Dr. Pickell is the school counselor at Wayside School. He only appears in Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, in which two chapters focus on him. He uses hypnosis to help children with their problems, but often he also throws in a smaller joke, which causes new problems. Originally, he worked as a psychiatrist, but he was fired when people caught onto his jokes. Afterwards, he got a new job as a counselor, in which he kept doing the same.