Humour Articles
NEW ARTICLES
Our colleagues are busy writing and forwarding various articles about humour, provocation and more.
A Brief History of Humour | H Kaplan
14 Oct 2025
Throughout history, doctors, writers, and philosophers have recognised the physical, emotional, and social value of humour. From sacred texts to modern psychological practices, laughter has long been regarded as a powerful medicine for both body and mind. We, Dr Brian and Hephzibah Kaplan, were personally introduced… Read more…
Are You an Idiot? Gurdjieff’s Science of Idiots
31 Aug 2025
G. I. Gurdjieff, the Armenian-Greek mystic and teacher of the early twentieth century, startled his students with the claim that we are all Idiots. Not in the casual sense of insult, but as part of a precise spiritual typology. Read more…
The Paradoxical Power of Inversion |
26 Aug 2025
In the fields of psychotherapy and strategic decision-making, approaches that emphasise reversal and paradox have long demonstrated their capacity to generate fresh insights. Provocative therapy, developed by Frank Farrelly, and NeoHumour, later coined by Dr Brian and Hephzibah Kaplan, exemplify this… Read more…
Humour | David Whyte
31 May 2025
“Humour is a disguised form of spiritual discipline: an art form dedicated to the never-ending multi-contextual and multivalent nature of reality. A sense of humour tells us that whatever context we might have arranged for ourselves, there is always another context… Read more…
On Reverse Psychology | Hephzibah Kaplan
21 May 2025
Provocative Therapy is a system of psychotherapy and coaching in which the therapist plays the devil’s advocate, siding with the negative aspects of the client’s ambivalence toward their life goals, relationships, work, and the structures within which they live. Read more…
Laughter in Therapy | Extract from blog post 21 Feb 2017 |
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. Read more…
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?” Read more…
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.
What’s So Funny? – Interview with Dr Brian Kaplan | Lainee Kirke
Humour 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. Read more…
In Favour of Using Humour to Catalyse Behavioural Change | by AI
Humour has long been recognized as a powerful tool in communication, capable of breaking down barriers, creating connections, and facilitating understanding. When leveraged effectively, humour can play a significant role in catalysing behavioural change. Read more…
“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.
