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About the book...
This is an easy to read, illustrated, self-help guide to overcome therapy with humour skills. These techniques are based on my clinical experience in which clients made positive changes. The case studies and cartoons bring the topic to life and make the book a pleasure to read.
You can learn how to change unhelpful thinking and behaviours such as perfectionism, procrastination, worry, agoraphobia, job anxiety, clutter and poor communication. You will discover how to take control of your life, relax, and how to do a laughter workout!
Book excerpt
I have been a psychiatric nurse for over thirty years. During this time, I have learned a lot from my clients. One of the most important things is that when people start to see some humor in their situation or in themselves, they begin to feel better. Because of this, humor has always been a natural part of my clinical therapy to develop relationships, offer alternative ways to perceive situations and create emotional balance. That said, humor is most appropriate when the relationship has been established and people feel safe. A client should never feel that you are making fun of them or making light of his or her problems.
As a result of seeing so many positive effects in individual therapy, my colleague, Adrienne Sloan and I officially introduced humor techniques into a group therapy program for clients with panic disorder. Our research showed that clients reduced their anxiety symptoms in only four sessions. Humor and laughter relaxed the anxious participants allowing them to be more comfortable in a group. As well, participants were able to use humor to change unhelpful thinking and learn coping skills.
Adrienne and I presented our findings at The Anxiety Disorder Association conferences in Pittsburgh, Orlando, Boston, San Diego and Washington. We presented the same information at the International Society for Humor Studies Conferences in Birmingham England, Bergen Norway and Osaka Japan. Great interest in the therapeutic uses of humor to overcome anxiety was shown at these conferences.
We developed a humor skills program for the staff and volunteers at our hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. At our six-month follow-up the attendees reported that they were able to handle stress more effectively because of their new skills. Fascinated by these findings, I researched all the available literature that demonstrated scientific evidence for the therapeutic value of humor and laughter. I also interviewed many people who were using humor effectively. I was thrilled to find that humor involves a set of skills that almost anyone can develop. With this in mind, I wrote this book for those wishing to learn or expand their skills.
People often ask me how I became interested in the use of humor. When I was growing up, my Irish father often suggested that I go outside to play, so that he could come with me. We made forts and played hide-and-go-seek. Whenever there was a lull, he brought out old National Geographic magazines and we would spend the afternoon pretending what trip we might take. At the dinner table, he played “I spy with my little eye.” Then we tried to guess what he had in mind. Then it was our turn. My father just never grew up. The neighborhood kids rang the doorbell to ask if Dad could come out to play.
The down side to Dad's wonderful sense of fun was his binge drinking. While drinking, he became a different person, sullen and quiet. But the humor skills my father taught me were ironically the same skills I used to cope with the stress of his drinking. His binges made my mother become “the warden,” as Dad called her. One early morning he came in and my mother called out, “What’s all the noise? It’s four o’clock in the morning!” Dad said, “I’m trying to carry a barrel of beer up the stairs.” “Why can’t it wait until morning?” asked Mom. “It can’t!” he yelled back. “It’s inside me!”
My father made us wonder how someone so funny could cause so much turmoil. But Dad taught me a valuable lesson - humor bonds us to our family and friends. Even though we felt frustrated with his drinking, it was his sense of humor that made us supportive.
In l969 after graduating from nursing school, I began to work in the chronic care ward of a psychiatric hospital. My heart sank as I looked down the long green corridors and watched psychotic patients shuffling back and forth. One individual believed she was the monarch and always gave us the “royal wave.” Another patient thought she was in charge of “the organization,” lecturing to everyone while standing on a chair. What surprised me was the humor and compassion the patients showed to one another. There was no laughing “at” someone; it was always “with” them. There were many little in-jokes I came to appreciate. Billy, an older man, pretended to faint on the floor whenever a new nurse appeared. When she went to help him, he opened one eye and tried to peek up her skirt. The patients shouted, “Billy, it’s fainting time!” whenever a new nurse entered the ward. I realized that these patients used the same coping skill I learned. They used humor to feel balanced, and to feel close to one another.
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