ATLANTA – Brad Moony of Akron, OH was released yesterday after 118 days of Ebola quarantine when it was discovered he suffered from tennis elbow rather than the feared African disease.
“In hindsight, I see
Continue reading TIMBITS NEWSFLASH! Ebola Patient Released After Misdiagnosis
Ted Allen: Welcome to Chopped Writers! We are in the midst of an incredible tournament event. Round one ended with
During our interstate transplant last June we spent three weeks in temporary housing. Let me paint you a picture. The furniture
As a psychologist of 27 years, I have professional concerns about the increasingly popular misconceptions surrounding obsessive-compulsive disorder. In common parlance, people frequently joke that someone is “a little OCD” for preferring symmetrical decorations, or keeping a tidy desk. This is an abuse of the term. Genuine OCD includes significant anxiety with accompanying ritualistic actions that disrupt normal life.
As a mental health professional, I feel a responsibility to correct these misstatements.
If I hear a friend, acquaintance, or even stranger misusing the term, I immediately provide a clinical description of OCD to clarify the error. Sadly, this irritates some people – for example, the valedictorian at my daughter’s high school graduation. But if I were to miss these teaching moments just because she was making a speech, where would we be? To do otherwise would make me feel unprofessional, upset, and even dirty.
The mistakes abound in popular media. Scouring film and print is time-consuming, as is my correspondence to those responsible. Thankfully, I can correct print media myself with a red pen, buying all available copies to correct each accordingly. My home is becoming cramped with the boxes of newspapers and magazines, but what choice do I have? Especially when most editors openly refuse my letters?
Naturally I worry my own thinking may become tainted by misinformation. As a precaution, when I encounter an erroneous statement I re-read the DSM-5 description of OCD to myself five times.
So I beg you, readers: stop misusing the term “OCD.” I know OCD when I see it.
This piece is, of course, a playful parody (I am certainly NOT a psychologist), but even so, isn’t it funny how certain ideas from medicine and science come into the general public consciousness and then start showing up everywhere? Fifteen or twenty years ago everyone would have jokingly said that neat-freaks were “anal-retentive.” I can’t decide if it is a good or bad thing: on one hand, everyone has a greater awareness of these issues; on the other, it dilutes the concept. Any thoughts, readers?
If you enjoyed this bit of silliness, perhaps you should check out other news parodies I’ve written on the Timbits Newsflash series page.
The header image is a modified version of “To Be Delivered” by Michael Coghlan CC BY-SA 2.0.
The kiss was lengthy and thirsty. When their lips finally separated, Alice took a deep breath and giggled. “Well,” she said, biting her lip. “Well, well, well…” Her eyes made a distracted tour around Stan’s face. “Look at you!” She stroked his cheek. “So pale! I’ll need to take you to the park sometime and get you some sun…”
Incongruity Theory
Or
“Now isn’t that funny…”
Why is the picture at the head of this post funny? Some might say we feel a cruel delight at Darth Vader hurting people or at cruel pranks in general. But when I watch Star Wars, I don’t laugh when Vader force-chokes someone. Others might say
The Relief Theory of Humor
Or
“HA! That was close!!”
We can’t seem to escape the Relief Theory of humor: no matter how many times it is discarded as pseudoscience, it is picked up, dusted off, and adapted by a future generation based on a revised theory. Honestly, this may be for good reason, since it explains a lot.
In 1709, Lord Shaftesbury proposed that people have more energy than they can use. That extra energy, he believed, creates dangerous internal pressure; heaving, guffawing, and knee-slapping burns off the excess and
Continue reading Seriously, Though: Do we laugh just to let off some steam?
Humor is a funny thing. Some days, I work as a school receptionist. Imagine this: Tomorrow morning, as the first school visitor approaches my desk, I let out a long, howling shout and strip to the waist, revealing the school colors painted across my chest. I am promptly sacked. No one finds this funny: my boss thinks it is embarrassing to the school; the visitor finds my unfit body revolting; I think it is outrageous to be fired for showing the same school spirit that everyone loved at the last football game. And then the story spreads. The students laugh and wish they had seen it; a coworker, who never particularly liked me, laughs and claims my parking spot. Three years pass: my boss laughs as she recounts the story to a future receptionist; I laugh as I share a testimonial at a group therapy meeting. Why isn’t this universally funny or unfunny? Why does point of view make a difference? Or time? Or context?
This post is the second in a series about humor. The first dissected laughter. Laughter is odd: it’s an
Continue reading Seriously, Though: Do we laugh to get along?
The term substitute teacher doesn’t work for me. Teachers know their students since they spend six hours of the day together. Teachers have a vision of how lessons, units, and curricula fit together. Teachers know the subject matter they’ve studied and taught for years. Substitute teachers know an outdated, alphabetical list of full legal names; their vision is crusty-eyed from the jarring 6:15 am wake-up call; and their subject knowledge consists of bulleted instructions on a Post-It Note dictated to the school secretary. How can the one be a substitute for the other? Sub is better: sub, as in subpar or subhuman – “less than, degenerate.” Or sub, as in subbasement or subzero – “under, beneath.” It’s the traditional location of Hell. But when I subbed, I quietly preferred “mercenary teacher.” Have chalk, will travel. Write referrals, ask questions later. Do anything if the pay is right.
Laughter in Brain, Body, and Community
Laughter is a funny thing. Consider: it is a reflex. Just as an eye’s iris will contract when exposed to a bright light or a baby’s face will turn towards a brush against its cheek, a person exposed to certain stimuli will find their facial muscles involuntarily contracting, their breathing becoming labored, their voice producing a series of noises, and their eyes watering. Stranger still, humans enjoy these odd little spasms: we punctuate our speech with them; we are attracted to mates who provoke them; we seek them out in our free time. But irises contract to protect their retinas; babies turn in order find their mother’s breast; what is laughter? Why does it exist? Laughter feels good, but is it always good? And how does humor – the art of fashioning entertainment from incongruities – relate to religion – the art of discovering truth from incongruities?
Timbits 