An article I wrote about counselling and humour:
JOKE WORK : A ROLE FOR HUMOUR IN THERAPY?
PETER B BALL
INTRODUCTION
Humour is a characteristically human quality and, in folk wisdom, the possession of a sense of humour is considered to be an asset and to be the mark of the healthy individual. I consider myself to have quite a lively sense of humour and I have written this essay to explore the ways in which humour could be used appropriately in the counselling context, since it is a vital part of my personality and I want to bring my personality to bear upon my work. If I am to truly 'meet' my client then I will be able to reveal that humouristic side of my personality. But what place has humour in the 'serious' business of counselling and helping people cope with the suffering and frustrations of their lives?
An anecdote, related by a friend of mine, brought this issue into sharp relief. She was attending an M.Sc course in Health Psychology and shared some lectures with others who were studying Counselling Psychology. She described the Counselling Psychologists as wearing cheesecloth, with dangly earrings and having a ponderous, navel-gazing intensity about them! I laughed out loud when she related this to me, but afterwards thought, half-jokingly, half- seriously, 'do I fit the image' or 'is that the only possible image of a counsellor'? I certainly would not feel comfortable myself in confessing my problems and concerns to such a 'ponderous, serious and intense' individual. As to becoming like this myself, well dangly earrings and cheesecloth were never my style (!), but the kind of navel-gazing seriousness wasn't either. So what am I to do? Either have a massive personality transplant or find a way of using my personality, including my sense of humour in my counselling work. But how? Is it right? Is it safe? Could it help or harm clients? What is humour anyway? It is to address questions such as these that I have written this paper.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMOUR
Human emotions generally are not studied in any depth by psychologists, apart from emotions such as fear and anxiety which connect with other animals and form part of comparative psychology or ethology. Humour is hardly studied at all apart from in popular psychology.
Sigmund Freud had a theory about humour which was a synthesis of incongruity, relief and conflict theories. Freud even writes about 'joke work' (1905, 1928) and postulates that humour works by means of two principal mechanisms: 'condensation' and 'displacement'. Condensation is seen as a technique which entails an economy in thought and expression and which thereby conserves psychic energy. Displacement has the same sense as when used to refer to a defence mechanism. Essentially the displacement results from transferring psychic energy arising from conflict or incongruity to a humorous anecdote which brings relief. Freud believed that cultivating a sense of humour could help lift repressions (i.e. unconscious conflictual material) but could also be harmful, particularly in certain forms of sarcasm and irony, directed at the self. Contemporary psychologists elaborate on the function and uses of humour. Kahn (1989) identified five primary functions that humour serves for individuals and groups . See also Hayes, 1994.
1. Coping. Obviously, this has positive therapeutic value. By using humour as a coping mechanism, people are able to bear the burden of suffering or misfortune. This is done by recognising the incongruity of believing that one is the only one suffering, thus increasing one's sense of shared humanity. Another aspect of coping is refraining.
2. Reframing. This involves looking at things in a different way, a form of cognitive reappraisal with affective elements. This also harnesses divergent thinking and lateral thinking and associated creative problem solving strategies, which may eventually help to solve problems.
3. Communicating. Humour can be an unobtrusive way of seeking help. If a person moans and groans continually to friends and potential helpers, they are in fact less likely to help and will avoid the complainer. Using humour can disarm their defences and also conveys the message that while help is needed, the person seeking help is essentially able to cope and will not place unbearable burdens upon the helpers. Of course, this can also work negatively - if humour is used to excessively minimise problems or concerns, then friends may assume that nothing is wrong and no help is needed.
4. Expressing hostility. Humour, particularly sarcasm and irony can be very sophisticated expressions of anger and criticism and are very hard to answer, since an attack is conveyed in such a way as to circumvent logic and rational debate or discussion. Again this can have positive and negative consequences, depending upon the basic level of understanding and trust operating between speaker and interlocutor. Sarcasm and irony directed at oneself can be very harmful.
5. Constructing identities. By expressing a sense of humour, a person gives out the message that they are fun- loving and easy going and are good company. Too much humour however may result in people forming the judgement that they are immature and shallow. Once again a balance needs to be struck.
THE USE OF HUMOUR IN R.E.B.T.
The use of humour as a therapeutic technique has been advocated by Ellis and others. Others have also advocated the use of humour on the path towards personal growth. Gurdjieff was a master at using humour and acting in very bad taste in order to shock people out of being overly serious (Tart, 1988). Dryden (1987) summarises the rationale behind this by saying that "RET counsellors tend to be appropriately humorous with their clients since much emotional disturbance stems from.... clients taking themselves, their problems, other people and the world too seriously." Dryden is quick to point out that "(counsellors) do not poke fun at the clients themselves but at their self-defeating thoughts, feelings and actions" and that the purpose of using humour in this way is to "strive to model for their clients the therapeutic advantages of taking a serious but humorously ironic attitude to life". This is achieved by using techniques such as: exaggeration, paradox, humorous songs, etc. Elsewhere, Dryden (1991), describes the use of such techniques. An example is given of how the therapist in trying to help a client with low frustration tolerance, makes an exaggerated display of concern, by treating her as if she could hardly walk and by escorting her by the arm to the chair. This eventually prompted the client to respond with 'Don't treat me like a child' and '1 can cope', a response which could never have been achieved by a more directly didactic approach. The use of exaggeration and humorous songs is described in detail by Dryden elsewhere (1990), but adds little to the above exposition.
There is something which sticks in the throat when I read about these techniques. It really seems to be as if the therapist could be so easily led into abusing humour as a powerful tool to 'educate' the client. Also, the use of humorous songs would not work in our culture and seems very like a teacher teaching nursery rhymes to young children'. if anything, the message to the client from this is that, in addition to having psychological problems, they are also stupid and need to be treated like children.
H0W COULD HUMOUR BE OF HELP TO CLIENTS?
Humour on the part of the therapist can be of potential help to clients in a number of ways: 1. It can convey the message that the therapist is human. 2. It can help to break down barriers. 3. It can build trust and empathy if used appropriately. 4. It can help the client to relax and possibly lift repressions. 5. It can convey messages succinctly and effectively.
Two personal examples illustrate the last point above. I am in personal therapy with a Gestalt therapist who has used humour on a number of occasions to communicate with me. I remember two incidents in particular which illustrate the therapeutic power of humour. The first occasion, followed a dialogue when I had been talking about my faults, prejudices and blind spots. I went on at some length and Nuala, my therapist listened attentively and, at the end, simply said, "Welcome to the human race Peter." She conveyed more by this simple sentence than any point-by-point interpretation of my monologue could have done! The second occasion I remember was her response to a session when I had really verbalised and intellectualised at length. She was attentively listening and then made a gesture with her mouth like a goldfish. I was quite taken aback at first. Did she mean that she was bored'? I knew her better than that. It was her non-verbal and humoristic way of letting me know what I was doing (intellectualising), by mimicking a goldfish. We both had a good laugh about it and it certainly helped to build our relationship, since I imagine she took quite a risk in doing this!
HUMOUR THAT ENHANCES THE COUNSELLING RELATIONSHIP
Humour on the part of the therapist can build and enhance the therapeutic relationship as outlined in the previous section. At all times such humour should be good natured, natural and directed at laughing with rather than at the client. No attempt should be made to ridicule or belittle the client and sarcasm should be avoided as it is a covert form of attack. Therapeutic use of humour can result in a client's putting problems into perspective. At times, counsellors can help clients learn to take themselves less seriously and even laugh at some of the foolishness of their behaviour. (Mosak, 1987)
Although therapy is a responsible matter, it need not be deadly serious. Both clients and counsellors can enrich a relationship by laughing. Humour and tragedy are closely linked and after allowing ourselves to feel some experiences that are painfully tragic, we can also genuinely laugh at how seriously we have taken our situation. We secretly delude ourselves into believing that we are unique in that we are alone in our pain and we alone have experienced the tragic. What a welcome relief when we can admit that pain is not our exclusive domain. (Corey, 1991).
HUMOUR THAT DETRACTS FROM THE COUNSELLING RELATIONSHIP
There are times, of course, when laughter is used to cover up anxiety or to escape from the experience of facing threatening material. The therapist needs to distinguish between humour that distracts and humour that enhances the situation (Corey, 1991). As mentioned already, humour which belittles, embarrasses or intimidates the client is to be avoided at all costs. Clients also sometimes use humour as a defence to avoid feeling the pain of difficult material or as a distraction and this needs to be worked with by the therapist. [Culley, 1991, provides an illustrative vignette of how this can be done.]
HUMOUR AS A DEFENSE MECHANISM
Humour can be used by clients to defend against painful material or as a distracting device to change the topic when painful material is covered. The therapist needs to assess whether this is a healthy or unhealthy defence. It may be that the client is not yet ready to work with the painful stuff, or is ready but is unwilling to do the work. The very least the therapist can do is to point out to the client that they have used humour to change the topic and to explore the reasons for this with the client.
CONCLUSIONS
Several practitioners have written about the role that fun and humour have in psychotherapy and counselling (see Ellis, 1977; Greenwald, 1975.) To be effective, humour must be timed appropriately. It is usually unwise to employ humour until the therapeutic relationship has been well established. Once this involvement with a client exists, it is far more likely that humour will result in positive outcomes. Therapeutic humour has an educative, corrective message, and it helps clients put situations in perspective. Such humour does not involve hostility, ridicule, or a lack of respect. On the other hand, harmful humour exacerbates a client's problems, undermines a sense of personal worth, and leaves the person feeling resentful (Saper, 1987). It goes without saying that humour that undermines the self esteem of clients by deprecating and humiliating them is never appropriate, for it works against therapeutic aims. (Corey, 1991)
Finally, I guess this means that I shall not, after all, be rushing out to buy dangly earrings and cheesecloth! Preparing this paper has, if you like, 'given me permission' to use my personality, including my sense of humour in my work as a trainee counsellor with clients, albeit with a growing awareness of limitations and pitfalls. So, you won't find me amongst the navel-gazers!
REFERENCES
Nicky Hayes. Foundations of Psychology. Routledge. 1994.
Gerald Corey. Theory and Practice of Counselling and Psychotherapy (4th Edition), Brooks/Cole, 1991.
Richard L Gregory (Ed), The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Oxford.
Windy Dryden. Creativity in Rational Emotive Therapy. Gale Centre Pub1ications. 1990.
Windy Dryden. Rational Emotive Counselling in Action, Sage, 1990.
Windy Dryden. Reason and therapeutic change, Whurr. 1991.
Windy Dryden. Counselling individuals: The Rational Emotive Approach Taylor & Francis, 1987.
Charles T Tart. Waking Up, Element Books, 1988.
Susan R Walen, Raymond DiGiuseppe & Richard L Wesslcr. A Practitioner's Guide to Rational Emotive Therapy, Oxford , 1980.
Sue Culley. Integrative Counselling Skills in Action, Sage 1991.
Robin Skinncr & John Cleese. Life and how to Survive it. Menthuen. 1993.
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