<![CDATA[Gawker: mental health]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: mental health]]> http://gawker.com/tag/mentalhealth http://gawker.com/tag/mentalhealth <![CDATA[Victorian Psychiatrists Upset at Wikipedia Exposing Their Voodoo Secrets]]> Apparently, mind-doctors are still using the Rorschach Test to diagnose the vapors, hysteria, and brain disequilibrium in their patients. And they're hopping mad, because Wikipedia has published the answers.

The Rorschach Test is a series of standard inkblots that crazy people are supposed to look at. When they describe what they see to a trained specialist, the answers will reveal the secret to their malady, which usually involves a wartime experience where some lady had to smother her crying baby to prevent the North Koreans from finding them, but the crazy person remembers it as a chicken because it was just too painful and no it wasn't a chicken it was a baby! A baby!

For many years, psychiatrists kept a tight lid on the "correct" answers to the Rorschach Test—that is, the answers that most sane people tend to give—because crafty people can game the system and slip by the rigorous diagnostic standards that psychiatrists who rely on inkblots have established. But now that someone has posted the ten inkblots and the most commonly given answers on Wikipedia, the whole Rorschach regime is threatened, and psychiatrists who rely on the process fear that they may have to resort to methods that involve science. From the New York Times:

"The more test materials are promulgated widely, the more possibility there is to game it," said Bruce L. Smith, a psychologist and president of the International Society of the Rorschach and Projective Methods, who has posted under the user name SPAdoc. He quickly added that he did not mean that a coached subject could fool the person giving the test into making the wrong diagnosis, but rather "render the results meaningless."

Because the inkblots were created nearly 90 years ago, they're no longer copyrighted, so the Rorschach community can't do much about the leak. Here's the standard test, with commonly given answers as reported in Wikipedia, in gallery form. We don't really get what the big deal is: They all look like vaginas with teeth to us.


Bat, butterfly, moth


Two humans


Two humans


Animal skin, massive animal


Bat, butterfly, moth


Animal hide, skin, rug


Human heads, faces


Animal (pink portion)


Human (orange portion)


Crab, lobster, spider (blue portion)

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<![CDATA[Naomi Campbell Claims Racist Slur Caused Terror Flight Air Attack]]> Scary-hot attack doll and terrible person Naomi Campbell says the victims of her latest round of beatings are racists, though she can't or won't identify who supposedly uttered the slur that supposedly sent her into slap-and-throw-things-at-people mode. "British Airways rejected claims of racism on Saturday after supermodel Naomi Campbell, who pleaded guilty to assault in a foul-mouthed 'air rage' incident, said she was likened to a black 'Golliwog' doll during the flight. BA said it did not accept the accusation made by Campbell, who was convicted of assault on Friday and sentenced to 200 hours of unpaid community work, that someone on the flight called her a 'Golliwog supermodel.'"

"British Airways does not accept any allegations of racism," the airline said in a statement. "We are proud of our diversity.

"We have strict policies concerning dignity at work and have long-standing training programs on diversity and inclusion."

Campbell, 38, told Sky News in an interview that her flash of air rage, in which she assaulted two police officers, swore repeatedly and screamed abuse at the captain of the Los Angeles-bound BA flight, was partly prompted by racist comments.

"I was called a racial name on that flight and that was part of my reaction," she said. "I was called a 'Golliwog supermodel' — I don't think that's really fair, do you?"

Asked who had used the term, which refers to a black rag doll from children's literature, Campbell said: "Someone on the flight, not the passenger." [Reuters]

Funny, when the air rage story first broke, the accusations of racism were flowing in the opposite direction.

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<![CDATA[Ivy League School's Janitors First Line Of Defense Against Student Suicides]]> suicide.jpg Cornell University is training its janitors in the fine art of spotting suicidal college students! "These kids are looking to us to provide care," one such eagle-eyed custodian tells the Wall Street Journal today. "But they don't see administrators every day, they see me." The maintenance worker noticed she was cleaning up one student's vomit on a regular basis and reported the girl might be suffering from an eating disorder. Okay Cornell, we know you're all sensitive about your famous Suicide Ridge and we applaud your efforts at challenging the standard of university mental health care, but come on now! Interfering with the crusade for the perfect spring break Cabo beach bod is just not cool.

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