“I’m going to hang out with my ex for the first time since I started my new relationship,” my client told me. “And I haven’t told my girlfriend.”
“Good luck.”
Fortunately, we both laughed.
We therapists seldom give advice, although my “Good Luck” likely carried a hint of my opinion. But it did that by making them laugh, instead of clamming up or defending, the way direct advice often causes people to do.
After my snappy response, we looked at all the possible ways for the client to be healthy in the situation, since they were clearly going to do it anyway. They wanted the meeting for closure.
They and I wanted them to have the emotional strength to get through the meeting with boundaries intact. And to maintain a healthy relationship with the current partner.
What we did in past relationships doesn’t always translate into new ones.
Each relationship is like playing the same video game you’ve played many times before — but with all new rules and pitfalls. You’re sure you’ve mastered it, even though your avatar died the last time you played it.
But in each new relationship, the terrain, tools and simulations have changed.
Humor, perseverance, and mastering the learning curves is what works in video games and relationships. It’s also true in therapy.
To use therapy to improve a relationship or yourself, you need the “right” therapist.
Finding the best therapist for you is similar to finding the best partner. You bring to each situation your preconceived ideas of what the relationship should be.
Both a relationship and a first therapy encounter offer glimpses into your soul. And that is exhilarating and potentially terrifying. One of the therapist’s jobs is to help you find the courage to face things and change. A good relationship can do the same.
You feel a “click” with the right therapist for you. It’s not the same click you feel with a potential partner, but without it you may not get everything you need.
To see if there is a click, some therapists use humor. I do. I embrace my silliness and dark humor and use it in therapy. That “Good luck!” and our laughter opened the door to everything that came next.
Laughter opens people up to their own vulnerability, and their vulnerability opens the pathways to healing.
Clients who can laugh with their therapists get more accomplished. Mutual laughter and humor help the client and therapist persevere, and be willing to navigate the learning curves.
Mutual laughter also helps people bond. When we laugh together we feel a connection and a similarity. Partners who laugh together, stay together.
A recent study asked people to recount a recent encounter with their partner that included laughter:
When they reported more shared laughter (compared to unshared laughter), participants said they experienced more positive emotion and less negative emotion during the interaction, saw the person as more similar to them, and were more satisfied with the relationship. This held true even when controlling for other factors that might explain the good feelings, such as the length of the relationship and number of verbal and physical expressions of love.
Paul Osincup, president of Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor states in the AMA Journal of Ethics:
“At AATH, we define therapeutic humor as an intervention that promotes health and wellness by stimulating playful discovery, expression, or appreciation of the absurdity or incongruity of life’s situations. It can enhance health or be used as a complement to treatment to facilitate healing or coping.”
Laugh with your partner. Not at them! Laugh with them. It will bond you and help you feel less negative toward each other during disagreements.
Once, a partner and I got into an argument while in the bath together. He said something I didn’t like, and I slammed my hand into the water, splashing it all over me and soaking myself. He was wise enough not to laugh. I’ve always wondered what would have happened if I had laughed at myself, sitting there naked, with streaming wet hair and face. I’m positive there would have been a happy ending involving slippery naked bodies.
So laugh with partners. Something great can come from it.
Go ahead and laugh with your therapist, too. Find one who doesn’t take themselves too seriously. When they laugh at themselves you know they are humble and mentally healthy enough to help you.
The client mentioned above gave me permission to share their story in its generality as it pertained to humor in therapy.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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