# Serious Shrinkage

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-shrinkage/5839>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 6, 2000, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-shrinkage/5839 "2000-01-06T07:06:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Rasputin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dec6dc/32.png) [@Rasputin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rasputin)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2000, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-shrinkage/5839/1 "2000-01-06T07:06:00Z")

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Ok, sorry about the title. Some things seem funnier to you when it’s late at night.

Anyways, my question:  
Why are psychiatrists nicknamed “shrinks”?

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“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work… I want to achieve it through not dying.”  
– Woody Allen

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**Author:** ![SoulFrost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@SoulFrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoulFrost)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2000, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-shrinkage/5839/2 "2000-01-06T07:12:00Z")

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Think “head shrinker”…y’know, those voodoo guys who’d shrink an enemy’s head and wear it on his belt…

-David

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**Author:** ![Rasputin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dec6dc/32.png) [@Rasputin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rasputin)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2000, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-shrinkage/5839/3 "2000-01-06T08:19:00Z")

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Thought about that, but couldn’t see an immediate connection between shrinking heads and lying on a couch spilling your guts…

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**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2000, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-shrinkage/5839/4 "2000-01-06T12:43:00Z")

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Well, if you have a large ego you have a “big head”. Thus someone trying to fix a large ego problem would be a “head shrinker” or “shrink”.

That’s just a WAG though.

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**Author:** ![Guy\_Propski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Guy\_Propski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Propski)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2000, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-shrinkage/5839/5 "2000-01-06T13:30:00Z")

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There’s also the association of headshrinker=magician. In other words, the psychiatrist’s methods are just as mysterious as the headshrinkers.

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**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2000, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/serious-shrinkage/5839/6 "2000-01-06T13:41:00Z")

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Or just about as full of hooey…