Humour articles

“Humour is the capacity to think in abstraction. It is the slip in the system. It is leeway. It is curiosity, misdirection and revelatory charm.

Humour is that unforeseen cough in our brains in reaction to the absurd. It is nonsensical and therein lies its charm. It is removal, appreciation – sometimes bitter appreciation – which permits us to see our scenario as though in the third person, enables us to rise above our unique, and often bizarre challenges and foibles, and then laugh backward at them, thus blowing off steam, thus creating a little give.”

Douglas Kruger, author, coach

Laughter in Therapy

– Dr. John Rowan

As far as I know the major research on laughter in therapy was conducted by that great theorist of the humanistic approach, the late Alvin Mahrer (1985). In his 1996 book he says: “Experiential therapists may not be widely emotional of feeling in their actual lives. They may not be screamers or hard laughers. But in the session, they must be able to have strong feelings. They must be more open than the patient to strong feeling and to just about any kind of feeling. You must allow yourself to undergo pain, hurt, turmoil. anguish, all kinds of bad feelings. In the same way, you must be able to undergo strong good feelings. You must be skilled in undergoing scenes, moments, opportunities for absolute silliness, whimsy, laughter, clowning, rollicking, giggling and chuckling.” This injunction is followed by no less than twelve references to the research literature including the classic study of 1984 by Mahrer and his wife.) Before that it was the amazing work of Eileen Walkenstein, who had a completely fresh and unboundaried approach to therapy – full of real humour and fun.

Not well-known enough or referred to is the exciting work Frank Farrelly (Farrelly and Brandsma 1974) which is still being carried on in London by Brian Kaplan. This approach relies a great deal on being open to the incongruous, the quirky, the unexpected. Brian even creates badges for his clients to wear, with humorous references to their supposed problems.

“Humour creates expansion, openness, creativity and social connections.”

(Buxman, 1991; Gelkopf et al., 2006; Trungpa, 2008; Ziv, 2010)


It seems this is a serious challenge to the therapists here, whatever their labels or persuasions. Are we bringing to the session the full range of our own capabilities, or are we making a quite restricted choice of what to reveal? Are we allowing our full range of feelings to come into the session, and encouraging the client to do the same? Are we noticing the incongruous and the quirky, the surprising and the funny, and allowing it into the session?

(from blog post | John Rowan | 21 February 2017)

Are You Feeling Funny?

– Arnold Brown

When I first met Brian and Hephzi (Kaplan) in the early 1980s, we could not have predicted that forty years later, we would all still be enthusiastically involved in stage shows, workshops and now our latest exciting project, the podcast, ”Are You Feeling Funny?” (master-minded by Alan Nixon, the iconic former BBC Radio producer, the brilliant Snipper Nixon team and me, the Comedy Consultant). All of our projects are driven by one basic concept – laughter is the very essence of well-being!

When I first began to visit Brian in his surgery, he was my doctor and I had the role of his personal jester. I told him my new jokes and routines – and in exchange, he prescribed solutions to many hypochondriacal inquiries with his trademark ‘twinkle in the eye’ persona. Visits with Brian also involved him explaining that when we laugh, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals, endorphins, are released.

The belly laugh is the apex of laughter and the three individuals I know personally who react in this way to jokes are comedians Paul Merton, Alexei Sayle – and, yes, the very same Dr. Brian Kaplan.

“Are You Feeling Funny” podcasts produced by Snipper Nixon with Arnold Brown.

Dr. Brian Kaplan interviews top UK comedians about their physical and mental health.

PODCAST LINK

“Are You Feeling Funny?” was one of the first podcasts to reveal the personal stories of the performers who give us the precious gift of laughter, while perhaps having to deal with their own demons and health issues. It is gratifying to note that many of the participants, formerly unknown to the general public, are now today household names on TV and Radio; indeed the legendary Stewart Lee was named in 2018 by ‘The Times’ as “the best current English language comedian in the world.”

Of course, laughter is sometimes not the only aim of many of today’s stand-ups. Some want to radically change society, railing at injustices and inequalities. But the an intriguing question always remains – what is the real personal story behind the comedy mask of these performers?

I look forward to 2023 when we hope to exclusively reveal the next guest on the Are You Feeling Funny? podcast is the most famous (former) comedian in the world – Volodymr Zelensky.

Arnold Brown | Comedian, Winner of the Perrier Award for Comedy, 1987

Wishing for More Laughter

– Hephzibah Kaplan

I

recently ran an art therapy workshop inviting participants to make images of anything they wished for themselves. One participant made this image and it is shared with her permission.

The painter said it was inspired by the 2022 ‘Art is the Antidote’ exhibition at the Voorlinden Museum in the Netherlands where they say that they are offering ‘visitors a good dose of humorous, socially critical and colourful artworks to build up their resistance.’

The participant described how a friend of hers is superb at making her laugh when she’s going through a rough time, which makes a significant difference in her resilience. Her image expressed her wish for more laughter in her life.

I commented that all these ‘hahahas’ were like different types of laughter: the belly laugh, the shy, tentative laugh, the ironic, the mean, the warmhearted, the loud and the loving. Someone else in the group commented on how the lines resembled the rhythm of a heart monitor, like a laughter pulse. Another person commented on how the laughter lines move horizontally across the page and yet there are also vertical lines that look like tears. The paper itself looks wrinkled, as if it was flooded with tears. We made a connection between how we may laugh to overcome, as well as deny, our internal tears of grief, just as we may have tears of rage, and yet we also have those catalytic tears of laughter – this being the laughter of liberation.

Comedy and art have a long association. Just as art can bring people to a better place, so can comedy. In the Tate Museum’s podcast, The Art of Comedy, Charlie George states the origins of comedy as an art form can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece. Humour and irony were consistently used by comic poets and playwrights to influence political opinions. There is a picture by Hogarth called Caricatures and Characters. Many others, including DaVinci, DuChamp, Magritte, Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, Grayson Perry et al all use humour in their work to comment on social and political issues. Laughter unites others as well as helping to recalibrate one’s self.

To read more on this theme, follow this Link

Hephzibah Kaplan

What’s So Funny?

– Interview with Dr Brian Kaplan, by Lainee Kirk

H

umour has always been used to cope with and make light of challenging situations. Bringing humour into a serious topic is not meant to belittle its weight, but instead lift some of it for the recipient.

Court jesters of the Middle Ages were relied on to deliver comic relief and often called upon by royalty in times of high stress. Jesters were even brought to the front lines of wars to tell jokes to the soldiers, sing suggestive songs, and taunt the opposing line. They tried to keep the soldiers laughing until they moved into battle.

Though we don’t have court jesters to call on anymore, we can use social media as a constant source of laughter. Despite humour being a large component of our lives, it is usually avoided in therapeutic practices. Dr. Brian Kaplan firmly believes in integrating the power of humour into therapy.

“It is a great pity when people doing ordinary therapy don’t use humour when the situation cries out for the use of humour,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan has created the acronym ‘SMILEE’ to refer to the physiological benefits of laughter.

In the 1970s an American, Frank Farrelly stumbled upon the use of humour and clinical reverse psychology to catalyse positive behavioural change. He travelled the world teaching this approach, which he dubbed ‘Provocative Therapy’ and taught Kaplan, and his art therapist wife Hephzibah, directly.

Kaplan reminds us that we are not a single self, but a multitude of subselves that present different aspects of our personality and conditioning. Some subselves can dominate behaviour in unhelpful ways. A provocative approach – or the term coined by the Kaplans, neohumour – is highly effective at quietening down any aberrant subselves allowing more congruent behaviour to hold sway.

The idea of subselves is not new, but rather a useful naming of the aspects of personality. Freud used Id, Ego, and Superego to label parts of the psyche. Carl Jung used archetypes to describe aspects of an individual. Over the years, many therapists have used various labels for these sub-groups of personality.

Before a session, Kaplan introduces the idea of Provocative Therapy and explains how humour will be used to quieten down helpless or stubborn subselves. He always asks explicit permission to use this approach, which is usually granted very quickly. Kaplan says that therapeutic humour must always be delivered ‘with a twinkle in the eye and affection in the heart’, the Golden Rule of Provocative Therapy. It is key that the client can always tell that humour is used with their best interests in mind.

Reverse psychology functions under the assumption that people do not enjoy being told what to do. One of Kaplan’s interventions is to congratulate the over-influential subself encouraging those very behaviours in comical extremes. The issue becomes clearer to the client when it is amplified, mirrored back and encouraged even more. There are many strategies to do this. While it feels like a warm friendly conversation it often elicits life-changing effects.

An example of such an exchange:

  • Patient: I feel like I have been working too much
  • Kaplan: What would you like to do rather than working?
  • Patient: I’d like more time to spend with my children
  • Kaplan: Well, I’m sure your kids will prefer your money to your time. You should pick up even more shifts!

The hope is that the patient gains autonomy over their problem and comes to a solution on their own. The absurdity of Kaplan’s approach mirrors the absurdity of the person’s unhelpful behaviour. Kaplan has found that, often, people already know the solution to their problems and advising them directly is pointless. Humour serves to galvanise the positive shift the clients request.

“By extrapolating to absurd, they begin to think, ‘That’s ridiculous what he said’”, Kaplan said. “Then they come down from the extrapolation and think, ‘You know what, it’s a bit ridiculous what I’m already doing, it’s already too loud.’”

Brian Kaplan’s book, co-created with his wife Hephzibah, was published by Loba in 2021. Entitled Almost Happy: Pushing Your Buttons with Reverse Psychology, it includes original images of 114 archetypal buttons and offers provocative suJESTions to provoke these archetypes to be more congruent.

Click image above or click here to view/download a PDF of this article

“Humor looks at the self from the outside, from a distance. It sees problems…and transfers them into acceptable properties of the self (acknowledging their existence as part of the self), although not overtly identifying with them.”

Jakab, 1998a, pp. 17–18). IJAT ref.