What do you think?
Rate this book
Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality: Reading from the Journal of Polymorphous Perversity
One hundred percent of all dead patients showed a marked reluctance to pay their bills.
Well over half of all Americans alive today have experienced childhood directly, a syndrome marked by a) dwarfism b) knowledge deficits and c) legume anorexia.
When Ms. Cinderella left her glass slipper behind at the stroke of midnight, she was clearly acting in a state of rebellion against the dictatorial regimentation of the domineering fairy godmother.
It's true. Members of the psychiatric community are capable of laughter. The Journal of Polymorphous Perversity, the brainchild of psychologist Glenn C. Ellenbogen, has received confirmed reports of uncontrollable outbursts of laughter as the pages of the scholarly parody are sampled.
Now patients, professionals, and armchair travelers alike can enjoy the articles that have appeared in this hilarious journal in one hilarious anthology, including such profound and penetrating subjects as "New Improved Delusions," "The Scale of Mental Abilities Requiring Thinking Somewhat (SMARTS)," "Cancer and A Bum Rat," and more. Learn how psychoanalysts diagnose patients by the way they park their cars in the mental health clinic lot and how to apply the practical principles of Vigilante Effectiveness Training (VET) in daily life.
"For the Jung at heart!" --New York Daily News
Well over half of all Americans alive today have experienced childhood directly, a syndrome marked by a) dwarfism b) knowledge deficits and c) legume anorexia.
When Ms. Cinderella left her glass slipper behind at the stroke of midnight, she was clearly acting in a state of rebellion against the dictatorial regimentation of the domineering fairy godmother.
It's true. Members of the psychiatric community are capable of laughter. The Journal of Polymorphous Perversity, the brainchild of psychologist Glenn C. Ellenbogen, has received confirmed reports of uncontrollable outbursts of laughter as the pages of the scholarly parody are sampled.
Now patients, professionals, and armchair travelers alike can enjoy the articles that have appeared in this hilarious journal in one hilarious anthology, including such profound and penetrating subjects as "New Improved Delusions," "The Scale of Mental Abilities Requiring Thinking Somewhat (SMARTS)," "Cancer and A Bum Rat," and more. Learn how psychoanalysts diagnose patients by the way they park their cars in the mental health clinic lot and how to apply the practical principles of Vigilante Effectiveness Training (VET) in daily life.
"For the Jung at heart!" --New York Daily News
275 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 1986
11 people are currently reading
217 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 16, 2015
writing satire about psychology indicates a sublimated response to overt feelings of inferiority and complex security issues. reviewing said satire can lead to even more confusion and psycho-emotional responses when dealing with one’s own opinion of humor and wit. avoiding direct criticism and only providing mild and peripheral feedback on the source material can induce spontaneous recovery of the myopic conditions within which the piece was originally written.
personal reactions to this book probably range from shame and anger to sheer ecstatic, paroxysmal laughter. at any point on this continuum, subjects might gain insight or lose track of all motor function, up to and including incontinence of bladder. this acts as a homeostatic mechanism releasing pent up tensions caused by often cognitively dissonant or out-of-context ideas (Hutcheson’s “incongruity”) that appear within humor that result in chuckling, guffawing, lacrimal secretions, and quite possibly, urination or projectile regurgitation.
Of course, this plays out, too, in the semantic realm when switching the meaning of a word encountered near the beginning of a joke at the end of one (see Raskin). this often relieves the reader of the sense that the verbal and/or semantic and social construct being discussed has any reality to it; it becomes an ephemeral illusion created by society to fool us into playing along. realization that we’ve just made something up and we’ve been fooled by it all along often produces laughter. on rare occasions, it can cause humiliation and the loss of social status (normally temporary) in the eyes of peers. verbal attacks, emotional ejaculations, and even physically violent acts can ensue.
all joking aside, the book represents one of the worst examples of false scholarship i have ever seen. it attempts to pass itself off as a set of darkly satirical pieces modeled on the structure and language found in psychological literature but fails to do so. the introductions and explanations of the source for these articles are the true farce. Ellenbogen would have us believe that the arguments and observations made in his book are entirely fictitious and false when, in fact, they can be traced back to real scholarship and academically sound literature of all kinds. ingenious in a way (extremely lame and insulting in another), Ellenbogen’s sleight of erudition gets the reader thinking one way and then pulls a Raskinian dodge and gives us real, usable methods, techniques, and observations. Oral Sadism fails to convince me of anything other than the fact that psychology cannot be funny despite the author’s statements to the contrary and that such Kenobian tricks only work on the weak-minded.
personal reactions to this book probably range from shame and anger to sheer ecstatic, paroxysmal laughter. at any point on this continuum, subjects might gain insight or lose track of all motor function, up to and including incontinence of bladder. this acts as a homeostatic mechanism releasing pent up tensions caused by often cognitively dissonant or out-of-context ideas (Hutcheson’s “incongruity”) that appear within humor that result in chuckling, guffawing, lacrimal secretions, and quite possibly, urination or projectile regurgitation.
Of course, this plays out, too, in the semantic realm when switching the meaning of a word encountered near the beginning of a joke at the end of one (see Raskin). this often relieves the reader of the sense that the verbal and/or semantic and social construct being discussed has any reality to it; it becomes an ephemeral illusion created by society to fool us into playing along. realization that we’ve just made something up and we’ve been fooled by it all along often produces laughter. on rare occasions, it can cause humiliation and the loss of social status (normally temporary) in the eyes of peers. verbal attacks, emotional ejaculations, and even physically violent acts can ensue.
all joking aside, the book represents one of the worst examples of false scholarship i have ever seen. it attempts to pass itself off as a set of darkly satirical pieces modeled on the structure and language found in psychological literature but fails to do so. the introductions and explanations of the source for these articles are the true farce. Ellenbogen would have us believe that the arguments and observations made in his book are entirely fictitious and false when, in fact, they can be traced back to real scholarship and academically sound literature of all kinds. ingenious in a way (extremely lame and insulting in another), Ellenbogen’s sleight of erudition gets the reader thinking one way and then pulls a Raskinian dodge and gives us real, usable methods, techniques, and observations. Oral Sadism fails to convince me of anything other than the fact that psychology cannot be funny despite the author’s statements to the contrary and that such Kenobian tricks only work on the weak-minded.
March 27, 2015
This was a book written as a parody to mental health disorders, written by psychologists, I believe. It is an edited version of a magazine which was published for a while. The book started off really funny, maybe the better authors were put in the back, or maybe it just got old. I eventually gave up on it, but I'm glad I picked it up or I never would have known the benefits of counseling the dead.
December 1, 2011
unfortunately a little too outdated to be really funny. i'm sure it was a riot 10 years ago, but humor has changed and reading this brought that fact into super sharp relief. the experience feels like a progression of missed opportunities. someone in the field should update it.
September 4, 2020
I think i actually saw a copy of this once
sadly the happy face ruins it
sadly the happy face ruins it
September 6, 2025
Didn’t even finish this book with how outdated it is, got about 75% through & just put myself out of my misery by putting it down. Obviously being written in the 80’s means this is absolutely choc full of insensitivities and offences, and the few parts it’s funny just cannot justify the ignorance. It’s also mostly corny as fuck anyway..
March 10, 2021
Funny short "articles" about developments in professions in the realm of psychology. I think my favorite was the piece on deja vu. The entire book is very tongue-in-cheek and allows for a humorous self-analysis by people involved in a very serious profession.
November 9, 2020
Best collection of parodied psychological studied ever!
July 1, 2021
A very good laugh. Very well written.
August 22, 2015
Satire. A collection of tongue-in-cheek articles from the Journal of Polymorphous Perversity. Ellen recovered this little gem from the Old Bridge Public Library's discard bin and it's pretty funny if you have a background in Psychology. The Table of Contents itself is a real hoot. The first article, "The Etiology and Treatment of Childhood" by Jordan Smoller, had me in hysterics, especially the silly references. The rest of the articles were kind of hit-or-miss.
November 5, 2009
Ever wonder how to cure childhood? Why dead people don't pay their bills? How to diagnose a patient's mental disorder by how he parks? This is the book for you! You don't have to be a psychologist or psychiatrist to appreciate this book, but it probably helps! I'm no shrink, but I thought it was a riot!
November 25, 2007
Real Scientists and Psychologists write parodies of scholarly papers. I howled!
January 12, 2009
it could be very funny if you smoked pot and were drunk. Some funj spots though
August 3, 2009
Hilarious. I read these books back in grad school and loved the high level of satire.
July 27, 2013
Very 1980s, but still enjoyable. I'd love to see an updated version. :)
February 6, 2016
There's nothing not to like about this kind of deep, multilayered satire. A shrink-bashing classic!
October 20, 2012
I thought this book was pretty funny ...but I was in middle school at the time. :p
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews