being instead of always focusing on how to use one another. We have so much power to effect change, if only we choose to recognize it. Make eye contact with those acquaintances from freshman year you pass in the Yard but haven’t spoken to in years. Smile at them. Eat a meal in the dining hall with somebody you’ve never met before. Strike up a conversation. Let them know that if they were to disappear tomorrow, even you—who hardly knew them—would notice.

Benjamin J. Toff ’05 is a social studies concentrator in Winthrop House. He is co-editorial chair of The Crimson.