What Role Has Humor Played in Your Therapeutic Process?
Engaging with humor in therapy is like navigating a playful river where the currents switch between light-heartedness and deep emotional streams. From relationship therapists to private practice social workers, professionals harness humor to create profound shifts in their clients' journeys. This article presents five unique insights, beginning with using humor to ease comfort and culminating in breaking up vulnerability with humor. Dive in as experts reveal the versatile role humor plays in fostering emotional resets and building rapport without treading into cliché territory.
- Use Humor to Ease Comfort
- Leverage Laughter for Emotional Reset
- Utilize Humor with Challenging Emotions
- Break Up Vulnerability with Humor
- Use Humor Carefully for Rapport
Use Humor to Ease Comfort
As a sex therapist, humor is crucial in my work. Since it is a sensitive subject, I use humor to help people feel more comfortable and relaxed early on in our sessions. It puts them at ease, making it easier for them to open up and share their story. Humor creates an atmosphere of comfort, which is highly essential to the therapeutic bond.
Leverage Laughter for Emotional Reset
I consistently get feedback that my clients enjoy my use of humor and the ability to laugh in-session. One client texted me just last week, "I was at the end of my rope today, and you helped reset me too. Your laughter is great medicine." A well-timed joke, self-deprecation, or even sarcasm can bring a sense of levity to dark, serious situations and serve as a sort of emotional reset.
When you feel like crying, coping through laughter can be part of the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy technique of "opposite action." I've shared funny clips in-session from shows like South Park and The Office, as well as from various movies. Having a cache of hilarious mental health memes that I text to clients at key moments has been worth its weight in gold in building rapport and connection to clients. Humor makes me more relatable as a human and less of an expert on a pedestal.
Utilize Humor with Challenging Emotions
Since our office works often with children, teens, and adults, humor is a big part of our work! As trained child-therapists, we learn early in our careers that being able to utilize humor, and even sarcasm, with particularly sassy teen clients can be a great benefit in building a strong therapeutic relationship.
I personally work often with parents going through intense challenges within their families. Whether it is coping with loss, managing a child's serious medical condition, or trying to be the best possible parent you can be to a child who is struggling, humor helps. Being able to weave in light-hearted commentary while exploring deep, dark, and challenging emotions makes it all feel more manageable and easier for clients.
Break Up Vulnerability with Humor
I always say, "Humor is healing!" Sometimes, when we feel uncomfortable, vulnerable, and exposed in the therapy space, humor can cut through the stickiness of that. Think about thick, sticky, sweet honey. In small doses, it has healing benefits, such as fighting infection and reducing inflammation. But the thick stickiness and sweetness of it can be overwhelming or strong. Adding a few drops of water or even melting it a bit with heat can break up the thickness, stickiness, and sweetness of it, still providing those healing qualities.
That's what humor does. It breaks up the uncomfortable, exposed, vulnerable feelings of the therapeutic process while still providing those healing qualities. Humor does wonders for the soul, the heart, and the healing process in the therapy space.
Use Humor Carefully for Rapport
Humor can be very effective in the therapeutic process, but it needs to be done carefully and usually once significant rapport is established. I would likely not use humor during an initial intake session unless the client initiated something, and laughter worked towards building rapport. I am also aware that sometimes clients use humor as a defense mechanism to not deal with deeper emotions, but even when that is the case, I wait until rapport has been established before pointing this out. Timing is very important when using humor in therapy. It can lead to deeper rapport and healing as laughter is good medicine.
