i before e, except after w?

I mean we're shrinks, we deal with the weird everyday. If anyone knows weird, it's us.

So I get this email from Roy. Stop spelling it "wierd" it's "weird" you have it stuck in your head wrong. He's right and he gave me a long list of places on Shrink Rap where weird is misspelled as 'wierd.' Only they weren't all me. Clink did it a couple of times. Sarebear did it in our comment section. I did it a bunch. This is weird. But it is "i before e except after c"...right? Why is weird spelled weirdly?

Maybe I need a new word. Strange. Unusual. Unconventional. Odd. That's a good one, even I can't spell "odd" wrong.

From Wikipedia:

Old English wyrd is a verbal noun formed from the verb weorþan, meaning "to come to pass, to become". The term developed into the modern English adjective weird. Adjectival use develops in the 15th centrury, in the sense "having the power to control fate", originally in the name of the Weird Sisters, i.e. the classical Fates, in the Elizabethan period detached from their classical background as fays, and most notably appearing as the Three Witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth. From the 14th century, to weird was also used as a verb in Scots, in the sense of "to preordain by decree of fate".

The modern spelling weird first appears in Scottish and Northern English dialects in the 16th century and is taken up in standard literary English from the 17th century. The regular modern English form would have been wird, from Early Modern English werd. The substitution of werd by weird in the northern dialects is "difficult to account for".^[1]

The now most common meaning of weird, "odd, strange", is first attested in 1815, originally with a connotation of the supernatural or portentuous (especially in the collocation weird and wonderful), but by the early 20th century increasingly applied to everyday situations.^[2]

Enough. It's all too weerd. The chinchilla is for Jesse because his preoccupation with the little rodents is kind of ....different.

How To Drive Your Psychiatrist Crazy

In Roy's Top Ten Search Phrases, he notes that How to Drive Your Psychiatrist Crazy is a popular search phrase that gets you to Shrink Rap. Okay, I'll bite. So I pressed the link, and there was a list of what you get when you Google "How To Drive Your Psychiatrist Crazy." I went to the first link and found myself at Clown Ministry, and here were listed 10 ways to drive your shrink nuts. Just what I need. And so...:

1. Demand to sit behind his or her desk every other meeting
2. Keep your own notes of your psychologist's behaviors and your diagnosis
3. Prescribe medication to your psychologist
4. spend the first half of the sesion drawing a picture of your psychologist, spend the second half drilling holes through it with a pencil
5. Ask to go to the bathroom every time he or she asks a question
6. Every time you give an answer ask “Am I cured yet?”
7. Bring a ‘seeing eye turtle’ to therapy sessions
8. Speak to your imaginary friend instead of the psychologist
9. Bring all converstaion back to your childhood whenever it strays away from it
10. Lie Blatantly about Everything
11. Tell your psychiatrist that your name is Adrian Monk.

Is there more to say?

Disturbing Things

I received the following e-mail from a friend. Copied without permission:

I get some of the craziest emails but this one is short and pretty good. I mean, we're all a bit nutty…but really.

Psychopath Test

Read this question, come up with an answer and then scroll down to the bottom for the result. This is not a trick question. It is as it reads. No one I know has got it right.

A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing. She believed him to be her dream guy so much, that she fell in love with him right there, but never asked for his number and could not find him. A few days later she killed her sister.

Question: What is her motive for killing her sister?

[Give this some thought before you answer]




Answer:

She was hoping the guy would appear at the funeral again. If you
answered this correctly, you think like a psychopath. This was a test by
a famous American Psychologist used to test if one has the same
mentality as a killer. Many arrested serial killers took part in the test and
answered the question correctly.


If you didn't answer the question correctly, good for you. If you got the answer correct, please let me know so I can take you off my email list. (ha)

-----------

So I got it right....I promise I haven't killed anyone, but apparently I'm off Harry's e-mail list. The picture, by the way, was stolen off Fat Doctor's blog. Psychopathic cows for sure. Clink, any thoughts here?

My Three Shrinks Podcast 24: Dr Phil on Skype

[23] . . . [24] . . . [25] . . . [All]

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Okay, folks, this one's a bit on the long side, but well worth it. Around the 28-minute mark is an "interview" with talk-show psychologist Dr. Phil. See below for my notes about it, but let's just say that Dinah has vowed to get even with Clink and me. Or, click here to listen to just the prank and the mash-up song.

Also, listen in to us next week in Podcast #32 as Doctor Anonymous joins us as a guest blogger (this one's for real).

AND CHECK OUT ALL OUR OTHER POSTS FROM THIS WEEKEND. Click or scroll....

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June 10, 2007: #24 Dr. Phil on Skype

Topics include:

• Genetics of Cocaine-Induced Paranoia. Roy talks about a recent article in Biological Psychiatry by Kalayasiri which suggests that a particular mutation (C1021T) in the dopamine beta-hydroxylase (DBH) gene was associated with significantly increased paranoia in a small group of cocaine abusers. Genetics is playing an increasing role in understanding how we respond to drugs AND to our environment.
• Dinah wins an award for her writing.
• Expectation Vs. Evidence-based Medicine. We get into a detailed discussion about how patients' perceptions and expectations get in the way of evidence-based medicine (with examples from Flea's post on admitting children and direct-to-consumer advertising). "Doc, my friend got better with DrugX so I want to try it." "It goes back to 'who deserves care'."
• Dr. Phil visits My Three Shrinks. THIS IS A MUST-LISTEN SEGMENT! Clink and I play a trick on Dinah by "calling" Dr. Phil on Skype and he "interviews" us. This is a riot!! Dinah is such a good sport. [link to DrPhil Soundboard]
• Dark Tourism. After reading a NYT piece on touring prisons, Clink discusses the concept of dark tourism, where people seek out notorious sites to see (like cemeteries and prisons). She sent us a humongous scholarly piece on the subject (see Clink's Travelogue for more fun). Dinah talked about visiting catacombs in Paris where the walls are made of human bones, and here's a pic of those. (Note from Dinah, I wanted to put the picture and the link in, but I didn't listen to the podcast to hear if I was editted out. They do those things, you know).
  
  
  
  

• Special DrPhil/MTS mashup treat at the end. Credit KLF (aka The Timelords aka The JAMs) for the song, Doctorin' the Tardis, which you can find on emusic for 25 cents, or on iTunes for 99 cents.
  

Find show notes with links at: http://mythreeshrinks.com/. The address to send us your Q&A's is there, as well. This podcast is available on iTunes (feel free to post a review) or as an RSS feed. You can also listen to or download the .mp3 or the MPEG-4 file from mythreeshrinks.com. Thank you for listening.

Your Doctor Is Making Jokes About You

And Other Things You Don't Want to Know About Medicine

You deserve to know the truth. The truth is, your doctor may be telling jokes about you. Well OK, not necessarily about you, personally. But about medicine. About the experience of treating patients with common conditions in common circumstances. Stories about patients with unreasonable demands or unreasonable behaviors who come back repeatedly for repair after refusing to change the very things causing them problems. With regard to psychiatry, doctors who have been assaulted by a patient in seclusion may use humor to relieve the fear and anxiety associated with caring for a potentially violent person. In situations like this it's better to make a joke than to scream, throw up your hands and walk away.

Sometimes in psychiatry you work with patients who aren't very nice to you. They may be angry and they may say things that are hurtful. As professionals it is our responsibility to take this dispassionately and allow the patient to be honest about their feelings. We cannot snap back or be retributive or let this influence our judgement. Psychiatrists must be dispassionate, supportive, sensitive and empathic.

Frankly, that's hard work.

Humor is one way of dealing with this. People who read this blog know that we use humor a lot. We tell jokes about medications, about diseases, about the pitfalls of psychiatric practice and about each other. (Well OK, usually about Dinah but that's just because she leaves herself so gosh-darn open to it. And because she takes it so well. Believe me, she can give it as well as she takes it.) According to our readers' comments one of the things people like about this blog is that it gives them a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the human side of psychiatry. That may be disturbing to folks who don't want to think about their psychiatrists in that way.

Every physician at some point in time has used humor to mediate stress and vent frustration. Heck, even an entire television series was based on this premise. The legendary Hawkeye Pierce used humor and practical jokes to highlight the idiocy of military (and medical) bureacracy all the while giving terrific patient care. I imagine my opthalmologist, my dentist, my primary care doc and even my gynecologist have their own brand of behind-the-scenes humor that I as a patient have never heard. (I have to admit I've come up with a few thoughts on my own while straddling the stirrups. And here's an informal survey: how many of you have gynecologists who post cartoons on the ceiling above the exam table?)

Personally, if it keeps my dentist sane and available for me and helps him be more tolerant of me as a patient I'm all for it.

I'll bet he's laughing at how I walk.

**********

Warning: This blog features graphic scenes of psychiatric humor that may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

Roy: Psych Notes for Smilies

Inspired by Carrie's comments...
Carrie had wondered why her doc never put her on an antidepressant. She wrote: "God knows most days I wonder why not. LOL "
I replied: "It's because of the 'LOL'. If you couldn't LOL then maybe he would. Of course, if you were ROFLYAO, then he'd probably reach for the lithium."

This exchange got me thinking... hmm... how would a psychiatrist manage someone who could only communicate via emoticons? Below are the resulting progress notes...

:-)	stable. cont prozac 40mg. f/u 3 mos.
:-))	reduce prozac to 20mg. f/u 1mo.
:-))))	d/c prozac. add lithium 300 tid. check TSH, creat. f/u 1wk.
:-D	add depakote. check lithium level, LFTs, CBC. f/u 1wk.
:-|	stable. cont prozac 40 mg. f/u 1mo.
:-(	increase prozac to 60mg. f/u 2wk.
:'-(	add wellbutrin SR 150mg. f/u 1wk.
X-(	call 911. send to ER. check for OD.
:*}	check breathalyzer. refer to AA.
%-}	weekly tox screen. refer to AA/NA.
:-&@?	add haldol 2mg bid.
|-0	d/c ambien.
:-#	d/c elavil. use hard candies.
;-P	d/c haldol. add clozapine. AIMS exam. vitamin E 800 iu bid.
:-)~	reduce haldol. add cogentin to reduce sialorrhea.
8-~	reduce dose of seroquel.
(:-)	reduce depakote. add zinc, selenium.
;-)	establish boundaries. do not schedule at end of day.
;-x	see with chaperone only.
=^..^=	give Ativan 1mg IV to relieve catatonia. (thanks, ClinkShrink)
:-o	(on seeing the bill for 1st appt.)
>:-O	(on seeing the bill for missed appt.)

Roy @ Shrink Rap (http://psychiatrist-blog.blogspot.com) and mythreeshrinks.com

[thanks, SmiliesUnlimited, for the emoticons]