Mental Health

To know of her was to envy her. To know her was to not. On the surface, what made the San Francisco woman the subject of envy was her grand romance with a man several years her senior, a well-known figure who had once been her teacher. Although he was married, it was a dizzying and passionate affair by her account--the details of which she would tantalize friends with, saying she "couldn't really talk about it." The affair purportedly ended when she abruptly left the country for another job.

A mental health clinic scheduled to open in the heart of Hollywood overcame its final hurdle Wednesday after the Los Angeles City Council rejected a neighborhood appeal and cleared the way for the controversial project.

John C. Salvi III's lawyer told a jury in Dedham, Mass., that Salvi is a schizophrenic who was driven to kill two abortion clinic workers by delusions of a conspiracy against Catholics. Salvi, who was raised a Catholic, believed Roman Catholics were being persecuted by Freemasons, the Mafia and the Ku Klux Klan, defense attorney J. W. Carney Jr. said. Carney said the December 1994 shootings were triggered by the murders of Catholic priests in Algeria just days earlier.

The father of the man accused of killing two abortion clinic workers said that he regrets not seeking help for his son after years of bizarre and destructive behavior. John C. Salvi Jr. said he decided not to get psychiatric help because he thought the boy was going through a phase and he didn't want damaging information in his son's medical records. Defense lawyers contend John C.

The nine nuns at the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament convent here were so kind, so generous that they prayed for anyone--and they prayed for everyone. They prayed for Mary Ann Morency when her son was born 23 years ago, weighing just 1 1/2 pounds. They prayed for Ida Mae Veilleux when she married in their chapel more than 40 years ago. And they prayed for Mark Bechard, a 37-year-old mental patient who frequently came to their chapel for mass.

Citing two unrelated shootings that led last year to the deaths of a Simi Valley police officer and a mentally disturbed Santa Paula man, the Ventura County Grand Jury on Wednesday recommended including mental health workers in more police calls. "When the police receive a call that [deals with a mentally disturbed person], it should trigger an immediate call to the Mental Health Department Crisis Team," stated an interim report released late Wednesday.

A state court judge Friday ordered an evaluation of John E. du Pont to determine whether the chemical fortune heir was mentally competent to stand trial in the murder of Olympic wrestling champion David Schultz. The action followed a preliminary court hearing in which Du Pont was ordered held for trial and Shultz's widow tearfully testified that she saw the millionaire kill her husband.

Denise McKnight puts her thumbs in her ears and sticks out her tongue. Her 4-year-old daughter, Jade, falls down laughing. "And she tries to do the same face back," says McKnight, 29, of Los Angeles. These small, silly moments have a big payoff. A healthy sense of humor will help a child make friends, cope with stress and put her in a positive frame of mind.

Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals across the United States on May 1 will offer free public screenings for anxiety disorders, which strike about one in four Americans. The project, part of National Mental Health Month, is co-sponsored by the American Psychiatric Assn. and other mental health organizations and will have about 1,425 sites nationwide, including 103 in California.

The beaming smile on Brad--116 days sober and HIV-positive--is testament to his appreciation for SPECTRUM, a mental health clinic for people who have the AIDS virus. The clinic, whose initials stand for Services for HIV Prevention, Education, Care, Treatment and Research for Underserved Minorities, has been operating for nearly a year at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science near Watts. But it was only on Wednesday that it held a festive formal opening.