The psychiatrist was not expecting the distraught stranger who staggered into his office and slumped into a chair.
“You’ve got to help me. I’m losing my memory, Doctor,” he sobbed. “I once had a successful business, a wife, home and family; I was a respected member of the community. But all that’s gone now. Since my memory began failing, I’ve lost the business – I couldn’t remember my clients’ names. My wife and children have left me, too; and why shouldn’t they – some nights I wouldn’t get home until four or five in the morning. I’d forget where I lived… And it’s getting worse. Doctor, it’s getting worse!”
“This is not an unusual form of neurosis,” the psychiatrist said soothingly. “Now tell me, just how long ago did you first become aware of this condition?”
“Condition?” The man sat up in his chair. “What condition?!?”
A noted psychiatrist was a guest speaker at a large gathering, and his blonde hostess broached a subject of which the doctor was most at ease.
“Doctor, would you mind telling me,” she asked, “how you detect a mental deficiency in someone who appears completely normal?”
“Nothing is easier,” he replied. “You ask a simple question, one which anyone should be able to answer without any problem. If he or she hesitates, that puts you on the track.”
“What sort of question?” asked the hostess.
“Well, you might ask, ‘Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them. Which one?'” the doctor replied.
The blonde thought for a moment, then said, “You wouldn’t happen to have another example, would you? I’ve never known very much about history!”
Perhaps you’ve heard of the man who thought he was dead, when in reality he was very much alive.
His delusion became such a problem that his family finally paid for him to see a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist spent many laborious sessions trying to convince the man he was still alive. Nothing seemed to work. Finally, the doctor tried one last approach. He took out his medical book and proceeded to show the patient that dead men don’t bleed.
After hours of tedious study, the patient seemed convinced that dead men don’t bleed.
“Do you now agree that dead men don’t bleed?” the doctor asked.
“Yes, I do,” the patient replied. “Very well, then,” the doctor said.
He took out a pin and pricked the patient’s finger. Out came a trickle of blood.
The doctor asked, “What does that tell you?”
“Oh my goodness!” the patient exclaimed as he stared incredulously at his finger……. “Dead men do bleed!!”
