Random Psychiatry Jokes

Today's post comes courtesy of my Facebook Page - some random jokes about psychiatrists, therapists, patients, drug companies, alternative medicine, academics, and parents that I've been collecting and or making up.

WARNING!  

If you are a member of the habitually offended community, please do not read this.  I don't want you to have a stroke! 

To paraphrase fellow blogger The Last Psychiatrist, "If you have the urge to e-mail me complaining that my good-natured ribbing of human foibles indicates a total lack of empathy or cruel, unrelenting hostility towards patients and others, please don't, your brain is broken."  

And so it begins:

A recent journal article reviewing drug treatments for symptoms of borderline personality disorder was obviously pushing for the use of antipsychotics and anti-epileptic drugs over antidepressants. It concluded "“Antidepressants failed to show efficacy in treating BPD symptoms dimensions OTHER THAN AFFECTIVE DYSREGULATION.” That's like saying that an antibiotic "failed to show efficacy for pneumonia dimensions other than killing bacteria."

"If homeopathy is real, then dumping Osama bin Laden’s corpse in the ocean has just cured the world of terrorism." ~ Shiloh Madsen, on Google+"...what makes them defense [mechanisms] is not that they protect you from pain-- they don't, clearly. They suck at doing this, look around.

The purpose of defense mechanisms is to stop you from changing." ~ The Last Psychiatrist

"Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanax...

Depakote, Klonopin, Ambien, Prozac...

Ativan calms me when I see the bills

These are a few of my favorite pills." 

         ~ song from the Broadway musical, Next to Normal

"Become a psychotherapist. That way you get paid to chat with people who are more interesting than you are."  ~ Moviedoc

Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman of "Zits" fame have proposed a new psychiatric disorder of adolescence for the upcoming DSM-5, PDRD: Parental Direction Retention Disorder. That's for teens that can't seem to remember stuff their parents tell them to do.

Then there was the psychiatry resident who was not convinced by the faculty that there is no point in trying to talk a psychotic patient out of a delusion using reason and evidence. So he sees this patient who thinks he's Jesus Christ, and goes up to him.

 "Does Jesus Christ bleed?" he asks the patient.

 "No, of course not," the patient replies.

 "Aha, now I've got him!" the resident thinks. 

He pulls out a pin and pricks the patient on the finger. The patient then looks intently at his hand.

 "Well, I'll be darned," he finally says. "Jesus Christ does bleed."

Behaviorists are psychologists who believe that all human behavior is shaped by environmental rewards and punishments, and that the only valid psychological data comes from observing behavior, and never through introspection or speculation about internal mental processes. So two of these behaviorists just made love. One says to the other: “That was great for you. How was it for me?”

Bill Scheft, a longtime Letterman writer, offers this summary of his mother’s parenting philosophy: “You’ll get unconditional love when you do something to deserve it.”

"What's the point of duration criteria for manic episodes? Nobody takes a history anyway." ~ Moviedoc

I think I'll start a new dating service for people with personality disorders. It will run ads like: "Narcissists! Are you looking for that perfect borderline woman who'll be willing to at first feed your grandiosity but later completely destroy it with her help-rejecting complaining? Well look no further! Take our new, free online SCID-II personality test to help us find your perfect match!"

Overheard from a parent desperate to have an exceptional kid: "All the other kids are making sand pies, but only my kid is eating them!"

"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” -William Gibson

"I only watch TV News for the commercials to keep up with all the new pharmaceuticals I'll need for all the new diseases." ~ John Fugelsang

If we have "Adult ADHD," I guess we should also have "Adult Oppositional Defiant Disorder." There could be two at least two main subtypes, the "Asshole" subtype and the "Angry Young Man" subtype.

Dennis the Menace diagnosed with bipolar disorder! News at 11.

"[psychiatric] Drugs are all about keeping bratty children in check. Or what we used to call 'parenting.'" ~ Bill Maher

The United States may be the only country in the world where parents obey their children.

 "A new study published in The Journal of Pediatric Medicine found that a shocking 98 percent of all infants suffer from bipolar disorder. "The majority of our subjects, regardless of size, sex, or race, exhibited extreme mood swings, often crying one minute and then giggling playfully the next," the study's author Dr. Steven Gregory told reporters." ~ The Onion

The pharmaceutical companies have come up with a new drug that "biological" psychiatrists will be very excited about. It will no longer matter how screwed up patients' lives are or how dysfunctional their families are. If they take this pill, they just won't care any more. The brand name of the drug is going to be Phuquitol.

Classic answers to questions from doctors taking a psychiatric history:

Therapist: "Are you narcissistic?" Patient: "Heck no, I'm too good for that."

Th:  Are you ambivalent?   Pt: "Well, yes and no."

Th: "Are you sexually active?"  Pt: " Nah, I just lie there."

Th: "Are you homophobic?"  Pt:  "No. Some of my best friends are lesbians, but wouldn't want my sister to marry one."

Carl Rogers, one of the founders of modern psychotherapy, believed that empathy, listening, unconditional acceptance, and minimal intervention would allow clients to become increasingly comfortable with aspects of themselves that may be threatening, shameful, scary, anxiety-causing, etc., which would then facilitate growth and eventual change.  Some people think this can be a bit naïve, as evidenced by the following transcript from a therapy session:

Client:  “I am so depressed, I just don’t feel like is worth living.”

Dr. Rogers: “I hear you saying that you are in pain and that you are not sure how you will ever feel better.”

Client: “I really feel I would be better off dead.”

Dr. Rogers: “You really are at your wits ends about what to do.”

[The client stands and moves to the window of the office and opens it up]

Dr. Rogers: “You are showing me how much pain you are in, how desperate you are.”

[The client then jumps out the window to his death]

Dr. Rogers: “Splat.”