by Monika Guttman

        LOS ANGELES -- Carol Janson stepped over a buckled floor, down a stairwell and past cracked walls to join some 100 co-workers on the Burbank NBC studio lot. As psychologist Robert Scott began to explain the range of normal reactions to a major earthquake, Janson turned to a friend. "These sessions can be so much gobbledygook," she said. "But he's telling me it's OK that I'm feeling this way." 

        When a 6.6 earthquake rumbles through a city where psychologists are as prevalent as palm trees, it's almost a given that after checking the traffic, residents will check their psyches. "There's a greater awareness here of the need for psychological intervention," says Scott, president of the L.A. County Psychological Association, whose membership exceeds that of most statewide associations. Across the city, hot lines, therapy groups and company-based counseling blossomed. While official intervention focused on the estimated 13,000 residents still displaced from their homes, there was plenty of anguish to go around; according to a Los Angeles Times poll, 54 percent of the county's 6.5 million people felt some psychological aftershocks. 

        One concern was getting Angelenos back to work. Numerous businesses, from law firms to entertainment companies like Walt Disney, brought in counselors to explain typical reactions and recovery techniques. Outside the commercial context, good counseling wasn't as easy to find. "The people of South Central aren't getting the same attention," says Barry Reynolds of the University of Southern California's Human Relations Center. Available counseling -- from churches, colleges and county government -- wasn't always used. One problem, say experts, is overcoming a typical reluctance in poorer neighborhoods about seeking help. Only one family attended Reynolds's first free post- quake therapy session. "You don't have to be crazy to need psychological help," was the message Mardra Paredes gave staffers of the West Angeles Church of God and Christ, who were learning coping techniques that included stress-reducing exercises and the use of scents to induce calm. 

        Many Angelenos embraced the nontraditional. Lee Becker, a certified doctor of Oriental medicine, prescribed the Emergency Rescue Remedy Five Flower homeopathic treatment. Chiropractors used neurological emotional technique, or NET, for "releasing the trauma" by staring at a clock and undergoing acupuncture. And at Malibu Shaman, a New Age bookstore, customers scooped up self-hypnosis tapes. As they say in L.A., whatever works. What worked for Janson was tamer. The day after the NBC session, her answering machine message was pretty mellow: "Things are getting back to normal. Life is good. I'll get back to you."