Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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! :)

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.

"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.

The book is an entertaining read, but if you're looking into a more textual explanation to mental disorders, skip this one. It plays out more like a show you would find on spike, and not the history channel. With clever stories, and situations, it almost applauds itself on making it fun for the reader. It takes upwards of two pages of imaginative writing before getting into the informative. Two pages isn't a lot when you consider the size of the page, but when the explanation is a paragraph, you feel cheated.

Another annoying aspect is that it seems to bend the disorder and it's plausibility to give way for an entertaining read. This is very second hand, as I don't know enough about the disorders to decide whether or not the situations described in the book are accurate.

If you're looking for a funny entertaining book, or just one to get a very basic over lay of the disorders, this might be for you. If you don't really care for the cutesy writing and are interested in the facts, try something else.

DeClaudio has written several "Guide Books" that are excellent to leave laying around for guests to pick up, turn to any page and get a smile. He has basically taken a subject and then bull dog through the topics that are most apt to make the reader squirm (and laugh out loud). Lots of fun. I'm using the same review of all books in the series. No matter which ones you choose you'll enjoy equally.....bg

the book came in great condition and i read it its a great read as well

I didn't read this cover to cover, but thought it was pretty entertaining and also educational. I think it would be a fun informal supplement to an abnormal psych class. The descriptions are vivid and funny, and that makes it easy to remember them. Instead of an abstract, stark, clinical description of symptoms, you get the "gist" of the disorder.

this book is fun reading, the fact that it is not written by an MD makes it lacking, if it goes on sale for 5 bucks take it, otherwise hold off.