CLINICAL

There are three guys going through an exit interview at a mental hospital. The doctor says he can release them if they can answer the simple mathematical problem: What is 8 times 5?
The first patient says, "139."
The second one says, "Wednesday."
The third says, "What a stupid question. It's obvious: The answer is 40."
The doctor is delighted. He gives the guy his release. As the man is leaving, the doctor asks how he came up with the correct answer so quickly.
"It was easy, Doc. I just divided Wednesday into 139."

Stress Management
From Mental Health Net

Picture yourself near a stream.

Birds are singing in the crisp, cool mountain air.

Nothing can bother you here.

No one knows this secret place.

You are in total seclusion from that place called the world.

The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.

he water is clear.

You can easily make out the face of the person whose head you're holding under the water.

There now, feeling better?

Patient: Doctor, my wife thinks I'm crazy because I like sausages.
Psychiatrist: Nonsense! I like sausages too.
Patient: Good, you should come and see my collection. I've got hundreds of them.

A Stanford research group advertised for participants in a study of obsessive-compulsive disorder. They were looking for therapy clients who had been diagnosed with this disorder. The response was gratifying; they got 3,000 responses about three days after the ad came out.

All from the same person.

The head doctors in an insane asylum had a meeting and decided that one of their patients was potentially well. So they decide to test him and take him to the movies. When they get to the movie theater, there are signs of wet paint pointing to the benches. The doctors just sit down, but the patient puts a newspaper down first and then sits down. The doctors get all excited cause they think maybe he's in touch with reality now. So they ask him, " Why did you put the newspaper down first?" He answers, "So I'd be higher and have a better view."

After just a few years of marriage, filled with constant arguments, a young man and his wife decided the only way to save their marriage was to try therapy. They had been at each others throats for some time and felt that this was their last straw.

When they arrived at the therapist's office, the therapist jumped right in and opened the floor for discussion. "What seems to be the problem?" Immediately, the husband held his long face down without anything to say. On the other hand, the wife began talking 90 miles and hour describing all the wrongs within their marriage.

After 5 - - 10 - - 15 minutes of listening to the wife, the therapist went over to her, picked her up by her shoulders, kissed her passionately for several minutes, and sat her back down. Afterwards, the wife sat there - speechless.

He looked over at the husband who was staring in disbelief at what had happened. The therapist spoke to the husband, "Your wife NEEDS that at least twice a week!"

The husband scratched his head and replied, "I can have her here on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

1-800-PSYCH

Hello, Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline.
If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5 and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are depressed, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer.

Patient to Rogerian therapist: I'm really depressed.
Therapist: I see. Yes. You are depressed.
Patient: Nothing is going well.
Therapist: Nothing well.
Patient: I feel like killing myself.
T: You're thinking of killing yourself.
P: Yes, I'm going to do it NOW.
T: You want to do it now.
P: [Jumps out window.]
T: Woosh. Splat.

A young couple on the brink of divorce visit a marriage counselor. The counselor asks the wife what is the problem. She responds " My husband suffers from premature ejaculation." The couselor turns to her husband and inquires "Is that true?" The husband replies " Well not exactly, it's she that suffers not me."

Two elderly couples were enjoying friendly conversation when one of the men asked the other, "Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?"
"Outstanding," Fred replied. "They taught us all the latest psychological techiniques - visualization, association - it made a huge difference for me."
"That's great! What was the name of the clinic?"

Fred went blank He thought and thought, but couldn't remember. Then a smile broke across his face and he asked, "What do you call that red flower with the long stem and thorns?"
"You mean a rose?"
"Yes, that's it!" He turned to his wife. . ."Rose, what was the name of that clinic?"

One out of every four people is suffering from some form of mental illness.
Check three friends. If they're OK, then it's you.

Antidotes to Your Shrink's Falling Asleep During the Therapy Session:
A Patient's Guide to Keeping the Therapist's Attention

  • Insist that one of your other personalities already paid last month's therapy bill.
  • Lie down under the couch.
  • Express concern that you are not narcissistic enough.
  • Bark.
  • Shout "Eureka!" after your therapist makes an interpretation.
  • Play dead.
  • As your therapist hands you the therapy bill, put on a pair of latex rubber gloves to accept it.

Copyright 1994 Wry-Bred Press, Inc.
Excerpted from the Journal of Polymorphous Perversity by permission of the copyright holder.

Announcement: the mental-disease-of-the-month club is being disbanded immediately.
The reasons being:

  1. During dipsomania month, the club party spent 10 times its budget on refreshments.

  2. During kleptomania month, all of the club furnishings were removed, and (as aforementioned) the budget was already spent and gone.

  3. During megalomania month, the club organization broke down due to having sixteen claimants to being Club President, etc.

  4. During multiple personality month, our club roster roughly tripled in size with no increase in dues.

  5. During paranoia month, the inflated roster dropped to zero as each member changed his or her mailing address and left no forewarding address for the club.

You members were obviously out to ruin us; it's all clear now. It took all our remaining personal savings to track you all down. Therefore, here is your last installment: clinical depression. Have a nice day."

Top 10 Signs a Therapist is Approaching Burn-out
by Storm A. King, 08/28/96

  1. You think of the peaceful park you like as "your private therapeutic milieu."
  2. You realize that your floridly psychotic patient, who is picking invisible flowers out of mid air, is probably having more fun in life than you are.
  3. A grateful client, who thinks you walk on water, brings you a small gift and you end up having to debrief your feelings of unworthiness with a colleague.
  4. You are watching a re-run of the Wizard of Oz and you start to categorize the types of delusions that Dorothy had.
  5. Your best friend comes to you with severe relationship troubles, and you start trying to remember which cognitive behavioral technique has the most empirical validly for treating this problem.
  6. You realize you actually have no friends, they have all become just one big case load.
  7. A co-worker asks how you are doing and you reply that you are a bit "internally preoccupied" and "not able to interact with peers" today.
  8. Your spouse asks you to set the table and you tell them that it would be "countertherapeutic to your current goals" to do that.
  9. You tell your teenage daughter she is not going to start dating boys because she is "in denial," "lacks insight." and her "emotions are not congruent with her chronological age."

    And, the number one reason a therapist may be burning out....

  10. You are packing for a trip to a large family holiday reunion and you take the DSM-IV with you just in case.

Case example: Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion, Toto

Rationale: This group of four individuals and a little dog is being denied in one paragraph since their reports were submitted together; we concluded that none have conditions requiring medical treatment, and that all of them would be considered prime examples of "worried well" individuals who are constantly in search of some kind of magical solution to their problems.

While the little girl who ran away from her Aunty Em's home may have a conduct disorder (after all, she did kill the so-called wicked witch whose assertiveness she found threatening), we would point out that running away from home, singing and dancing, hanging around with peculiar, oddly attired friends with grandiose expectations, and occasionally indulging a fetish for fancy footwear are all normative among adolescents, just as among psychologists attending out-of-town meetings.

...Finally, we feel that the most cost-effective alternative for the little dog, Toto, is that he be put to sleep.

Excerpted from articles appearing in the Journal of Polymorphous Perversity. Copyright 1986, 1988, 1994, 1997 by Wry-Bred Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Antidotes to Your Shrink's Falling Asleep During the Therapy Session:
A Patient's Guide to Keeping the Therapist's Attention

This paper presents concrete tactics that will ensure retaining the analyst's attention.

  • Insist that one of your other personalities already paid last month's therapy bill.
  • Lie down under the couch.
  • Express concern that you are not narcissistic enough.
  • Bark.
  • Shout "Eureka!" after your therapist makes an interpretation.
  • Play dead.
  • As your therapist hands you the therapy bill, put on a pair of latex rubber gloves to accept it.

The psychiatrist tells his patient: "Well I have good new and bad news..."
The patient says "Lay it on me Doc. What's the bad news?"
"You have Alzheimer's disease."
"Good heavens! What's the good news?"
"You can go home and forget about it!"

"Great news, Mr. Oscarson," the psychiatrist reported. "After eighteen months of therapy, I can pronounce you finally and completely cured of your kleptomania. You'll never be trapped by the desire to steal again."
"Gee, that's great, Doc," the patient replied.
"And just to prove it, I want you to stop by Sears on the way home and walk the length of the store. You'll see - you'll feel no temptation to shoplift whatsoever."
"Oh, Doctor, whatever can I do to thank you?"
"Well," suggested the psychiatrist, "if you DO have a relapse, I could use a new microwave."

A woman took her husband to the psychiatrists because he thought he was a dog. "Why don't you sit on the couch?" the psychiatrist said when they arrived. "Oh, no" said the woman. "He's not allowed on the furniture."

A husband brought his wife to the psychiatrist.
Husband: My wife thinks she’s a chicken.
Psychiatrist: That’s terrible. How long has she been this way?
Husband: For three years.
Psychiatrist: Why didn’t you bring her to see me sooner?
Husband: We needed the eggs.

Patient: Doctor, I get the feeling that people don’t give a hoot about anything I say.
Psychiatrist: So?

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