Being a mental-health professional is something of a head game, but in a surprising number of instances the doctor-patient relationship gets physical. Georgianna Tryon, director of the counseling center at New York`s Fordham University, surveyed psychologists and discovered that 12 percent of therapists in private practice had been physically attacked by patients.
The staff in mental hospitals were even more vulnerable to assault. Attacks were as likely to occur on men as women.
Among the weapons used by patients on their shrinks were shoes, bed slats, lamps, chairs, blocks, fire extinguishers and canes. According to Psychology Today magazine, one irked soul drove a car through a therapist`s office window.
To avoid injury, therapists have adopted a number of strategies, said Tryon. Some tried to be more selective in choosing who to treat. Others tried to anticipate attacks. And one even enrolled in karate classes. A few just seemed to invite an aggressive response. One therapist claimed to have been attacked by 50 women.
LOSING PERSPECTIVE
To get some idea how pervasive the hysteria about AIDS has become, consider the results of a study of the public`s knowledge of heart disease commissioned by Bristol-Myers Products.
Rating their fear of health hazards, 36 percent of the 1,024 adults surveyed called AIDS personally threatening. Cancer was cited by 53 percent and heart disease by 47.
Although AIDS came out on the low end of the scale, its perceived threat is vastly exaggerated. Each year, heart disease kills 80 times as many people as AIDS has killed in all the years since its discovery.
HOME, SWEET HOME
The desire of young people to strike out on their own is apparently receding. In 1985, 28 percent of Americans ages 18 to 34–about 19 million people–lived with their parents, according to Mobility Trends newletter, published by Atlas Van Lines. That`s up from 26 percent in 1980.
Men are more likely than women to move back to their parents` homes after moving out, the newsletter continued. Men living with their parents have lower employment rates than those on their own. However, women who live with dad and mom are more likely to work than those who don`t.
Even when young adults manage to cut the cord, they tend to remain close enough to re-attach it. Indeed, a survey of the American family commissioned by Ethan Allen, Inc., revealed that three-quarters of all adults live within 100 miles of their parents, and 40 percent live within 10 miles. Only 20 percent live more than 500 miles away.
TUNING IN
Media Dynamics, a New York research firm, says men pay more attention to TV than women.
