Counseling

Colleen Kegg hasn't worked out the details of her exit plan yet. But about one thing, Kegg is clear: When she can no longer feed herself or go to the bathroom without assistance, she will take steps to end her life. A rare and incurable neurological disease is gradually stealing the things the 60-year-old Santa Barbara-area resident lives for, and she wishes a California physician could legally prescribe life-ending medication, as doctors can in Oregon, Washington and Montana. Instead, she'll have to find another way. "I know I can stop eating and drinking," Kegg told me one evening in her sister's home, her speech already slowed by corticobasal degeneration, a condition somewhat similar toParkinson'sandLou Gehrig's disease.

Weight-loss programs offering support via telephone and the Web work about as well as in-person counseling to help obese people lose weight, a study has found. Two intervention programs were compared with a control group in the two-year study released today in the New England Journal of Medicine , in which 415 obese men and women participated. They were randomly placed in a weight-loss program that offered support remotely, via the Web, telephone and email; in a two-year program that included in-person support in addition to the remote support; or in a control group that encouraged independent weight loss.

Forget about self-motivation -- people who want to lose weight might do better with more help, not less. A study finds that obese people lose more weight when they're part of a primary care-based program that incorporates lifestyle coaching, plus weight loss medication or meal replacement, compared with doctor visits alone. Researchers randomly placed 390 obese men and women into three groups that had the same goal of losing weight via diet and exercise. A "usual care" group took part in quarterly visits to their primary care provider during which they talked about any weight changes as well as weight loss information contained in a handout.

Inside a stuffy Cleveland classroom, Tim Boehnlein explained the mechanics of domestic violence and then posed a question. "So why do women stay?" he asked his class of would-be counselors. Ignorance, low self-esteem, lack of education, they speculated. No one really knew. PHOTOS: Survivors of abuse Except maybe the silent woman in back - the one fidgeting and looking at the floor. "I thought if I said something, it might frighten other people," she explained later.

The Air Force said Tuesday that it had disciplined three top officials at the military's main mortuary in Delaware for "gross mismanagement" after finding that they twice lost track of body parts of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan, and cut off a deceased Marine's arm bone without his family's consent. An 18-month Air Force investigation said the three officials failed to take action "despite indications that procedures were inadequate" for tracking human remains at the Dover Air Force Base mortuary, which has handled most of the more than 6,000 U.S. service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade.

The scenario is all too familiar: A love affair that started out wildly romantic and adventurous grows bitter and dreary over the years. Communication breaks down. Disappointments replace dreams. And before you know it, the relationship seems unsalvageable. Is there a couple's counselor in the house? Counselor: OK, let's just start by listening to one another. No interrupting, no name-calling. We'll start with you, Airline. What would you like to say to your Passenger? Airline: When we first met, you treated me like a hero who swept you off your feet.

A veteran Senate Finance Committee GOP staffer has been named to the top spot on the bipartisan congressional "super committee" on deficit reduction, which is beginning to take shape with just 12 weeks to accomplish its ambitious budget-cutting goals. Every step of the creation of the 12-member panel is a political minefield in this hyper-partisan congressional era. The committee co-chairs agreed on Mark Prater as staff director for the panel, which has been given enormous power to recommend at least $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction by Thanksgiving.

A judge warned Lindsay Lohan on Thursday to speed up the pace of her community service work on a necklace theft conviction and start psychological counseling within 21 days or face having her probation revoked. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner ignored pleas by Lohan's attorney that the actress has not worked enough recently to be eligible for health insurance, which hindered her ability to get court-ordered private psychological counseling. Lohan, 25, clad in a designer outfit and $1,200 high heels, has appeared in more courtrooms than movies in recent years as she moves in and out of jail and rehab.

With its case against Rep. Maxine Waters in turmoil, the House Ethics Committee on Wednesday hired a prominent outside lawyer to examine whether its own staff acted improperly while investigating the veteran Los Angeles congresswoman. After Washington lawyer Billy Martin completes his review of the committee staff's conduct, the ethics panel will decide whether to pursue the case against Waters, an outspoken Democrat who has held elective office in Sacramento or Washington for more than three decades.

—The House Ethics Committee on Wednesday announced the hiring of an outside counsel to review the case against Rep. Maxine Waters and misconduct allegations against the committee staffers involved in investigating the veteran Los Angeles congresswoman. The panel voted unanimously Tuesday night to hire Washington attorney Billy Martin. "Serious allegations have been made about the committee's own conduct in this matter," the panel's Republican chairman Jo Bonner of Alabama and top Democrat, Linda Sanchez of California, said in a statement.