Even though Laura suspected her friend, Chris, was suicidal, she felt helpless and unsure of what to do as Chris adopted erratic sleeping and eating habits, lost interest in personal belongings and stopped caring about hygeine.

Laura sought advice from a Harvard official, whom she wishes not to name, but found the advice incomplete. After the meeting, she says, her questions about how to deal with the situation were left unanswered.

Chris eventually attempted suicide.

"I had difficulty deciding whether [Chris'] behavior signified short-term problems or a serious problem that indicated suicidal tendencies," Laura says. "It's hard to know where to draw the line and interfere."

Since 1991, two Harvard students have committed suicide and 15 attempted suicides have been reported, according Lieutenant Lawrence M. Murphy of the Harvard University Police Department. This fall alone, at least two undergraduates, a senior from Cabot House and a junior from Lowell House, attempted suicide.

Chief of Mental Health Services at University Health Services (UHS) Dr. Randolph Catlin says the most common causes of suicide among college students are doubts about relationships and fear of failure in the "real world."

And Harvard's competitive, and occasionally impersonal atmosphere can often exacerbate students' depression, according to Mark E. Warner '94, who heads the peer counseling group Room 13.

Warner and Catlin say it is often up to the people closest to the suicidal student--including friends and house tutors--to intervene and initiate discussion about the problem. But some House tutors do not have enough interaction with students to detect depression, Warner and Catlin say.

Some students are even reluctant to approach tutors, says Catlin, because they fear being labelled as "students with problems."

Catlin and Warner say tutors need to make more of an effort to get to know students.

"I think it is true that a great many house tutors don't put themselves out to get involved with students. [Students] may not feel that they have that close of a relationship with tutors," Catlin says.

In fact, fewer first-years attempt suicide because close relationships between students and proctors catch depression in its early stages, he adds.

"We don't get many freshman cases," he says. "I think an awful lot of problems have been dealt with at [the proctor] level."

Laura says part of the problem in Chris' situation was the impersonality of the house in which Chris lives.

"The tutors don't know you," Laura says. "It's harder to go to somebody for help whom you don't know than it is to go to somebody you do know."