Psychologist

In little more than a year, Philadelphia police officers have had to repeat the same wrenching ritual over and over - dealing with the bloody crime scenes, the grim hospital vigils, the solemn funeral processions. Since October 2007, five of their fellow officers have been killed in the line of duty. "For 13 months, it's been pure hell for the officers," said John McNesby, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5. "We've never experienced anything like this before and hopefully we won't have to experience it again.

Matti K. Gershenfeld, 83, of Elkins Park, a world-renowned psychologist who founded the Couples Learning Center in Jenkintown, died of multiple organ failure last Sunday at the Philadelphia Protestant Home, where she had been for three months. Mrs. Gershenfeld devoted her career to helping families coping with the stress that accompanies life changes. She drew upon her experiences as a mother of four, an author of eight books, a lecturer, a television talk-show host, a domestic-violence expert, a social researcher, and a teacher at Temple University.

If you saw any of the political debates between Biden and Palin or McCain and Obama, you know who won. It was obvious. Isn't it odd, though, that so many people in the media and elsewhere saw the same debate and thought the other side won? How could they see the world so differently? Are they stupid or just biased? To further muddy the waters, the journalists trying to explain the world are injecting bias into their reporting - or so says former CBS journalist Bernard Goldberg, author of the book Bias.

These are the times that try men's psyches. There's so much to worry about: the war, the election, Wall Street, the credit crunch, housing values, the unemployment rate, bank failures, our 401(k)s, our jobs. Even without a little marital discord or a family illness, you've got a recipe for high anxiety. "In my 20 years of practice, I have never seen anything like the last couple of weeks in terms of what we're seeing coming into our offices - the volume but also the intensity of the anxiety," said Nancy Molitor, a psychologist who works in suburban Chicago.

At least one child will publicly testify at the trial of a juvenile court psychologist who is accused of illegally touching four children, a Delaware County judge ruled yesterday. Jerry Lazaroff, 59, of Villanova, has been charged with indecent assault, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children in cases involving children from three families. The children have said Lazaroff touched them in inappropriate places while they were in therapy sessions - some court-ordered and others not. Lazaroff was suspended without pay last month from his county position.

A clinical psychologist employed by the Delaware County Juvenile Court was arrested Tuesday on new charges of indecent assault involving a child patient. Jerry Lazaroff, 59, of Villanova, was charged with multiple counts of indecent assault, corruption of minors, and endangering the welfare of children after a 7-year-old boy told police that Lazaroff had tickled him so hard it hurt and had touched his penis during therapy sessions. Lazaroff was suspended without pay from his county position earlier this month after Upper Providence Township police charged him with similar offenses involving a 10-year-old girl.

Jane Ward Newhall, 68, of Penn Valley, a child psychologist, died of ovarian cancer Tuesday at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Dr. Newhall was director of psychotherapy services at the Child Study Institute at Bryn Mawr College for 12 years. She initiated a social-skills program for young people, supervised testing, and provided psychotherapy and counseling to patients and their families at the institute. She also lectured to graduate students at Bryn Mawr. Dr. Newhall previously was on the staff of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center for five years and was an associate faculty member in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Looking bedraggled and saying nothing, Joseph Giongo was found incompetent yesterday in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court to stand trial for the killing of his wife. Giongo glanced around the courtroom during the half-hour hearing, looking occasionally at his mother in the front row, who trembled and waved in response. That was more communication than Giongo's attorney, Leigh Narducci, said he had had from his client. Narducci said he had never had a client as reticent as Giongo, 44, who is accused of beating and stomping his wife, Bernadette Giongo, to death in front of their 7-year-old son in their Conshohocken home in December.

We take lessons to merengue, kickbox, or paint watercolors. But how to love, not so much. The truth is, every couple could use guidance on keeping it together. "Skill," the ancient Roman poet Ovid wrote, "makes love unending. " People can sit down and be taught how to effectively function as a pair, insists Judith Coch?, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist who runs the Coch? Center, based in Center City. A fixture on programs like Oprah, Good Morning America, and Today, Coch? runs workshops for couples.

Napoleon is credited with saying, "No man is a hero to his valet. " Roscoe Jenkins says, "No man is a hero to his dad. " Whatever our achievements or status, those who know us best do not see us as larger-than-life figures. Still, Roscoe Jenkins labors too hard to wring too-few chuckles, as this pop psychologist, helpless on the occasion of his folks' golden anniversary, gets belittled by parents and ridiculed by siblings. Just like when he was a kid. Some movies straddle two genres.