Psychiatrist

Peter Shaffer's "Equus" opens at Olney Theatre Center tomorrow. The 1975 Tony Award-winning drama focuses on a stable boy who blinds six horses and the psychiatrist who examines him.The play shares Olney's spring slot with David Rabe's "A Question of Mercy," which begins performances June 1. Linked by the theme of man's relationship to science, the productions share the same director (Jim Petosa), designers and cast. The set for both, designed by James Kronzer, is intended to represent an abstract laboratory and includes an upper gallery of 18 seats, open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis for $10.Show times for "Equus" at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, are 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Sundays, with matinees at 2 p.m. Sundays and some Thursdays and Saturdays.

A judge ended yesterday the latest round of a bitter family feud over the $20 million estate of a Baltimore County woman when he threw out a suit brought by the woman's daughters, who claimed their brother turned their mother against them, causing her to leave each daughter only $100.The brother, a Mercy Medical Center doctor, likely will inherit the bulk of his mother's estate.The decision by Baltimore County Circuit Judge John O. Hennegan to dismiss the lawsuit by the daughters of the late Rose Posner against their brother, David B. Posner, canceled a three-week jury trial scheduled to start May 17.Hennegan ruled yesterday that pretrial evidence -- including two unusual videotapes of the elderly woman signing her last will and being questioned by a psychiatrist -- showed no evidence of "any degree of coercion" or "fraudulent misrepresentations" by Dr. Posner that prompted his mother to disinherit her daughters.

A Baltimore judge ruled yesterday that Albert Sims, the man accused of gunning down a neighborhood boy last summer, posed a danger to society after Sims told a state psychiatrist that he would do it "all over again and take some police too."Circuit Judge Carol E. Smith ordered Sims, 78, into the custody of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which runs Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, the state's hospital for the criminally insane. He will remain there under psychiatric care indefinitely.

A Baltimore judge ruled yesterday that Albert Sims, the man accused of gunning down a neighborhood boy last summer, posed a danger to society after Sims told a state psychiatrist that he would do it "all over again and take some police too."Circuit Judge Carol E. Smith ordered Sims, 78, into the custody of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which runs Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, the state's hospital for the criminally insane. He will remain there under psychiatric care indefinitely.

"None of us is alone. We're members of history," a character says in "Incident at Vichy.""We are symbols," another answers.That exchange typifies this rarely produced 1964 play by Arthur Miller. One of the playwright's most blatantly political works, it is receiving a competent production at Fell's Point Corner Theatre. But the cast's efforts cannot disguise the didacticism of the text.The plot focuses on nine men and a boy who are rounded up by the collaborationist government in Vichy, France, in 1942.

A Baltimore County circuit judge found yesterday that Rose Mary Fisher, 21, is competent to stand trial next week in the starvation death of her 9-year-old sister, Rita Fisher, last summer.A psychiatrist hired by Fisher's lawyer had argued that Fisher would have a difficult time testifying against her co-defendants -- her boyfriend, Frank E. Scarpola Jr., 22, and her mother, Mary E. Utley, 50 -- because she is passive and is under their influence.All three defendants are charged with abusing and murdering Rita, who died weighing 47 pounds and with signs of physical abuse.

Dr. Viola Wertheim Bernard,91, a prominent psychiatrist who specialized in helping adopted and foster children, died March 21 in New York. Dr. Bernard founded Columbia University's Division of Community and Social Psychiatry and directed the division from 1956 to 1969.Marshall Fredericks,90, who crafted huge public sculptures across the United States and Europe, died Saturday in Royal Oak, Mich. He created Cleveland's 46-foot war memorial, "Fountain of Eternal Life," featuring a male figure soaring from a fountain.

A psychiatrist who treated Ruth-ann Aron in the 1970s testified yesterday that Aron harbored an intense rage toward her father, whom she considered brutal and abusive, and fantasized about killing him.Asked to describe her level of rage, Dr. Nathan Billig replied, "At the risk of being melodramatic, I would say a murderous rage."Billig's testimony took most of the opening day of defense testimony in Aron's trial on murder-for-hire charges.The one-time U.S. Senate candidate is accused of orchestrating a scheme to kill her husband, Dr. Barry Aron, and a lawyer who had opposed her in a lawsuit.

A Potomac psychiatrist who treated Ruthann Aron altered his testimony yesterday, saying she suffers from bipolar manic depression in addition to the personality disorder he described during her first trial in March.Asked by prosecutors why he did not disclose that diagnosis earlier, Dr. Alan Brody said, "I wasn't asked."The combination of the two disorders can create severe psychiatric problems because manic depression can be further exaggerated by the personality disorder, he testified.Aron, 55, a Potomac developer who was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1994, has pleaded not criminally responsible to two counts of solicitation to commit murder.

In a society that has seen an erosion of the role of fatherhood, maybe it's time young men began learning its skills right alongside civics and shop in school, says renowned psychiatrist Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint."

Dr. Joseph Stephens, a retired Johns Hopkins psychiatrist who was an accomplished harpsichord player, died of stroke complications Thursday at the BluePoint Nursing Center. The Bolton Hill resident was 81. Born in Frederick, where he was raised, he was the son of a violin-playing father who had a dance band, played in a Frederick symphony ensemble and was a member of a string quartet. As a young man, Dr. Stephens played the organ at local churches and on radio shows broadcast live from the Tivoli Theater, where he played a Wurlitzer organ.

Dr. Theodore M. Feldberg, a retired psychiatrist who was an early advocate and teacher of patient group therapy, died of cardiovascular disease May 23 at his Cross Keys home. He was 88. Born in Newark, N.J., he earned a bachelor's degree at Drew University and initially studied at the New York and Richmond schools of social work. From 1942 to 1946, he served in the Army as a clinical psychologist and social worker. He then moved to Baltimore and earned a degree at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he also did his internship and residency in psychiatry.

Assuring parents that that current medications are safe and effective, two major psychiatric organizations issued yesterday detailed treatment guidelines for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder - a condition that affects up to 4 million children nationwide. Authors said the guidelines - including tips on spotting symptoms, a list of treatment options and details of medication side effects - are designed to dispel myths about the disorder and to help parents make sure that their children get the best available treatments.

GULU, Uganda -- As an 11-year-old, Alfred Odida did awful things. He killed people with machetes, he abused the dead. He says he had no choice. The rebels who abducted him forced the young boy to commit atrocities, as they have thousands of children during northern Uganda's long civil war. Now 18 and safe, he sat with a psychiatrist recently to discuss his lingering mental trauma, such as the haunting visions he has of victims coming back for revenge....

PHILADELPHIA Few were surprised when Halle Berry was named 2004's Worst Actress at the Razzie Awards, an annual lambasting of the year's worst films held the night before the Oscars. But what happened after her "win" for playing the title character in Catwoman surprised nearly everyone. "Ladies and gentlemen," Razzies founder John Wilson intoned from the stage of Hollywood's Ivar Theatre, "Halle Berry." When Berry herself appeared, wearing a Cheshire-cat grin on her face, the Oscar she'd won for 2001's Monster's Ball in her left hand and the Razzie in her right, the audience gave her a standing ovation.

Attorneys representing a former death row inmate whose sentence was overturned asked a judge yesterday to keep out of next month's capital sentencing hearing the statements of a psychiatrist who previously testified that the convicted killer said "a voice" told him to kill his girlfriend's 8-year-old daughter. Dr. Gregory Fey, a psychiatrist hired by prosecutors to evaluate Jamaal K. Abeokuto, testified at Abeokuto's first sentencing hearing in November 2004 that the Baltimore man said the voice provided four reasons for him to kill Marciana Ringo.

Dr. William M. Goldstein, a psychiatrist who taught and wrote about his field, died of cancer yesterday at his Rockville home. He was 63. Born in Baltimore and raised in the Howard Park neighborhood, he was a 1960 graduate of City College and earned a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in Ohio. He was a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Goldstein, who practiced in Chevy Chase for many years, joined the faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1975 and taught its psychiatric residents the principles of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.

The killing this week of Rockville psychiatrist Dr. Wayne S. Fenton served as a grim reminder of the rare but serious dangers of treating the severely mentally ill. "It's not common, but there is always a risk," said Dr. Steven Sharfstein, a psychiatrist and the president and chief executive of Sheppard Pratt Health System in Towson. Montgomery County police say Fenton, 53, was beaten to death in his Bethesda office Sunday by a 19-year-old patient. The man attacked Fenton during an appointment, police said in a statement.

Like many young mothers, Sophie Currier is a busy woman. There's all the family stuff at the Brookline, Mass., home she shares with her partner, Jeremie Gallien, and their 7-month-old son, Theo. There's work - a teaching assistantship for a biochemistry course at Harvard University. And there's school. After majoring in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Currier got a doctorate in neuroscience from Harvard and is on track to get her medical degree in a year. The striking thing is that Currier does all this not only with severe dyslexia - she couldn't read until she was 8 - but with ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well.

Dr. Kay Robinson Cutler, a World War II veteran and a psychiatrist, died of undetermined causes Thursday at his home in Phoenix, Baltimore County. He was 84 and had suffered a stroke four years ago. Born in Idaho, he spent his childhood in Salt Lake City before joining the Army Air Forces in 1942. He served as a pilot in World War II and spent nine months as a prisoner of war in Germany, according to his son Kimball Cutler of Freeville, N.Y. Mr. Cutler married Wyona Barney in 1947, and in 1950 he received a medical degree from the University of Utah.