The Paranoid's Pocket Guide to Mental Disorders You Can Just Feel Coming On [Paperback]

Dennis DiClaudio (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 23, 2007

Hot on the heels of the wildly successful The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have comes The Paranoid's Pocket Guide to Mental Disorders You Can Just Feel Coming On, Dennis DiClaudio's hilarious look at fifty disturbingly familiar maladies you just know are buried deep in your psyche. This inspired new collection profiles the most nerve-wracking, harebrained, loopy, life-threatening and totally out-there mental disorders you could imagine--and some you could never imagine.
 
With complete descriptions of the symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, and treatment for psychosis, this book could convince even the most rational readers that something--or someone--is out to get them. From the slightly odd Stendhal Syndrome (the fear of artwork) to the mentally debilitating Athazagagoraphobia (the feeling that you've forgotten something important) and the downright bizarre Windigo Psychosis (the belief that you are a wild and ravenous monster), The Paranoid's Pocket Guide to Mental Illnesses You Can Just Feel Coming On is a fascinating compendium of psychological illnesses for all of us to fret and agonize over.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dennis DiClaudio is an editor in the Infectious Disease Department of Elsevier, a renowned medical publisher, and a humor writer. He is the author of The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have. His short pieces have been published in a number of journals, including Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency. He lives in Philadelphia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; First Edition edition (January 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596912707
• ISBN-13: 978-1596912700
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 4.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #705,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five stars, March 24, 2007

By 

K. Buzbee (UT, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Paranoid's Pocket Guide to Mental Disorders You Can Just Feel Coming On (Paperback)

This is an excellent addition to the DiClaudio's "Hypochondriac's Guide..." This book is significantly larger than its predecessor (at least three times longer!), yet maintains that same biting sense of medical humor without. A warning - if you're like me, you'll find at least three or four mental disorders in this book that you very well could have. Of course, it's always good to have a reason to give for your erratic behavior. If you could handle the grossness of the previous book, you'll probably be mostly unswayed by the unnerving disorders in this one. Use this book to diagnose all your friends! :)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good content, Poor quality, June 17, 2008

By 

sally shopper (AZ) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Paranoid's Pocket Guide to Mental Disorders You Can Just Feel Coming On (Paperback)

I liked reading this book. It was as informative as it was entertaining. Unfortunately, after just one read, the cover fell off, and the pages became loose at the binding. The book was constructed very poorly. I suppose for a gag gift it might serve the purpose, but I couldn't reccommend this product to anyone that actually wants to read the book more than once.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little cerebral, but what would you expect??, November 15, 2010

By 

J. Munyon - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Paranoid's Pocket Guide to Mental Disorders You Can Just Feel Coming On (Paperback)

"The Paranoid's Pocket Guide to Mental Disorders You Can Just Feel Coming On" by Dennis DiClaudio is one of those rare finds that is entertaining, enlightening, and encouraging. Written satirically, but at a cerebral level like you would anticipate any worthwhile psychology book to have within its pages. Anxiety, dissociative, factitious, impulse-control, personality, psychotic, sexual, sleep, and somatoform, are disorders explained; and the back of the book has two appendix lists of disorders classified by phobia or mania. The point of this book should be obvious just by the title, but a lot of people overlook that. Mental disorders you can just feel coming on. This book is supposed to be funny. If you actually are suffering from these disorders, this book isn't a means out. This book is not a self-help edition. It is comedy, meant to be read with an open mind, but most importantly by a SANE mind. Which is why it never got much of a following, and has no hope of hitting the New York Times Bestseller list. The majority of Americans can't read above the 8th grade level, want to read something besides a book meant to be slightly educational (me an pa ain't never took much to that there book larnin'), and for something to be considered funny by most people it has to be simple. Strike three. You need to have contemplated your own mental health enough to be interested in what topics get covered in this book, and yet also not take life too seriously. If you are grounded in your personal self-esteem, you'll enjoy this book. If you know by experience that the theory of psychology rarely plays out at the application level, you'll enjoy this book. If you have had opinions of other people possibly being a little bit nuts, you'll enjoy this book. It isn't an absolute requirement for you to have been to college, but that helps if you have too, because you realize how useless some of that higher learning is and how little it empowers your life later on (about as handy as a busted hammer handle). This book pokes fun at psychology and counseling that is overly pretentious, propagated by people full of themselves but more or less too far out of touch to understand their own pampered life having options that frankly just doesn't quite play out the same for everybody who comes to them for help. I found this book a legitimate reference book that is also hilarious frequently as I read through the various descriptions of mental disorders `you can just feel coming on.' I felt like it was worth buying, and have kept it handy for giving me a comedy lift, and to use as a reference occasionally. I wish I could have had some college professors with this sense of humor. This book gets 5 stars from me.