Tag Archives: humor

March 4, 2009 · 10:57 am

New personality test for kids?


Personality testing for kids used to be based on parent report. Not a particularly valid method in my book. Yes, the PIC and the PIY (youth self report) provide good data, but they are long and highly influenced by adult models of personality.

So, here’s a cheap and quick personality test: your child’s tooth is loose. Does he (a) allow it to stay hanging by a thread for days, or, (b) work incessantly til he rips it out out even when the root is intact (consequently bleeding for an hour when he should have already been in bed?

I have both children. It is highly reliable. Now to just figure out what the test means.

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May 26, 2008 · 5:20 am

Top 10 Counselor Nightmares


No classes today because of the holiday. Next week, we’ll be discussing the perils and pitfalls of being a counselor. In partial jest here’s my “top 10” counselor nightmares. A few of these happened to me, some happened to my friends and others are just fears: 

10. Someone from your past shows up as a counselee or at a seminar you give and they know all your immaturities

9. You run into a counselee from a couple of years ago and although they are grateful for your help,  you don’t remember ever meeting them before

8. Spending the whole hour with a new client and your fly was down and open the whole time

7. Same as 8 but you passed gas

6. Its time to pray at the end of the session and as you go to pray for them you can’t remember their name and so you have to pray for your “brother” instead.

5. You worked really hard helping a resistant client learn something and then they come in and tell you that their aunt told them this amazing thing (the thing you have been trying to tell them for 6 months) and now they wonder why you didn’t help them.

4. You come to the waiting room only to find you double booked by mistake.

3. You’re at the hospital having a colonoscopy and you find out the nurse assisting is your client who probably hates you

2. You fall asleep in session for a few minutes and wake up wondering how long it has been and whether they noticed or not (they did!)

1. Subpoena and/or call from the licensing board

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April 24, 2008 · 7:33 am

Finding the cause of America’s gas problem


Okay, I know yesterday’s post was frivolous but I want to share some funny lines from a brochure found at a gastrointestinal practice, America’s hidden gas problem.

The brochure is entitled: Gas.

Its point is to teach us the many causes. So, lets see what it has to say.

Gas may be caused by excessive swallowing of air…Air swallowing may be lessened by the following:

Meal times should be quiet, unrushed, and regular. Eat slowly and chew well. Listen to some relaxing music. Many families take advantage of being together at meal time to argue. Postpone tense discussions until well after meal time.

I’m sorry. I eat with 2 gradeschool boys. Meals are rarely relaxing. And yes, I wait with anticipation so I can get into an argument with them. Maybe we were wrong about waiting an hour after eating to swim. We should have been saying no to arguments to avoid gas. Now, here are some more tips:

Stop trying force up belches…This leads to a vicious cycle of belching and swallowing air.

Avoid sipping hot drinks. Carbonated beverages may also cause some gassiness.

Avoid chewing gum or sucking on hard candies…

Avoid ice cold drinks.

Avoid milk and milk products including milk, puddings, ice cream, cheeses, pizza, cheeseburgers, cakes, breads, pancakes.

Wheat, oats, barley, and rye make some people gassy.

Legumes…make just about everyone gassy.

Fruit sugar (fructose)…makes about 50% of people gassy!

Sorbitol…will cause gaseousness if used excessively.

Nervous tension may cause a worsening of gas. Anger, anxiety, and depression have all been incriminated. Some form of sedation or supportive therapy may be helpful in some people

Sedation? Really? Has anyone sought sedation for their gas problem? Maybe if I am sedated I won’t care if I’m farting alot.

Okay, so what CAN I have? The pamphlet suggests live cultured yogurt and hard cheeses are low in lactose (which causes many people discomfort) and rice. That’s it for suggestions.

I guess I’ll have a lukewarm glass of water and some rice please…and put on some muzak to calm my anxious heart.

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March 11, 2008 · 1:15 pm

Poking fun at yuppies and people trying to be hip


There is a very popular website on WordPress that pokes fun at the things yuppies like (e.g., bottled water, coffee, Whole Foods, graduate education in the humanities, etc). The site is mistitled: Stuff White People Like. It would be better to see it as poking fun at suburban/urban people trying to be upper-middle class and hip. One of the best posts is a sarcastic view of graduate education in the humanities to make us feel smarter than others (second best, in my opinion, is a tie between the post on drinking bottled water and the post on worshipping at Whole Foods). 

Be warned that while the posts do not have offensive language, the comments attached seem to contain much meanness and coarse language. Skip that part.     

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January 18, 2008 · 6:30 am

Things that make you go hmmm


This blog runs on WordPress. WordPress gives me certain data about my blog. I get to see how many people come each day, what posts get the most activity, and who refers people to this site (e.g., if someone puts up a link to me on their own site and then someone clicks it). There is one other interesting piece of data that gives me pause: entries that people type into search engines like Google that result in their clicking a link to this site. Here are some searches that people (I do not know who) search who then decide to come here:

These make sense: “wordpress psychologist”, “Ed Welch”, “Christianity Bi-polar disorder”, “Mindfulness Bible”, “Phil Monroe”

But what should I make of this? “Reformed theology + oral sex”

I guess someone wanted to know whether Calvin thought oral sex was okay. I have to admit I ran the same search in Google just to see why I cam up. And there I was on the first page. I wrote about Reformed and sex (not oral) in a blog posting and voila, Google finds me and puts me up front an center.

There are other doozies in this wordpress data on searches that end up here but I can’t print them here…   

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January 14, 2008 · 10:35 am

Psychopathology and diagnosing After Bath Mania?


Today marks the beginning of my winter term with the start of Psychopathology class. After exploring the concept of suffering, we’ll look at 11 key classes of pathology (from depression and anxiety to psychoses and personality disorders). Each Monday I will return to a habit I had last year and post a “Science Monday” where I look at some interesting science related to psychopathology.

On a lighter note, my wife and I may have discovered a new disorder. I put its name and diagnostic symptoms out there to see if any of you may have witnessed this malady.

After-Bath Mania (ABM)

ABM is a condition usually found only in elementary age children. After soaking in a warm bath, they become loud, silly, tempted to engage in many kinds of foolish behavior including, but not limited to: (3 of 6 criteria needed)

  1. Nude gyrating or running about the house
  2. Singing nonsense syllables, inventing raps, or repeating High-school Musical lines
  3. Tackling brother and tickling without mercy
  4. Standing on head or climbing door casing
  5. Answering questions in loud singsong voice
  6. Making sounds from parts of body besides the voice-box

These symptoms do not appear prior to bath (whether at 7 am or 7 pm) but do appear post bath more times than not, cause distress in others (e.g., brother angry, parent’s yelling to stop making that racket and to get ready for school), and subside only after parent loses control or the school bell rings. Symptoms may abate once child becomes self-conscious pre-teen. If these symptoms are found in an adult, they may not be considered a pathology unless individuals other than spouse are in the room.  

What is it about baths that makes my son crazy? Anybody have boys that do this? I thought warm baths would calm someone down and get them ready for bed.

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April 19, 2007 · 5:20 am

New counseling tool discovered!


[Warning: Comic relief]. Every good counselor keeps his or her eye open for the latest/greatest counseling tool that will make them highly effective in their work. This link will take you to a video of such a technique that will allow every counselor to solve the problems that clients bring in under five minutes. Further, the technique is cheap so everyone can afford it. Check out this video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sd6iVYOpcQ

On a serious note, counselors and lay folk have their own version of this technique that they have been inclined to use in some shape or form. It is interesting that no one wants to receive this technique but everyone has been tempted to use it none the less.

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