The popularity of peer counseling groups does not reflect any problems with professional counseling, said Nadja B. Gould, a clinical social worker at Mental Health Services who supervises four peer counseling groups.

"There is a kind of complementary relationship with Mental Health Services and peer counseling groups," says Gould, calling the peer counseling groups "more like an arm of Mental Health Services."

"Peer groups are an extremely important resource for students who feel timid or uncertain about coming to Mental Health Services," she says.

Traditional views of mental health care hold that a certain social stigma is attached to seeing a professional counselor. But Catlin, who has been with Mental Health Services for 25 years, says that is no longer the case.

"There's no real stigma," Catlin says. "That's really not the way Mental Health Services is seen by the student body, although some parents might think differently."

Catlin adds, "For a while it was even in vogue to say, `What, you don't have a shrink at Mental Health Services?."'

But not everyone agrees that attitudes have changed.

"Like it or not, people retain a stigma about professional counseling, seeing a therapist," said Kim of Room 13.

Kim said that a relative lack of stigma associated with peer group counseling is one of several advantages services like Room 13 have over the professional centers.

If such a stigma does persist, it does so in part because students get inaccurate ideas about psychotherapy from television and movies, Ducey says.

"Please don't believe television or the movies about what psychology is like. We [at the Bureau of Study Counsel] don't do any of that self-affirmation stuff," Ducey says, referring to the Stuart Smalley self-affirmation skits on Saturday Night Live.

"When I'm in pain, I don't want people to tell me I'm okay. I can't imagine how that helps anyone," Ducey says.

In fact, many students are misinformed not just about psychology in general, but about psychology at Harvard. Longstanding student rumor has it that undergraduates with mental health problems are placed in "psycho singles," but Catlin said that Mental Health Services does not involve itself in housing issues.

"We at Mental Health Services try to stay out of the moving business. Occasionally we'll be asked about whether a student requires a single room. There are occasions when it's done, but it's pretty rare. Singles aren't really assigned on the basis of this kind of issue," said Catlin.

Another student rumor--that a student can "sick out" of an exam by claiming to have a mental health problem, as opposed to a physical ailment like a stomach ache or headache--is true, said Catlin.