An Innovative Psychotherapeutic Approach to the Treatment of Sexual
Abuse Utilizing the Laughter Catharsis.
by Enda Junkins, LMSW-ACP,
LMFT
Though my whole family was bruised and tested, it had found solace
in the healing unctions of laughter.
This dark humor had preserved us from both sanctimony and despair.
Pat Conroy—Beach Music
In our hurried intensity which we refer to as our daily lives, professionals
allow themselves to be swept up in the frenzy of managed care and
the pressure for symptom relief only. Literature abounds with new,
brief therapies for everything, including sexual abuse. The ability
to function is being insinuated as a synonym for healing. In this
increasingly robotic environment, the treatment of sexual abuse
needs every humanizing element possible. The cathartic processes
of crying and anger are already commonly recognized as necessary
for healing. Laughter, however, which is an entirely human, equally
vital part of the healing process is generally overlooked, merely
tolerated, or shunned completely by clinicians. Helping clients
use cathartic laughter is a needed addition to the specialized treatment
offered to survivors.
Culturally and professionally there is a major misconception about
laughter. It is most often connected to happiness and to frivolity
and silliness, with an assumption that it has no connection to the
important, serious things of life. The fact that laughter springs
from pain as a natural coping and survival mechanism simply doesn’t
occur to the majority of the mental health community because we
generally utilize a more intellectual form of psychotherapy. The
mere suggestion that laughter has an important place in the treatment
of something as serious as abuse is commonly dismissed out of hand.
Psychologist and literary editor. Max Eastman tells us that, “the
only reason why…so many earnest investigators…have sought to explain
laughter away as a by product of the other impulses is that the
laugh impulse and its emotions are not serious.” (Eastman, 1937,
p. 348) He is absolutely correct. Laughter isn’t serious, but it
is terribly important. It is a primary cathartic release of emotions
and a necessary part of any healing process. The treatment of abuse
which is so intense and painful for the client, desperately needs
the balance and relief that laughter provides. If we as clinicians
understand this and gain the appropriate training and information,
we can facilitate the laughter catharsis for our abuse clients.
As the circle of time again revolves, we are coming to know once
more what those before us have known. We are re-learning the importance
of laughter in the lives of human beings. Please do not mistake
humor for laughter. Although laughter is related to humor, it is
not the same thing and they should not be automatically interchanged.
Laughter is a physiological process which heals the body and the
emotions and it may or may not be triggered by humor. As we slowly
grasp laughter’s newfound importance, we are quickest to embrace
the more measurable results of its physical healing. Nevertheless,
laughter’s release of emotional pain is just as powerful and also
inseparable from our total well-being.
Human beings are able to laugh soon after birth in order to deal
with emotional and physical pain. Babies do not do humor. They are
laughers. Physically, laughter provides us with relaxation, easing
tired minds and bodies, and providing renewed energy. It stimulates
our immune system which helps ward off disease. It also massages
our internal organs, works out our respiratory system, and lowers
blood pressure. It can ease biological pain and is the most effective
ongoing means of reducing stress. Laughter is essential to good
physical health.
For the purposes of abuse treatment, however, the primary focus
is the powerful role laughter plays in the healing of deeply repressed
emotion. Laughter is one of the processes which powers out emotional
pain. It is specific to the primary painful emotions of fear, anger,
and boredom. When people laugh, if uncomplicated by medications
which may interfere with the physical catharsis, they are releasing
painful feeling which is gone for all time. The exact amount of
pain is immeasurable but the body will keep discharging pain cathartically
until there is no longer a need. The only thwarting influences are
the controls artfully imposed in childhood. Human beings are taught
the value of control from an early age. The loss of control cathartically
through laughter, crying, or anger makes us uncomfortable to say
the least. What we don’t realize is that when we lose control of
our feelings cathartically, we actually gain “control of our lives
in flexible, intelligent, creative, and caring ways.” (Goodheart,
1994, p. 36)
Our cultural preference for processing feelings cognitively instead
of feeling them in our bodies tends to contribute to the terrible
numbing pain of survivors. They have little or no idea as to how
to release the emotions so shrouded in secrecy and buried in the
most intimate recesses of their bodies. Nevertheless, some part
of them instinctively knows that pain is driving them unconsciously.
Sooner of later, the innate drive toward health carries them toward
the help they need. Often from families where feelings are not allowed,
survivors may have squelched their ability to laugh, cry, and get
angry. As clinicians, we can offer assistance in regaining these
cathartic processes. This will enable our clients to release emotions
deeply held and wrapped around early traumatic incidents.
Only now has research begun to validate the belief that emotions
are stored in the body, not the mind. Cathartic techniques allow
clinicians to help clients access their stored emotions and release
them. The more catharsis the client experiences, the faster she
moves through the healing process. Laughter, which is the most powerful
cathartic process and the least threatening in many respects, leads
the way in easing controls on emotion and often opens the door to
crying and deep anger.
What causes the mental health community to be so slow in accepting
laughter as a healing tool? It’s not comfortable. “Like any expression
of the true self, laughter is radical and revolutionary, and it
upsets conformity.” (Steinem, 1992, p. 175) In order to offer clients
the power of laughter, clinicians must be willing to break loose
from traditional therapeutic constraints, regain their own laughter,
and learn the techniques to facilitate laughter in their clients.
The repression of emotion which protects abused children from death
(Miller,1991, p. 82) is no longer necessary in adulthood. The adult
can allow herself to feel the pain, thereby healing deeply buried
trauma. Adults have many available options for dealing with pain
while children do not. According to Alice Miller, “in the absence
of love, respect, and protection an abused child has no choice but
to suppress every kind of natural reflex such as anger or even laughter.
It also had to practice constant obedience. Only thus could it hope
to keep the threat posed by its father within bearable limits.”
(Miller,1991, p. 90) The adult can reaccess the natural processes
which release the pain the child found unbearable. Unfortunately,
laughter, often suppressed during childhood, is viewed with suspicion
in adulthood as silly, inappropriate, and trivializing. Unless these
ideas are challenged by clinicians, many survivors will turn away
from the healing power of their laughter, fearful that others will
see them as minimizing a very important problem as well as potentially
devaluing their own importance. Only the irrepressible few will
laugh, hurling conventional behavior to the winds.
Traditionally, mental health practitioners have viewed laughter
as hiding painful emotion. In contrast, cathartic psychotherapy
believes that laughter is releasing emotion. It is the physical
process which powers out certain kinds of pain. Psychiatrist Raymond
Moody believes that through laughter, people’s feelings and emotions
erupt from inside them into the outside world. (Moody,1978, p. 10)
Therefore, if one curtails or quenches laughter as inappropriate,
the release of pain is quenched as well. In struggling to release
the great hurt of childhood sexual abuse, survivors need their laughter.
Sexual abuse is both deeply painful and important, but it doesn’t
have to be locked down in seriousness which is synonymous with control.
Growing up in the web of dysfunction created by abuse, survivors
commonly deny their emotions. As they resist feeling, they become
increasingly rigid and less able to change their patterns of behavior.
They become more re-active than active and tend to repeat behaviors
that are increasingly unsuccessful. If, however, they are able to
release their feelings cathartically, they will automatically rethink
situations. The clearer thinking made possible by catharsis enables
them to take sensible, more appropriate action. (Goodheart,1994,
p.97) They are no longer locked in a self destructive cycle which
prevents the experience of a quality life.
The laughter catharsis does not change the facts, but it does change
the way one relates to the facts. It allows a person to see
things from a bird’s-eye view where horrendous misfortune seems
much more bearable. This allows survivors to remember, to feel,
and to explore without fearing that they will once more be trapped
by circumstances beyond their control. Life’s most tragic and bizarre
occurrences contain things which may strike one as personally absurd
if one is able to look for them and the absurd is often a trigger
point for laughter. Underneath the layers of unresolved pain, there
is the child who possesses a strong biological drive toward joy
and with the capacity for it , even with the capacity to generate
it for itself. (Montagu, 1989, p.153) All that prevents the survivor
from being joyful once again is the release of the pain layered
on top. Laughter provides that release in a pleasurable way. Partnered
with crying and rage release, laughter peels away the pain, allowing
one to feel the joy beneath.
Emotionally, laughter takes care of several painful feelings. It
releases fear which is a major emotion for many survivors. They
find they are always afraid. For one thing, they are anxious
about the possibility of losing their families. They worry about
whether or not they are making the abuse up. Their memories terrify
them. In fact, much of life in general is intimidating. Fear, however,
which motivates people to protect themselves from danger, is only
a liability if not heeded and released.
Survivors, struggling to function under a heavy psychological burden
of fear, often shut down. Paralyzed with emotion, they isolate themselves
and are often unable to relate to other people with any degree of
warmth or empathy. It is their fear which prevents their empathy
for other people even when they don’t realize they’re scared and
perhaps think they’re angry instead. (Napier, 1990, p. 35) Turned
inward, they are only able to instinctively focus on “fight or flight,”
and it is the fight part of fear that is often mislabeled anger.
When paired with trembling which releases deep fear, laughter takes
care of anxiety which untended, often becomes disabling panic attacks
or all consuming phobias. The frame of mind created by laughter
is one of safety and clear thinking. It allows one to reframe a
specific threat or stress, so that it becomes less overwhelming.
As people laugh at things which threaten their safety and well-being,
they release their anxiety and their discomfort decreases. For example,
one particular client was constantly anxious and fretful about going
crazy. When she was able to play with the fear and describe her
fearful picture of being crazy with delightful irony, she laughed.
Because she was able to laugh, she could cope. In coping, she was
not likely to become psychotic.
Laughter also releases the fear which prevents survivors form taking
risks, facing things directly, or embracing life. When fear is released
by laughter, they relate more fully, think more clearly, and bond
more with others. Laughter fights isolation. As survivors “lighten
up,” they resist and ease their shame and find themselves much better
able to balance the nagging depression. The fear of “knowing” shrinks
as survivors shift to the power in lightness. They are no longer
victims.
In addition to fear, laughter releases light anger. It also works
to release deeper anger indirectly. It does so by allowing one to
shed the lighter aspects of fear and anger which can then open access
to deep rage. Laughter is often a more acceptable way to approach
one’s angry feelings. So much anger has been repressed by fear,
that laughter actually serves the dual purpose of first releasing
the fear of anger and then the anger itself.
Anger, which is the emotional response to the invasion of one’s
boundaries, is not allowed for the sexually abused child. Boundaries
are ignored and discouraged both by the abuse itself and by the
environment in which it flourishes. Instinctive angry responses
are brutally snuffed out by powerful adults or squelched at great
cost by the terrified child. That anger destroys is a strong, unyielding
message pounded home over and over. To access their anger, survivors
must breach the iron defenses of their own survival. Laughter allows
this. With encouragement by a therapist, a survivor might be able
to say “I feel angry” with a smile, the incongruity of which allows
her to laugh. For many abuse survivors, laughter is a much more
gentle way to address anger. It is less threatening than a direct
expression of anger. They can laugh their way into their rage, the
release of which is so necessary for healing.
Finally, laughter releases boredom, the emotion related to changing
the amount of stimulus in our environment. Boredom ranges from the
simple type which is acutely distressing until the cause is removed,
to hyperboredom which is comparable to an agonizing, chronically
painful disease which in some cases ends in death. (Healy, 1984,
p. 28) When we have too much or too little of something (and what
survivor doesn’t), we get bored, and we to take action. Failing
that, we need to laugh. Survivors who have been struggling with
the healing process for a while, may certainly experience boredom
with their abuse and feel trapped by it at the same time.
Boredom does not stop the internal drive to heal, nor does it indicate
the release of the sadness and anger which so dominate survivors
lives. It is a numbing, demoralizing emotion, undermining one’s
sense of purpose. Psychologist Harvey Mindess offers this on boredom.
Although we often fail to recognize the extent to which our unique
self has been stifled, “we sense it dumbly, dimly in the deadening
monotony of our days. The predictable routine brings sterility,
lassitude, a restless mood of unfulfillment. We feel only half alive.”
(Mindess, 1971, p.39) Obviously, boredom is pain and its release
through laughter is important to the healing process.
Clinicians may facilitate their clients’ laughter by helping them
play with their pain. According to Max Eastman, “…We come into the
world endowed with an instinctive tendency to laugh and have this
feeling in response to pains presented playfully. (Eastman, 1937,
p. 45) Psychologist Annette Goodheart presents this concept as a
formula—Pain + Play = Laughter. (Goodheart, 1994) Although laughter
is often triggered by things that are funny, it is not about “funny.”
Laughter is about pain and therefore highly appropriate for all
the things in life which are not in the least amusing, including
sexual abuse. When a sexual abuse survivor can play with her pain,
the result is laughter. It is essential that clinicians understand
that they are not to play with the client’s pain for them nor give
free rein to their own sense of humor. Doing so can result in a
feeling of ridicule by the client and do her harm. The therapist’s
role is to help the client find ways to play with her pain that
work for her and to assist her in keeping the process moving.
There are many ways to play with the pain of abuse. Some people
do so instinctively and come for therapy already laughing and crying.
Others need a little help in finding ways to play with their abuse.
For example, a ridiculous song title worked for one woman to playfully
describe a body memory. This inspired another to write a playful
hymn about her abuse. Both were highly effective because the laughter
they created allowed the clients to feel the associated pain and
move on.
Abuse, with its life damaging repercussions, is certainly anything
but trivial, but it doesn’t have to be viewed as serious or as a
sacred cow. People who are able to see the things they care about
the most with an outrageous sense of freedom, can play with their
pain. There are no rules. Everyone’s pain is her own. If she chooses
to play with it, it’s not only okay, it’s healthy. A client who
can laugh about pain is able to feel it and heal more quickly. Saying
the unthinkable allows it to become thinkable. If the client laughs
as she says it, it becomes manageable. As she begins to cope, she
moves forward and in moving forward, life becomes worth living.
For those reluctant to let go of their “serious” view of abuse,
it may be helpful to explore seriousness just a little. As adults,
we are fairly obsessed with the idea that life must have meaning.
As we superimpose meaning onto life, “we intellectualize it and
distance ourselves from it….Distanced from life, we become isolated,
alienated, and serious.” (Goodheart, 1994, p.25) Being serious about
important things tends to lock us down in the pain. In order to
stay serious, we have to maintain control. In maintaining control,
we turn away from catharsis and the necessary release of emotion.
Upon entering adulthood and learning to distinguish importance from
unimportance, we need to maintain our ability to take things playfully.
Once we have learned to care about things, it is important to balance
that concern in a way that eases the intensity. It isn’t terribly
difficult to reverse our seriousness, once we understand the importance
of doing so. It only requires reversing our early brainwashing and
tapping into play which is “a socio-physiological state or posture
of instinctive life. It is not only something that we do
but something we are while we do it.” (Eastman, 1937, p.
16)
The nature of sexual abuse is such that it can be all consuming
and can keep survivors pinned down, unable to put their abuse experiences
in perspective. If instead they are somehow able to deal with at
least some aspects of the abuse playfully, they will trigger their
laughter and in that instant rise above it. Seriousness, which doesn’t
laugh, cry, or release anger, is a very real problem. Staying locked
in seriousness about one’s abuse can often prevent movement. The
horror seems to be all there is. If a survivor can laugh, solutions
present themselves. For example, one client who could not imagine
being less than serious about her abuse, found herself able to write
a silly poem about it and laugh. This opened the door to greater
balance and new ways of coping.
Inviting and facilitating laughter in therapy is not the same as
developing and using humor to make the client laugh. Although not
always true, making others laugh can be an issue of control and
often dangerous because it can translate into ridicule without that
being the intent. Humor is not necessary to have laughter. Adults
can laugh without it as do infants. The greater our inhibitions
and restraint, the more we need release of some kind. Our spirits
will so desperately crave relaxation, that even the weakest stimuli
will trigger the laughter response. (Mindess, 1971, p.245) In other
words, we laugh when we hurt if our controls are off. Humor, though
not a requirement, can be a cause for laughter, but survivors must
feel free to use it in their own way with their own abuse. It is
a good rule of thumb to beware of using humor with someone else’s
pain because the result can be hurtful to them. Help them do it
themselves instead.
Laughter in therapy enables survivors to move closer to the core
of their patterns of survival. Since these patterns developed in
order to help the child survive, any attempt to alter them raises
the client’s anxiety. The “child within,” whose feelings are protected
by the pattern, fears that she will die if it is altered in any
way. Laughter provides a means of changing things that feels safer
while it releases the anger and fear associated both with change
and with the abuse. When clients laugh, their total selves move
with energy. They will not be stymied by their pain. Their thoughts,
made more spontaneous by laughter, create greater flexibility. As
they laugh more and more readily, they regain self confidence. (Goodheart,
1994, p.120) They fear change less. Eased by their laughter, clients
are more willing to find out who they really are.
As therapist and client approach the client’s pain playfully together,
they are actually engaged in what may seem like a kind of joint,
playful regression. Depending on the level of a person’s withdrawal
or emotional lock down, it is helpful to begin at her level and
retrieve her through laughter. It’s somewhat similar to saying to
the client, “If you cannot or will not come out of your numbed shell,
then I will go into it with you and lead you back out.” (Moody,
1978, p. 111) In enabling clients to laugh at any aspect of their
abuse, for that moment clinicians enable them to stand above it,
acknowledge it, but treat it lightly in the awareness that they
are touched but not contained by it. (Mindess,1971, p. 123) Clients
are empowered by gaining perspective and find it easier to step
out of the sense of victimization so long a part of their lives.
Surprisingly, they find that their greatest place of power
is in lightness.
There are many ways to help survivors play with their pain. First
and foremost, however, it is important to have a firm understanding
of cathartic theory as the springboard for leading clients into
laughter. Doing so without knowledge can result in harm however
well intentioned therapists may be. People have different degrees
of willingness and different capacities for creating playful approaches
to their memories and their feelings. It is important that the therapist
follow their lead, approaching catharsis with the deep respect it
deserves. With that in place, the following suggestions may provide
a place to start. All a client needs is a desire to laugh and the
internal permission to do so.
Suggestions For Assisting Clients Into Laughter
Regarding Their Abuse
1. Explore the client’s most
outrageous angry fantasies with her. Encourage her to share them
with others sympathetic to her anger. Encourage “no holds barred”
creativity.
2. Suggest writing a light poem
or piece of prose about the abuse, the more outrageous the better.
The playfulness involved creates laughter and shifts one’s perspective,
enabling movement.
3. Encourage your client to practice
laughing. Have her put feeling into it. The idea is to fake laughter
until she experiences the real thing and can laugh at will.
4. Have your client play with
the opposite of reality, i.e., Someone with a great deal of abuse
in their past might say, “I was a tiny bit abused as a child.”
5. Only with the client’s
permission and understanding, one may role play abuse issues
with major exaggerations. It is important to state clearly what
you will do and explain why you will exaggerate a particular aspect
of an issue. The more obviously overdone it is, the less threatening
it is and the greater the laughter. This can allow the client to
move into an issue instead of away from it. Use this technique with
great care and respect for your client and her place in the treatment
process.
6. Appreciate your client’s need
to use gallows humor about her abuse. Suggest she share it with
others who can appreciate it with her.
7. Help your client work with
the opposite of what’s expected, i.e. Look at the “good things”
about going crazy.
8. Help your client settle on
a light phrase about her abuse which she can use for perspective
and laughter when she needs it most, i.e., “I am a little bit sad
about my abuse,” said with a shrug and a smile.
9. Look together for what the
client may see as the absurdity in the abuse. It’s always there
in some way and can trigger laughter while providing a different
perspective.
10. When a client is swamped by self pity, suggest
exaggerated moaning and whining, explaining that it lifts one out
of victim thinking.
With increasing comfort with the laughter catharsis, therapist and
client can enjoy wonderfully creative, healing therapy sessions
together. Client and therapist both reap the benefits of their own
laughter. For the therapist, this contributes incidentally to the
prevention of burnout. Nonetheless, it is important to remember
to laugh with the client, not sooner than she or more than
she or you may hurt her inadvertently. Because of her preconceptions
about laughter, she may feel laughed at, instead of laughed with.
Introducing laughter into the dark and painful world of sexual abuse
is like introducing the sun in a rainstorm. It injects into the
darkness, not only the power of its ability to heal, but also the
light of hope for the future. Sexual abuse survivors need their
laughter. Their pain demands it. Of all the tools they might use
and all the options available to them, laughter is extremely healing
and an affirmation of life itself.
References:
Bass, E. and Davis, L. (1994). The Courage
to Heal. New York: Harper Perennial.
Blume, E. S. (1992). Secret Survivors.
New York: Ballantine Books.
Briere, J. (1992). Child Abuse Trauma.
Newbury Park: Sage Publications.
Briere, J. (1989). Therapy for Adults Molested
as Children. New York: Springer Publishing Co.
Eastman, M. (1937). Enjoyment of
Laughter. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Goodheart, A. (1994). Laughter Therapy.
Santa Barbara: Less Stress Press.
Healy, S. D. (1984). Boredom, Self, and
Culture. Cranbury, N. J.:Associated University Presses.
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery.
New York: Basic Books.
Montagu, A. (1989). Growing Young. New
York: Bergin and Garvey Publishers.
Miller, A. (1991). Breaking Down The Wall
of Silence. New York: Penguin Books.
Mindess, H. (1971). Laughter and Liberation.
Los Angeles: Nash Publishing.
Moody, R. (1978). Laugh After Laugh.
Jacksonville: Headwaters Press.
Napier, N. (1990). Recreating Yourself.
New York: W.W. Norton and Co.
Steinem, G. (1992). Revolution From Within:
A Book of Self Esteem. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Other
articles by Enda Junkins
More on www.laughtertherapy.com
©2000, Enda
Junkins, LCSW, LMFT, BCD, PO Box 684, Ouray, CO 81427. (970)
325-0050
