You ain't never had a friend like me

Poor Genie.

Once, Aladdin's fast-talking sidekick, who aided Aladdin's long term goal of tagging the princess, has now been resigned to a diagnosis of mania.

Incidentally, Best. BSFCR. Ever.

So when you watch Genie's introduction clip, he really does exhibit most of the DSMIV's classifications for manic behavior, including grandiosity, pressured speech, distractibility, etc.

I'm thinking that if this gets out, there is *inevitably* going to be an upper level psych course at some university somewhere that exclusively consists of diagnosing characters from Disney films with psychiatric disorders, and like "human sexuality" or anything with the word "film" or "cinema" in it, will become the MUST TAKE bird course of all the undergrads as they diagnose Beauty with bestiality, Prince Charming with necrophilia, and Cruella deVille with narcissistic personality disorder.

I'm also wondering the diagnosis for a class of medical students who, being a week from the start of the last finals in basic sciences they will ever take, exclaimed an outraged "AWWWW!!!!!" when the instructor tried to cut the Aladdin clip midsong. Said instructor, resigned to the fact that he is, in fact, babysitting a group of 20-50somethings that have gone solidly into regression, placated us by resuming the clip so we could delay talk about the implications of mania, though I think my diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to the psychological aftermath of being trapped in a lamp for 10,000 years should not have been overlooked.

Other astute colleagues pointed out that had we been able to watch the entire movie, we could have made a more definitive diagnosis of the genie, since in the clip, we could only observe a manic episode rather than determining whether it persisted for a week, and whether it was staggered with periods of depression, where the Genie fell into the classic SIGECAPS symptoms, lost interest in helping Aladdin, started having sleep disorders, was unable to perform sexually, and started feeling worthless. Maybe that was in the sequel.

Recommended treatment? Lithium. Though be careful because it has a low therapeutic index. Think of THAT the next time you watch Aladdin.

For Friday, does Iago have antisocial personality disorder like his Shakespearean counterpart, or are parrots just kind of bastards? And is "kind of a bastard" a relevant DSMIV diagnosis?

Speaking of the DSMIV, oral sex is considered to be a paraphilia. So, let this be an admonishment to you all: You're all dirty! Dirty dirty dirty dirty!

Now, for the next part of this exercise, proceed in diagnosing all your friends with psych disorders. EVERYBODY'S got one (or two or five); it's just a matter of finding them in the book.