Psychotherapy

Jonathan Labman has managed a New York art gallery and studied to become a Presbyterian minister. He has been an actor and a masseur. All the while, Labman, 45, has tried healing: first himself, then others. Labman grew up in Yardley, attending public school until he felt forced to leave Pennsbury High School after the 10th grade, in 1971. He finished at a private school in Wales on a scholarship for which he applied. He recalls walking the halls of Pennsbury and hearing students call him "fairy" and "mama's boy. " "I didn't know what homosexuality was at the time," Labman said.

Carole Henley's face still contorts with pain when she remembers the murder of her son, Donald, more than a decade ago. "He had been stabbed 16 times. His throat was slit. He'd been sodomized. He was 12 years old," she said. Her son's murderer, Charles M. Wantland, had killed before. But he had been paroled after serving less than six years of a 30-year sentence at the Patuxent Institution, an unusual maximum-security prison that uses psychotherapy to rehabilitate criminals.

Marge was 48 years old when she came to my office last year complaining of depression. She said her marriage was "comfortable, but without passion. " Her teenage children were doing well, but she was worried about paying tuition when the time came. Her work life had been stable for 15 years. And then she woke up one day and realized that, at her age, many of her professional dreams would never come true. And she would probably be spending the rest of her life in her merely "comfortable" marriage.

"If only we had known" is a sadly common refrain following suicide. Family, friends, coworkers and even mental-health professionals often miss the signals. This is National Mental Health Awareness Week, a time to be aware of the devastating impact of mental health disorders. It is also a time to appreciate the highly effective treatments available today. Above all, it is a time to reflect that too many people still suffer needlessly with diagnosable conditions and clinical risks that go undetected and untreated.

Another grand celebration with fireworks and modern laser effects. This time to honor the completion of the new One Liberty Place building. True, it's usually no fun to put a damper on celebrations of this nature. The show was quite spectacular and Philadelphia has the right to pat itself on the back for another step forward in modern construction and modern celebration. But what about new buildings to aid the city's homeless? Not just buildings where these people will sit around, eat and sleep, but with programs that offer mental-health screenings, psychotherapy and options counseling.

A Burlington City motorist who struck and fatally injured a bike rider with his car was sentenced yesterday to 45 days in the county prison and ordered to pay the victim's family up to $4,800 in psychotherapy bills. Judge Cornelius P. Sullivan of Burlington County Superior Court imposed the unusual sentence on Douglas F. Bass, 41, after a lengthy plea from the widow of Robert Durham for restitution. Durham, 35, died in 1990 two weeks after he was hit on River Road in Burlington Township.

New Age egghead Jean Houston says she's no guru. But she's also apparently not everything she's cracked up to be. A New York Daily News check of her lengthy resume raised several questions about the background of the prolific author and Human Potential Movement pioneer who enjoys the ear of first lady Hillary Clinton. Among them: Her resume and reams of promotional material issued by her publisher claim she completed her doctoral studies at Columbia University. The school says she never got the degree.

You pay Margaret Jean Sosnowski $47,958 a year. She is supervisor of Family Court's medical branch, including psychiatrists, psychologists and a physician. Until she needed a job a couple of years ago, they got along without a supervisor. She is as qualified for the job as she is to be a National Football League cornerback. Philadelphians began paying her in 1977 when she came home from a career as a nun and high school counselor. Her daddy, a committeeman, passed word that Maggie was back in town.

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.

Before he bared it all on NYPD Blue, Dennis Franz was the New York cop in Dressed to Kill, Brian De Palma's tensely enjoyable film about sex, death, psychotherapy and stalkers. When a psycho-killer starts stalking pretty blondes, Angie Dickinson and Nancy Allen are prime targets. Dickinson is the comely blonde who picks up men for pleasure in museums (the 20th century galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art double for those of the Metropolitan). Nancy Allen is the trampy blonde who picks up men for business.

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.

Marge was 48 years old when she came to my office last year complaining of depression. She said her marriage was "comfortable, but without passion. " Her teenage children were doing well, but she was worried about paying tuition when the time came. Her work life had been stable for 15 years. And then she woke up one day and realized that, at her age, many of her professional dreams would never come true. And she would probably be spending the rest of her life in her merely "comfortable" marriage.

"If only we had known" is a sadly common refrain following suicide. Family, friends, coworkers and even mental-health professionals often miss the signals. This is National Mental Health Awareness Week, a time to be aware of the devastating impact of mental health disorders. It is also a time to appreciate the highly effective treatments available today. Above all, it is a time to reflect that too many people still suffer needlessly with diagnosable conditions and clinical risks that go undetected and untreated.

Fame likely played a role in Kobe Bryant case As a female who has never been raped, my heart goes out to Rhyan Romaine and other victims like her ("Shattering judgments," Metro Commentary Page, Aug. 8). However, I would like to add there are some cases where, yes, the woman must surely admit to some blame. I am referring to the Kobe Bryant case. While we all know that something happened in that room, I ask myself over and over again, if Kobe Bryant was my son - a no-named, no-face, regular black man - would that woman even have given him the time of day, much less agree to go to his room when she had just met him?

Here it is, the second week of June and your raincoat has gotten more use than your grill. You haven't needed sunscreen or wanted ice-cold lemonade. You've stared day after day at steel-gray skies that look more like late fall than late spring. If all this gloom is putting you in a bad mood, join the crowd. Area therapists say they're hearing from patients and non-patients alike who find themselves feeling cranky and sluggish. "A general sense of hope is not as easy to maintain when it's like this," said Tracey Ellenbogen, a social worker who does psychotherapy in private practice and at Belmont Center for Comprehensive Treatment.

The black psychiatrist's couch is absent, of course. Here at the Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy and Research in Bala Cynwyd, psychotherapy takes place at a small, round table stocked with a couple of spare, hard plastic chairs. Chairs to work in, not relax. On Wednesdays, psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck, the renowned father of cognitive therapy - simply put, the anti-Freud - consults on the most difficult cases. On this particular day, he settles himself next to a troubled woman in her 40s who shifts nervously in her seat.

Jonathan Labman has managed a New York art gallery and studied to become a Presbyterian minister. He has been an actor and a masseur. All the while, Labman, 45, has tried healing: first himself, then others. Labman grew up in Yardley, attending public school until he felt forced to leave Pennsbury High School after the 10th grade, in 1971. He finished at a private school in Wales on a scholarship for which he applied. He recalls walking the halls of Pennsbury and hearing students call him "fairy" and "mama's boy. " "I didn't know what homosexuality was at the time," Labman said.

In Beyond Therapy, actors wear bell-bottomed trousers and wide-collared, open-neck shirts, and an actress wears the first pair of culottes I've seen in years. Yet it's more than the clothing that marks this revival by Lantern Theater as a product of the 1970s. It was a time when psychotherapy was the rage, when personal advertising for mates was new, and when open discussion of homosexuality and bisexuality - and, yes, sexuality in general - was still somewhat novel. Considering these topics worthy of satirical attention, Christopher Durang brought them all together in Beyond Therapy, which two decades later comes across as a somewhat dated, sporadically humorous, generally enjoyable though quite irrelevant play.

David A. Laney, 57, a career counselor for executives, died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage Thursday at Virtua-West Jersey Hospital Voorhees. He had lived in Haddonfield since 1983. He was born in Buffalo and raised in East Aurora, N.Y., where he graduated from East Aurora High School in 1960. In his work as a career counselor, Mr. Laney combined "the practical and the spiritual" through his extensive professional training and background in the ministry, said Cheryl E. Ewing Laney, his wife of three years.

The moment cynical journalists hear about Lou Marinoff's professional crusade - lobbying for philosophers to practice as therapists, just like psychologists and psychiatrists - the jokes and headlines form fast. I Shrink, Therefore I Am. Take Two Aphorisms and Call Me in the Morning. The Uncompensated Life Is Not Worth Living. How Many Philosophers Can You Fit on the Head of a Couch? Marinoff knows the drill, and has the clips to prove it, but the 47-year-old philosophy professor at City College of New York doesn't mind.