You might recall a couple of galleries of sketchbooks of famous clients made by Danish psychiatrist Dr Jorn Dengelblum. Who operated out of a fancy short stay asylum with a Day Spa attached? Who was liberal with his use of psychedelics in session? Who is known in some circles you won’t find an any self-referential and respecting textbook as the Weird Uncle of Psychoanalysis?

These are from his as-yet unpublished work “Rare Pupper Therapie”, which translates to Weird Boobs Therapy, a little joke on Dengelblum’s part about Norway and also, like all good things to do with the healing arts, carrying a deep undercurrent of earnest love and science.

Dengelblum’s theory was, you see, was based in congnitive dissonance. All of these are “What might have been” covers, de-identified in some way so as to avoid the most obvious lawsuits. Dengelblum would place each album side by side on a stand on a table in the centre of a darkened room. The subject in therapy would be dosed-up with LSD then seated in front of the albums, in near-complete darkness, wearing the best headphones known to science. They looked a little like those orange foam numbers on a Sony Walkman, only with antennae. The iconic pop culture album would begin to play, forwards in one ear, backwards in the other (at the same time) while the lights slowly came up to reveal the album under what Dengelblum called “Screwtiny”. He had quite the accent, alright.

The idea was the pop culture iconography would dissolve and reform into a new amalgam in the subject’s mind. The theraphy only worked on people who knew the iconic album art in question, which wasn’t a problem with this lot. The muisic, not so much; it even made it worse for those who enjoyed the albums, see if you can imagine, from top left, clockwise:

Oh, and at intervals, Dengelblum would intone “Remember, these are both versions of the same piece of art”. They are –

Michael Jackson: Thriller
Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy
Original Broadway Cast: Cats
Queen: II
Simon and Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Nirvana: Nevermind

Dengelblum reported some success in treatment of his wealthy and famous clientele for their creative blockages. JK Rowling came to him after she finished the Potter series. After everyone thought she had, at any rate. Madonna has been to see him, as has Salman Rushdie.

Even more interesting, there is a direct link from these sessions to the proliferation of superhero movies in the past bunch of years. Over 48% of all people working on any given Marvel or DC film have directly accessed at least one Rare papper Therapie session, or their parents did. You can still go and have a session with Dengelblum, so long as you can find where he lives in the wilds of Denmark.

All very hush hush, it doesn’t do to confuse people about pop culture icons, these beacons of sense-making in a crazy world. St Peter’s Sign in book has a Dark Side of the Moon sticker on it, which must be reassuring for the newly-deceased.