"The person I had at the Bureau was pretty inexperienced," he says. "She was nice and really attractive, but I just saw through everything she was doing."

Ducey concedes that Will's experience reflects a BSC concern.

"It's true that there's a difference between real talk and empty talk," he says. "An experienced therapist will get you to speak from your heart, but some may not see the emptiness because the student isn't ready to deal with the issue."

He also emphasizes the importance of talk therapy as a way to get to the underlying issue causing the problem, rather than just attacking the symptoms.

"It's unbelievably common for students to be given drugs, put a band aid over problems," Ducey says. "The only way one solves problems is to deal with them directly."

But Jennifer says this creates a gap in mental health resources at Harvard. The BSC talks about issues without ever solving them, and UHS is equally unhelpful because it doesn't talk at all, she says.

"UHS almost ignores what you're saying," she says.

According to Ducey, the BSC is aware that some people have trouble with their form of therapy, but counselors are constantly peer reviewing one another to improve their techniques.