King Lear and The Use of Humor in Treatment

The King and his Fool*

“…The middle ground is held by Schimel (1968) who argues that humour may sometimes provide a guilt-free expression of aggressive and sexual impulses; by Hankins-McXary (1979) who condones its use provided it is not motivated by aggression, hostility or annoyance; and by Rose (1969) who advocates that laughter may sometimes be used to mitigate the effects of madness and lift repression-if this is ever the case I would argue that the process went dangerously into reverx as far as Lear was concerned. h4ost therapists would agree with…”

An integrative review of strong laughter in psychotherapy: What it is and how it works.

“…Third, strong patient laughter is regarded as a welcomed and desirable expression of a positive patient-therapist relationship along the lines of warmth and acceptance, intimacy, and a reduction in emotional distance (e.g., Mindess, 1971Mindess, , 1976Narboe, 1981). This way of valuing strong patient laughter is found in approaches such as feelingexpressive therapy (Pierce et ai, 1983), provocative therapy (Farrelly & Brandsma, 1974), existential-humanistic therapy (Bugental, 1976), direct decision therapy (Greenwald, 1975), Gestalt therapy (Polster & Polster, 1973), and some psychoanalytic schools (e.g., Grotjahn, 1966;Rose, 1969;Rosenheim, 1974).…”

Relationship between counselor-initiated humor and client's self-perceived attraction in the counseling interview.

“…Kubie (1971) warns that the expression of humor on the part of the therapist is mostly harmful to the therapeutic process. On the other hand, humor has been found to be an effective method of interpretation (Grotjahn, 1966;Rose, 1969), to have diagnostic value (Rosenheim, 1974), and to be a sign of closeness, mutuality, and "humanistic identification" (Rosenheim, 1974;Rancoli, 1974;O'Connell, 1976).…”