I met her socially when she was a mental-health worker in the mid-1970's.

There they were in Midtown, hundreds of mental-health workers attending a Red Cross seminar on how to help people cope with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

The cycle continues until the child is eventually labeled disturbed and sent to a mental-health worker to have his head "fixed."

Mr. Lopez went on to accuse a psychologist and a mental-health worker in the prison system of brainwashing Mr. Ross.

They carefully document what happened when mental-health workers, untrained in forensics and committed to the belief that children never lie about sexual abuse, took over the investigation of child-abuse allegations.

Ms. Ford, a mental-health worker at New York Hospital in White Plains, said that the project came along at a propitious time.

The mental-health workers carried whistles to sound an alarm if they needed help.

It has about 19,000 members, including social and mental-health workers, custodians and highway maintenance crews.

Another had received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and manic depression years earlier but had gone on to become a mental-health worker and an advocate for the mentally ill.

"I'm pretty disgusted with both candidates," said the man, a mental-health worker.