Dr. Laura : Radio therapist Laura Schlessinger dispenses psychological advice laced with humor to the far-flung, invisible clientele that tunes in.

Sharon calls from Las Vegas.

Her aunt died last summer. One of her uncles died just before Christmas and another one died this week. Her father has a bad heart.

“They’re all dropping like flies,” Sharon says.

Laura Schlessinger, a radio therapist, listens to this call through headphones. She is sitting in a tiny studio hundreds of miles away.

“I’m scared to death that I’m going to lose my father,” Sharon says.

“Well,” Schlessinger answers, into the microphone, “eventually you will.”

Schlessinger goes on to discuss issues of guilt and familial relations, finishing up in time for a commercial break. The next call comes from Ellie in Niagara Falls.

“I know this isn’t a big problem,” Ellie says, “but I’ve had this problem all my life of not being able to watch a horror movie. If I watch one, I can’t get over it for three or four days.”

It is near the end of Schlessinger’s two-hour show.

“I don’t think this is a problem you have to fix,” Schlessinger says. “I don’t like those movies either. Tell you what, let your family watch those movies and you and I will go out for a pizza.”

The advice and ruminations of Schlessinger are broadcast to some 80 stations across the country--including the West Hills-based KWNK (670-AM)--each weekday from 9 to 11 a.m.

“Dr. Laura” listens to complaints and heartaches, makes snap analyses and offers advice. The bespectacled, 43-year-old Ph.D. can be dryly technical, taking careful notes on each call. She can be abruptly emotional, tearing up at the mention of a particular upset.

Her show is transmitted by Sun Radio Network in Tampa, Fla., but Schlessinger lives in Canoga Park. She works from a back room in her home, linked to the Florida broadcaster by expensive radio equipment. She provides amplitude-modulated wisdom while wearing house slippers and sipping tea, her 4-year-old son often playing on the floor nearby.

Schlessinger has worked as a radio therapist in Los Angeles for 15 years, doing stints at KABC (790-AM) and KMPC (710-AM). Her career had fallen into a lull several years ago; she was content to maintain a private practice and spend more time with her second husband and son. A year ago, she got a chance to join Sun, a 24-hour talk network.

At first, Schlessinger’s show was scheduled two nights a week. But the program did well and was soon switched to a weekday slot.

Such call-in psychology shows have long been a staple of AM radio. Dr. Joyce Brothers started with a program on a local New York station. Toni Grant achieved national fame with her Los Angeles show and inspired a character played by Genevieve Bujold in the movie “Choose Me.”

Anonymous confessions and rapid-fire therapy--this format is tailor-made for radio.

“The theory is that radio has a lot of time to fill and people seem to love to wallow in other people’s problems,” said Bob Clark, chairman of the Department of Radio, Television, Film at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “If you think about it, the soap operas on television aren’t much different.”

People apparently enjoy the various crises discussed on Schlessinger’s show. They seem to like her energetic tone and quick jokes, most of which are self-effacing. Men call almost as often as women.

“She has a nice style, a nice flair,” says Tom Holter, the network’s general manager. “She knows the radio business.”

Grace calls from Las Vegas. She says she had an alarming conversation with a young mother.

The mother graphically described how her 18-month-old son was being sexually abused by the woman’s husband. Schlessinger begins to speak about this, but the line goes dead. Grace has hung up.

The therapist warns listeners that the call might have been a prank. But, she says, it might have been serious. If so, the described contact between father and baby is inappropriate behavior, she says.

This incident ties into an issue that Schlessinger admits she cannot be objective about--she continually sheds the therapist’s cloak to preach morality and parental responsibility. She tells Grace--if Grace is still out there, listening--to contact local authorities.

During a commercial, Gary comes on the line. He is Schlessinger’s engineer in the network’s Tampa studios. Gary admits that he cut Grace off.

“The sun is shining in Florida,” he says, a code phrase that means network executives are listening.

Sun network broadcasts to a number of Bible Belt stations, and such graphic descriptions of child abuse and sex organs make management uneasy, Schlessinger says. She tries to hide her anger but isn’t entirely successful.

“I don’t know why you guys have such a hard time hearing the word penis ,” she says in an even tone, as if speaking to a patient.

The executives aren’t in any mood to be analyzed. There is no answer.

A call comes from Douglas in Rockport, N.Y. He says his second wife doesn’t want him to tell their two children about the daughter he had in his first marriage, who disappeared for 18 years but has now reappeared.

Schlessinger seems able to follow this story.

“You need to have a family meeting. You need to tell the truth,” the therapist says. “People might cry and stomp around. But then you’ll have another family meeting and eventually this will evolve to where people will accept.”

“You’re right,” he says. “We need to get things settled.”

“Do it as a family.”

Mental health professionals debate the relative merits, and possible harm, of dispensing personal advice over the impersonal medium of radio.

“My feeling about psychology on the airwaves is that it can be both good and bad,” says Chaytor Mason, an associate professor of clinical psychology at USC who had a radio show with KNX (1070-AM) in the late 1960s.

“Radio makes psychology less spooky to many people,” he said. “An awful lot of people feel that they have the worst problem in the world, that they are thoroughly detestable. Then they hear other people talking about problems like theirs. That’s good.”

But, Mason said, radio robs the therapist of an essential tool: being able to watch a patient’s facial and body movements.

“And there is no possible follow-up,” Mason said. “How many people committed suicide as a result of what you said? How many improved? You have no way of checking up on that. It’s a little bit dangerous.”

Says Rex Beaber, a Los Angeles psychologist: “Anyone who would respond literally to the advice given needs their head examined.”

Beaber and other experts suggest that radio psychology should serve as a starting point, the first step toward seeking help.

Schlessinger insists that she can help people. She says her Saturday private practice keeps her sharp. She cites an extensive academic background: a doctorate in physiology, a license to practice marriage and family counseling, and a certificate to be a sex therapist.

“I’m limited as to how far I can go, talking to someone for 10 or 15 minutes,” she says. “But this is not just a show. I don’t do shtick on the air.”

A recitation of successes follows. There was an angry Vietnam veteran who called several times. Schlessinger says she got him to deal with his past. An Orange County woman called regularly to talk about her addiction to drugs and cigarettes.

“A year later, she called back and said, ‘I’m off the Xanax, I’m off the cigarettes and I’m off you,’ ” Schlessinger recalls. “I helped her beat her addictions.”

In true psychoanalytic style, the therapist reads hidden meaning into almost every word her callers utter.

“The joke is that therapists always think everything means something else,” she says. “Well . . . it usually does.”

Schlessinger never intended to become a therapist.

Her early background was purely scientific. Then in 1978, USC’s biology department offered her a job teaching human sexuality. The native New Yorker switched suddenly to behavioral studies.

Radio, similarly, came along by chance. New to Los Angeles, Schlessinger called Bill Ballance’s daily talk show on KABC to discuss her recent divorce. Ballance was impressed with her ability to talk about the problem and asked her to be a once-a-week guest expert.

The nuances of the microphone came naturally to Schlessinger. She sounded lively and sympathetic. She learned to fill air time when there weren’t any calls.

Soon, she had her own program.

In the years since, she has not become as famous as Brothers or Grant, but she has remained on the air. She sees herself as a buoy of goodness in a sea of shock-radio disc jockeys. And something about her almost motherly way of speaking--in addition to the anonymity of radio--gives people confidence to speak candidly.

During a break in a recent show, Gary, her engineer, has a confession of his own. He tells Schlessinger that he would make a good husband because he possesses some feminine traits.

“I look at other guys and realize I’m different,” he says. “I realize we can’t all be the same.”

“That’s right,” Schlessinger says. “Some of us have to be better.”

“And,” Gary says, “some of us have to do radio.”