Psychologist

Leonard Rosen, 95, formerly of Center City, a psychologist who became an artist, died of pneumonia Sunday, Jan. 15, at his home in Bandon, Ore. Dr. Rosen earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1953. For the next 25 years, he maintained a clinical practice in Camden; was a psychologist at the New Jersey Mental Hygiene Clinic in Camden and for the New Jersey prison system; and was on the staff at Cooper University Hospital. Dr. Rosen was also an instructor at Rutgers University and Glassboro State College, now Rowan University.

Julie Bernard O'Malley, 67, of Wyndmoor, a clinical psychologist, drowned Saturday, July 17, in Avalon, N.J. Dr. O'Malley, who was a strong swimmer, had gone for a swim in the early evening after lifeguards left the beach, said her sister, Olivia Bernard. Since 1992, Dr. O'Malley had had a practice in Chestnut Hill. She was a counselor at the Child Study Institute at Bryn Mawr College from 1984 to 1988 and then a staff psychologist at the Washington Square Institute in New York City for four years.

Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated tomorrow for Jonathan J. Noce, a clinical psychologist from Missouri who was born in Philadelphia. Noce, a resident of St. Louis, died of cancer Sunday. He was 40. "Jonathan's career and work were in St. Louis, but his last wish was to be returned home to Philadelphia, where he wanted to be buried," explained funeral director Ron Piselli. Noce earned his undergraduate degree at Villanova University, his master's from the University of Missouri at St. Louis, and his doctorate in clinical psychology from St. Louis University.

Leon Soffer, 84, a deputy commissioner for the city's mental-health and mental-retardation offices from 1968 to 1982, died of congestive heart failure Tuesday at home in West Chester. A psychologist, Dr. Soffer headed the city's mental-health services leading up to the turbulent years when giant state hospitals such as Pennhurst and Byberry closed. Dr. Soffer left his city position in 1982, the same year that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state must provide care for former patients in less-restrictive community settings.

Alice F. Kerber Schott, 58, of Lower Makefield Township, a former Bucks County teacher and a practicing psychologist, died Saturday of cancer at Mercer Medical Center in Trenton. Dr. Schott was born and educated in Avoca, Pa., and earned her bachelor's degree in education from East Stroudsburg (Pa.) State College in 1960. She earned a master's degree and a doctorate in psychology through an accelerated program at East Stroudsburg. After earning her doctorate in 1991, she practiced psychology at Psychology Associates/Quantum in Newtown Township, Bucks County.

Dr. M. Powell Lawton, 77, a behavioral psychologist and nationally recognized authority on aging, died Monday of a brain tumor at the Quadrangle retirement community in Haverford Township, where he had lived for a few months. He previously lived in Collegeville for many years. At the time of his death, he was senior research scientist and director emeritus of the Polisher Research Institute of the Philadelphia Geriatric Center. Dr. Lawton joined the research institute 38 years ago as its first director.

Who is this fawnlike creature babbling the unintelligible lingo? Is she, as one North Carolina psychologist hopes, a wild child who has grown up so completely apart from civilization that she may hold the key to the mysteries of how personality and language are formed? Or is this backwoods girl, as the medical doctor who discovers her begins to suspect, a civilization unto herself, performing rituals that only she knows and uttering nonsense syllables that hold meaning only for her?

Hypnosis. Trance. To some people, these words still conjure up old movie images of a watch on a chain swinging mesmerizingly back and forth, or of a dark, menacing figure whose hapless victims turn into mindless zombies after gazing into his glittering eyes. OK. Maybe you know that this is the stuff of comic books, but maybe you have heard that hypnosis can make a four-pack-a-day die-hard quit smoking or cause the compulsive overeater to lose weight. Forget it, says clinical psychologist Joseph P. Primavera, for trance is not a magical state and hypnosis is not a miracle cure.

Randall B. Weiss was still in his heavy bomber jacket. The young Philadelphia psychologist had just come from the movies with three friends Saturday night. The others had stopped briefly at his Rodman Street townhouse and then had gone out again. But Weiss, 30, who was preparing for his state psychology boards, had stayed behind to get a good night's sleep. Still wearing the jacket, Weiss headed upstairs. The downstairs closet was small, Weiss' father would later recall; his son probably wanted to hang the jacket upstairs.

In House of Cards, a film about childhood trauma and childhood perceptions that is scheduled to open July 2 at the Ritz Five, Tommy Lee Jones gets to put away his repertoire of snarly one-liners. The Texas native, whose career has been marked by some gleefully villainous portraits - the nutted-out hijacker in Under Siege, the corrupt developer in Mike Figgis' Stormy Monday - instead plays a caring psychologist who comes into conflict with Kathleen Turner when he diagnoses her daughter as autistic.