Psychologists

Psychologists and Buddhist monks have come to console workers. There is a suicide hotline, piped-in music and a stress-release center where workers are invited to hit a punching bag with a picture of their supervisor. But so far, nothing and nobody have been able to stop the suicides at Foxconn Technology Group, which manufactures Apple's iPhones as well as Dell and Hewlett-Packard components in Shenzhen in southern China. The latest worker to commit suicide jumped to his death Tuesday.

Just because popular social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, encourage members to use their actual identities doesn't mean people are presenting themselves online the way they do in real life. Some psychologists and sociologists who have studied usage habits on Twitter, Facebook and popular dating sites say there's little correlation between how people act on the Internet and how they are in person. Research into how personality traits are filtered through the Web, especially the new breed of short-message online services, is slim, but digital-health experts have observed numerous transformations when someone ascends the Internet's world stage.

Sandra Bullock. Elizabeth Edwards. Elin Nordegren Woods. That roll-call of cheated-on wives is prompting plenty of conversation in my household these days. My now-grown daughters are trying to figure out how such powerful, high-profile men could consort so carelessly with a procession of B-list porn stars, wackos and strippers. Weren't their smart, beautiful wives enough? Apparently the explanation is part character, part chemical. At least that's my take on the work of social psychologist Deborah Gruenfeld, a Stanford business school professor who has spent 10 years studying what happens to people psychologically when they find themselves in positions of power.

A federal trial on same-sex marriage focused Wednesday on the similarities and differences between homosexual and heterosexual couples, with a psychology professor citing "remarkable similarities." Letitia Peplau, an expert on couple relationships, testified that studies have found that the quality of heterosexual and homosexual relationships was on average "the same" as measured by closeness, love and stability. "On average, same-sex couples and heterosexual couples are indistinguishable," said Peplau, a UCLA professor of social psychology called by attorneys for two same-sex couples who are trying to overturn Proposition 8, the 2008 voter initiative that reinstated a state ban on same-sex marriage.

The current rumbling over psychotherapy methods centers on a type of therapist degree called the PsyD, which emerged in the 1970s and has since exploded in popularity. Critics claim these schools don't properly train their students in science-based approaches to therapy. The PsyD movement began because too few psychologists with PhDs were entering private practice but were instead becoming academic researchers. PsyD programs, in contrast, often require students to accumulate more hours practicing therapy, and their graduates tend to become professional therapists.

If your doctor advised a treatment that involved leeches and bloodletting, you might take a second glance at that diploma on the wall. For the same reason, you should think twice about whom you see as a therapist, says a team of psychological researchers. In a November report that's attracting controversy the way couches attract loose change, three professors charge that many mental health practitioners are using antiquated, unproved methods and that many clinical psychology training programs lack scientific rigor.

Carol Tomlinson-Keasey, who became the first female founding chancellor of a UC campus when she was named to head UC Merced in 1999 before the university broke ground, has died. She was 66. Tomlinson-Keasey, a distinguished developmental psychologist, died Saturday at her home in Decatur, Ga., from complications related to breast cancer, a university spokeswoman said. UC Merced Chancellor Steve Kang, who succeeded Tomlinson-Keasey in 2007, said in a statement that "UC Merced would not exist were it not for her visionary leadership, her tireless determination and her remarkable gift of persuasion."

The Age of Empathy Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society Frans de Waal Harmony Books: 304 pp., $25.99 "Greed is out, empathy is in." So writes optimistic Dutch psychologist and primatologist Frans de Waal in the preface to his latest meditation on the similarities between apes and people. "The Age of Empathy" might not strike you as the most accurate representation of a period in human history that will be remembered -- if we survive it -- for the War on Terror, nuclear wannabes, various genocides and looming Armageddon in the Middle East.

The Dodgers are receiving a visit from the team psychologist at a time when their hold of the National League West is looking increasingly unstable. Toronto-based Dana Sinclair , who is in her second season working with the Dodgers, will be with the club through its three-game series against San Diego that ends today. Not everyone has a use for Sinclair, who consults teams in every major sport. She visits the Dodgers every couple of months. "The most we've talked is like a few minutes," James Loney said.

Tyler de Lara, 2, thrashes on a gurney, tangled in his sheet, hospital gown and IV tubing. A white bandage encircles his head and, loosened by his squirming, slips down and covers his eyes. All that shows is a tuft of black hair and his mouth, set in an angry pout. Dr. Akira Ishiyama notes Tyler's grimace and says he's pleased. It means there is no facial nerve damage. Tyler was diagnosed as deaf six months earlier.