Mental Disorders

From the stomach butterflies experienced by a nervous job candidate to the killer headache brought on by a bad day, emotions can wreak havoc on the body. The phenomenon of "somatization" - complaints about physical symptoms for which no physical cause can be found - is extremely common, say doctors, who agree with estimates that nearly half of a family doctor's patients fall into that category. Such ailments burden the health-care system with unnecessary costs for drugs, laboratory tests, high-tech procedures and even surgery.

Richard Mulivor takes the lid off a massive stainless steel tank and fog- like vapors billow from its circular opening. After the fog has cleared, he reaches into the tank and takes out five miniature glass bottles, each containing live human cells. The millions of cells in these and other glass vessels have been taken from more than 6,000 people, many of whom suffer from cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer's disease and other genetic illnesses. Many of these frigid cells come from people who have long since died.

God messages I find it interesting to see people spending thousands of dollars to argue whether or not there is a God. ("Reverent rebuttal on a billboard," Aug. 7). If I had a dollar for every person who claims there is a God but could care less about living up to God's ethical and moral code, especially as it applies to friends, family, neighbors and strangers in our midst, I'd be a rich man. If there is a God, I would think that he would prefer that we spend our time doing good works rather than claiming to speak for God. Ian Wachstein Collingswood Learn the anthem During the Olympics, a few U.S. athletes will earn the honor of standing on the top step at award ceremonies, wearing the gold, as our country's flag waves in China and the band plays our national anthem.

When Mary S. Myers asked a group of mentally ill Chester County residents what they needed most, many of them spoke of improvements in transportation, housing and job opportunities. But it was a young man with a more philosophical bent who left the biggest impression on Myers. "We need hope," the man said. Hope is one of many things that Myers, who is director of community residential rehabilitation services for Human Services Inc. in Downingtown, would like people with mental illnesses to find at meetings of a new group she helped organize: the Chester County Support Gathering.

From lack of housing and ineffective treatment to bureaucratic snafus, deficiencies in New Jersey's mental-health system were aired yesterday at the first public hearing of the task force created by acting Gov. Richard J. Codey to examine how to improve state programs and services for mental illness. "This is a new day for mental health," said Kimberly Ricketts, executive director of the task force. More than 100 people attended the hearing at Bergen Community College and heard testimony from health-care professionals, advocates, and people struggling with mental disorders.

Arthur Faulkner yesterday was condemned to die in the electric chair by a Montgomery County Court jury that rejected his defense that mental illness compelled him to attack and kill two archaeologists. The jury deliberated for 90 minutes and then filed into the packed courtroom in Norristown to announce two death-penalty verdicts for Faulkner, 32, a Philadelphia laborer who was convicted Tuesday of stabbing two co- workers to death on April 1 and of trying to kill two others during a rampage in Lower Merion Township.

Forget the couch. Take a pill, and we'll talk - maybe - in the morning. Advances in powerful new medications are combining with managed care to reshape the way psychiatry is practiced, bringing the biological side of treatment - as opposed to the behavioral aspect - to the fore. "As we work to contain health-care costs, psychiatry is being driven more and more toward internal medicine," said Steven Hyman, the government's top scientist in mental health. "People who want to practice psychotherapy exclusively will have to increasingly rely on individuals who can pay out of pocket," he said.

When the 33 police officers were asked whether they encountered mentally ill people on the job, almost every officer raised a hand. But when the instructor of their recertification class at the Gloucester County Police Academy asked how many had been trained to handle people with mental illnesses, only one responded affirmatively. It's not just a local problem. As mental health institutions across the country have discharged patients and placed them back in the community, police officers have increasingly become the first to respond to a mentally ill person in crisis.

Americans are loath to label even extreme racist behavior as mental illness. Consider the debate since the arrest of Buford Furrow Jr., who admitted going on a hate rampage in Los Angeles several months after the Washington state mental health system evaluated him. Ron Sims, executive of King County, Wash., said after Furrow's arrest: "People are trying to build a case that this killing was done because the man was insane. But mental illness was not the cause. Hatred was. This guy came out of a culture of hatred.

In the movie version of madness, Psycho and Hannibal reign supreme. The terror of Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter lies in their mysterious strangeness and their abrupt lunges into violence. But in real life, most mentally ill people act . . . like you. Federal mental-health experts say that more than one in five Americans are afflicted with a diagnosable mental illness every year - although few are the psychotic type that seems to interest moviegoers. Add drug addicts to that number, and nearly a third of the country is said to suffer from "a mental or addictive disorder" each year.