Dispatches Happiness the Patti Davis Way

By GINIA BELLAFANTE, IN NEW YORK CITY

For most people in therapy, the years of big bills and 50-minute "hours" lead merely to healthier, more balanced emotional lives. But for the famous and semi-famous -- for the Roseanne Arnolds, the Suzanne Somerses and the daughters of recent two-term Republican Presidents -- the rewards of painful self-reflection are more quantifiable: invitations to appear on Sally Jessy, book contracts, speaking engagements, invitations to appear on Oprah and so on. For celebrities, personal growth comes with a sense of obligation to suffer all the little inner children to come unto them, particularly if there is a fee involved.

Accordingly, Patti Davis, middle-aged rebel daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, has come to Manhattan's Doral Inn hotel to conduct a one-night-only seminar called Recovering from Dysfunctional Families. The class, which costs $39 to attend, is offered by the Learning Annex, a New York City adult- education center that provides urbanites with such courses as Start Your Own Cheese Business or Mini Goat Farm and Design Your Own Jewelry: Bead Stringing. Among the 70 seminar participants seated in the hotel's ballroom -- a drab hall in which one suspects no ball has ever been held -- are a few hippie-ish girls, a handful of senior citizens and a long-nailed Whoopi Goldberg look-alike who spots Davis and whispers incredulously to her neighbor, "That's Nixon's daughter?"

Looking rather haute lounge act in black ribbed velour leggings, suede boots and a bolero jacket, Davis is of course nothing at all like either of the demure, well-behaved Nixon girls. Her days as a drug-using dater of '70s rock personalities are detailed in her autobiography, The Way I See It, a book that also devotes a good deal of print to depicting Nancy as a violent harridan.

Tonight, though, Davis is selling forgiveness, so anyone hoping for three hours of Mommy bashing will be disappointed. There are some jabs, yes ("The Reagans parented America in the '80s. I was on one therapist's couch, and the country was on the other"), but Davis is here to help her audience let go of their anger. "You want someone to be more loving, you be more loving," she says. "You want someone to be more forgiving, you be more forgiving." To illustrate this point in a way everyone can relate to, Davis refers to her experience as the daughter of a President who secretly supplied arms to the ^ contras and remarks that for her, "Nicaragua, that was a lesson in forgiveness."

When Davis completes her talk, admirers approach. "I can't tell you how much you've helped me," says a bespectacled college-age girl. A woman asks her to look over a self-help book she is writing, but Davis declines. "My name is Gunter," announces a stout man with a German accent. "I owe my own recovery to John Bradshaw." He asks Davis to sign a copy of The Way I See It. During her lecture Davis found time to mention a book of hers that will soon be published. "I have a novel coming out," she told the class. "It's called Bondage. It's very erotic." Someday, someone may hold a successful seminar titled Recovering from Reading an Erotic Novel by Patti Davis.