RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE OF HUMOR IN PSYCHOTHERAPY

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

While humor is potentially useful in psychotherapy, many therapists have also pointed out that there are risks associated with its use. Humor can be used for a variety of purposes in everyday social interactions, including negative uses such as humiliation and ridicule, coercion into submission to social norms, and avoidance of problem solving. Although most psychotherapists try to avoid using humor in these ways, there is a risk that their humor may be misunderstood by clients and mistakenly perceived as intrusive or aggressive. Since humor is inherently ambiguous, there is always the possibility of getting it wrong. Consequently, psychotherapists should carefully monitor how humorous remarks are received by clients and how they affect their feelings and perceptions.

The therapist using humor can give the client the impression that they are not taking their problems very seriously. If the therapist is forced to explain that what he said is just a joke, this means that humor could be used inappropriately and tactlessly, and the client's inability to perceive what was said as humor indicates that the therapist is not attuned to the client's feelings and needs. Therapists sometimes inappropriately use humor as a defensive response to their own troubles or as a way to demonstrate their wit. When used by clients, humor can also act as an unhealthy defense mechanism, a way to avoid solving problems, or a means of devaluing their own strengths and feelings through self-ridicule.

In addition, clients may exhibit a maladaptive, aggressive style of humor. By engaging in humorous interactions with these clients, the therapist may inadvertently reinforce an unhealthy style of humor.

Another risk of using humor is that when the therapist deals with certain topics in a humorous manner, the client may feel that these topics are taboo and should not be seriously discussed. In addition, clients may feel compelled to laugh with the therapist to show that they have a “healthy sense of humor,” even when this superficial cheerfulness masks underlying feelings of pain or resentment. Thus, the therapist's use of humor often prevents the client from expressing negative feelings or disagreements.

Therapists should not only carefully monitor the impact of all their communication in psychotherapy, but also be especially attentive to the impact of humor on clients. But this does not mean that you should always be serious and devoid of humor.

R. Pierce suggested that although humor is often useful, it is inappropriate in psychotherapy:

• when it is used to humiliate a client, laugh at him or imitate him;
• when used as a defensive reaction to divert attention from an emotionally stressful problem to safer topics;
• when it is not related to the goal of psychotherapy, but satisfies the therapist's own desire for fun and takes away valuable time and energy.

Psychotherapists should be very careful in using humor when dealing with clients who have specific humor-related difficulties. An entirely different type of humor-related difficulty occurs in clients who overuse humor as a way of trivializing their problems and avoiding resolving them. These are the type of clients who use a pathological form of humor during psychotherapy, treating their psychological problems and the therapeutic process itself as "one big joke." These uses of humor can be accompanied by other forms of avoidant behavior. The goal here is not to eliminate the client's sense of humor, but to make him more integrated with reality and therefore healthier.