Psychology Humor-4

[Joe Buck]

Statistical limerics
by David Hildebrand
The packages come out en masse,
Like Minitab, Systat, and SAS.
The ultimate mess
Is SPSS,
Which everyone uses, alas.

Two manic depressives named Mastick
Had marital problems, quite drastic.
Her mood swings were mild,
But his were quite wild.
The two were not homoscedastic.


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Three patients at a psychiatric clinic are up for release. The shrink informs them that they will have to pass a simple test. Asking the first patient:
Q. How much is two plus two?
A: Blue.

At which the kind doctor calls in the orderly to escort the patient back to his room.

Turning to the second patient, he asks what is six minus three? To which the patient replies: Square. Once again the orderly is called in to remove the patient. Turning to the third and last patient, he asks, "How much is five plus five?" The patient answers very confidentally: Ten. The doctor, amazed then inquires how did you figure it out? The patient: "Easy.Blue multiplied by square equals ten."

(Contributed by Alex Koun)


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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 delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mother ship.
If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the # key until a representative comes on the line.
If you are dyslexic, press 696969696969.
If you have amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address, phone, date of birth, social security number and your mother's maiden name.
If you have post-traumatic stress disorder, slowly and carefully press 000.
If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9.
If you are menopausal, hang up, turn on the fan, lie down & cry. You won't be crazy forever.
If you have a masochistic complex, please press "0" for the operator. There are 200 calls ahead of you.
If you are depressed, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer.
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Daily Affirmations for the Unstable

I no longer need to punish, deceive or compromise myself. Unless, of
course, I want to stay employed.

A good scapegoat is nearly as welcome as a solution to the problem.

As I let go of my feelings of guilt, I can get in touch with my Inner
Sociopath.

I have the power to channel my imagination into ever-soaring levels of
suspicion and paranoia.

Today, I will gladly share my experience and advice, for there are no
sweeter words than "I told you so."

I need not suffer in silence while I can still moan, whimper and complain.

As I learn the innermost secrets of the people around me, they reward me in
many ways to keep me quiet.

I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are
someone else's fault.

I honor my personality flaws, for without them I would have no personality
at all.

Joan of Arc heard voices too.

When someone hurts me, forgiveness is cheaper than a lawsuit, but not nearly
as gratifying.

The first step is to say nice things about myself. The second, to do nice
things for myself. The third, to find someone to buy me nice things.

As I learn to trust the universe, I no longer need to carry a gun.

Just for today, I will not sit in my living room all day watching TV.
Instead I will move my TV into the bedroom.

Who can I blame for my own problems? Give me just a minute... I'll find
someone.

Why should I waste my time reliving the past when I can spend it worrying
about the future?

I will find humor in my everyday life by looking for people I can laugh at.

I am willing to make the mistakes if someone else is willing to learn from
them.

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Christmas Carols for the Psychiatrically Challenged
SCHIZOPHRENIA - Do You Hear What I Hear?
MULTIPLE PERSONALITY - We Three Queens Disoriented Are.

DEMENTIA - I Think I'll Be Home For Christmas.

NARCISSISTIC - Hark The Herald Angels Sing (About Me)

MANIA - Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town ...or Deck the Halls and Spare No Expense!

PARANOIA - Santa Claus is Coming To Get Me.

PERSONALITY DISORDER - You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, then MAYBE I'll tell you why.

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE - Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell...

PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE - On the First Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me (and then took it all away).


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Comedy Collective - Dora by Kim Morrissey
Although it's very funny, this play is also a suggested text for the Open University in England. In this scene, Freud can find many, many words for a man's member, and no word at all for 'toilet.'


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Freud on Seuss
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The following list of phrases and their definitions might help you understand the mysterious language of science (including psychology) and medicine. These special phrases are also applicable to anyone reading a PhD dissertation or academic paper.
"IT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN"... I didn't look up the original reference.

"A DEFINITE TREND IS EVIDENT"... These data are practically meaningless.

"WHILE IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DEFINITE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS"... An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published.

"THREE OF THE SAMPLES WERE CHOSEN FOR DETAILED STUDY"... The other results didn't make any sense.

"TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN"... This is the prettiest graph.

"THESE RESULTS WILL BE IN A SUBSEQUENT REPORT"... I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded.

"IN MY EXPERIENCE"... Once

"IN CASE AFTER CASE"... Twice

"IN A SERIES OF CASES"... Thrice

"IT IS BELIEVED THAT"... I think.

"IT IS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT"... A couple of others think so, too.

"IT MIGHT BE ARGUED THAT" ... I have such a good answer for this objection that I now raise it. [Thanks to Brendan Keefe.]

"CORRECT WITHIN AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE"... Wrong.

"ACCORD1NG TO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS"... Rumour has it.

"A STATISTICALLY-ORIENTED PROJECTION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE FINDINGS"... A wild guess.

"A CAREFUL ANALYSIS OF OBTAINABLE DATA"... Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of beer.

"IT IS CLEAR THAT MUCH ADDITIONAL WORK WILL BE REQUIRED BEFORE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THIS PHENOMENON OCCURS"... I don't understand it

"AFTER ADDITIONAL STUDY BY MY COLLEAGUES"... They don't understand it either.

"THANKS ARE DUE TO JOE BLOGGS FOR ASSISTANCE WITH THE EXPERIMENT AND TO CINDY ADAMS FOR VALUABLE DISCUSSIONS"... Mr. Bloggs did the work and Ms. Adams explained to me what it meant.

"A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT AREA FOR EXPLORATORY STUDY"... A totally useless topic selected by my committee.

"IN AN IMPORTANT PAPER BY SMITH AND JONES, ..." This obscure paper by Smith and Jones agrees supports my theory.

"IT IS HOPED THAT THIS WILL STIMULATE FURTHER WORK IN THIS FIELD" ... This paper isn't very good, but neither are any others on this miserable subject. [Thanks to Brendan Keefe.]

"IT IS HOPED THAT THIS STUDY WILL STIMULATE FURTHER 1NVESTIGATION IN THIS FIELD"... I quit.


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To: Editor, Archives of General Psychiatry
Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:

Enclosed is our latest version of MS #85-02-22-RRRRR, that is, the re-re-re-revised version of our paper. Choke on it. We have again rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed the goddamned running head! Hopefully we have suffered enough by now to satisfy even your bloodthirsty reviewers.

I shall skip the usual point-by-point description of every single change we made in response to the critiques. After all, it is fairly clear that your reviewers are less interested in details of scientific procedure than in working out their personality problems and sexual frustrations by seeking some sort of demented glee in the sadistic and arbitrary exercise of tyrannical power over hapless authors like ourselves who happen to fall into their clutches. We do understand that, in view of the misanthropic psychopaths you have on your editorial board, you need to keep sending them papers, for if they weren't reviewing manuscripts they'd probably be out mugging old ladies or clubbing baby seals to death. Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not ask her or him to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them the review process could be unduly delayed.

Some of the reviewers comments we couldn't do anything about. For example, if (as reviewer C suggested), several of my ancestry were indeed drawn from other species, it is too late to change that. Other suggestions were implemented, however, and the paper has improved and benefited. Thus, you suggested that we shorten the manuscript by 5 pages, and we were able to do this very effectively by altering the margins and printing the paper in a different font with a smaller typeface. We agree with you that the paper is much better this way.

One perplexing problem was dealing with suggestions #13-28 by reviewer B. As you may recall (that is, if you even bother reading the reviews before doing your decision letter), that reviewer listed 16 works the he/she felt we should cite in this paper. These were on a variety of different topics, none of which had any relevance to our work that we could see. Indeed, one was an essay on the Spanish-American War from a high school literary magazine. the only common thread was that all 16 were by the same author, presumably someone reviewer B greatly admires and feels should be more widely cited. To handle this, we have modified the introduction and added, after the review of relevant literature, a subsection entitled "Review of Irrelevant Literature" that discusses these articles and also duly addresses some of the more asinine suggestions by other reviewers.

We hope that you will be pleased with this revision and finally recognize how urgently deserving of publication this work is. If not, then you are an unscrupulous, depraved monster with no shred of human decency. You ought to be in a cage. May whatever heritage you come from be the butt of the next round of ethnic jokes. If you do accept it, however, we wish to thank you for your patience and wisdom throughout this process and to express our appreciation of you scholarly insights. To repay you, we would be happy to review some manuscripts for you; please send us the next manuscript that any of these reviewers sends to your journal.

Assuming you accept this paper, we would also like to add a footnote acknowledging your help with this manuscript and to point out that we liked this paper much better the way we originally wrote it but you held the editorial shotgun to our heads and forced us to chop, reshuffle, restate, hedge, expand, shorten, and in general convert a meaty paper into stir-fried vegetables. We couldn't or wouldn't, have done it without your input. Sincerely,


Dear Dr.

Thank you for your thoughtful response to my decision letter concerning the above-referenced piece of excrement.

I have asked several experts who specialize in the area of research you dabble in to have a look at your pathetic little submission, and their reviews are enclosed. I shall not waste my LaserJet ink reiterating the details of their reviews, but please allow me to highlight some of the more urgent points of contention they raise:

1. Reviewer A suggests that you cite his work EXCLUSIVELY in the introduction. He has asked me to remind you that he spells his name with a final "e" (i.e., Scumbage), not as you have referenced him in the last version.

2. Reviewer C indicates that the discussion can be shortened by at least 5 pages. Given the fact that the present Discussion is only three pages long, I am not certain how to advise you. Perhaps you might consider eliminating all speculation and original ideas.

3. Reviewer D has asked that you consider adding her as a co-author. Although she has not directly contributed to the manuscript, she has made numerous comments that have, in her view, significantly improved the paper. Specifically, she believes that her suggestions concerning the reorganization of the acknowledgments paragraph were especially important. Please note that she spells her name with an em-dash, and not with the customary hyphen.

4. Reviewer B has asked that I inform you that, even though his suggestions were not mentioned in my decision letter, this doesn't mean that he is an imbecile.

5. My own reading of the manuscript indicates that the following problems remain:

a. By "running head," we do not mean a picture of your son's face with legs attached. Please provide a four- or five-word title for the paper that summarizes the report's most important point. May I suggest, "Much Ado About Nothing"?

b. Please make certain that you have adhered to APA stylebook guidelines for publication format. Please direct your attention to the section entitled, "Proper Format for an Insignificant Paper" (1995, p.46).

c. Please submit any revision of the paper on plain, blank stationery. Submitting the article on Yale University letterhead will not increase your chances of having the article accepted for publication.

d. Please doublecheck the manuscript for spelling and grammatical errors. Our experience at the Archives is that "cycle-logical" slips through most spell-check programs undetected.

e. Although I am not a quantitative scientist, it is my understanding that the "F" in F-test does not stand for "f___ing". Please correct the manuscript accordingly.

Yours sincerely,

Prof. Art Kives


If your original submission had been as articulate as your most recent letter, we might have avoided this interchange. It is too bad that tenure and promotion committees at your university do not have access to authors' correspondence with editors, for it is clear that you would be promoted on the basis of your wit alone. Unfortunately, it's the publication that counts, and I'm sorry to say that the Archives is not prepared to accept this revision. We would be perfectly ambivalent about receiving a ninth revision from you