AUGUST.(The Talk of the Town)

Until a few years ago, if you wanted to locate your therapist during the month of August, your best bet was to scour the summer resorts on the New England coast, such as Truro and Ogunquit, where vacationing shrinks have traditionally gone to escape their patients. In 1996, however, Judith S. Kaye, the chief judge of the state of New York, put an end to most occupational exemptions from jury duty, and since then psychologists and psychiatrists--not to mention doctors, lawyers, orthotists, embalmers, and practitioners of Christian Science--have had to fulfill this civic obligation along with everyone else. Lately, some dutiful citizens have reported that an unusually high concentration of mental-health professionals can be found this month in the Jurors Assembly Rooms at 111 Centre Street.

One morning last week, an amateur pollster went down to the state Supreme Court, in lower Manhattan, to investigate. In a series of windowless rooms on the building's third and eleventh floors, there were, all told, about two hundred and fifty aggrieved-looking New Yorkers. "We assign courtrooms and choose potential jurors here--that's all we do," a clerk announced. "We don't handle your individual problems here."

The first step was to identify the shrinks. The decision was made to exclude from the survey those whose appearance suggested a non-therapeutic professional affiliation: slouchy kids in basketball jerseys and baggy jeans, willowy model types, middle-aged bantamweights wearing tight purple silk shirts and matching trousers. Doctors and dentists, it turns out, often look as if they could be therapists, though they are usually better dressed. Other occupations whose members might be mistaken for therapists include antique dealer, professor of textile design, and manager of classical musicians. Peter Weiss, a performance artist who bears a marked resemblance to Sigmund Freud, said, "Because of my beard, many people assume I'm a psychoanalyst."

One promising candidate, a thoughtful-looking gray-haired man in a blue blazer, turned out to be an investment banker. He reported, though, that he had been questioned in a voir dire the day before along with about forty other potential jurors, among them several mental-health practitioners. After the third or fourth of these practitioners had been identified, the presiding judge said, "My God--I thought all you folks took August off to go on vacation."

Several hours of aggressive canvassing in the jurors' rooms turned up four psychologists. One of them, a shortish, balding analyst in a tweed jacket and sensible shoes, declined to answer questions about jury duty or anything else. "Try not to take it personally," he said. The other three, all middle-aged women, were more forthcoming. Among ...