The Analyst’s Use of Humor

Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM

Little is known about humor's use in clinical encounters, despite its many potential benefits. We aimed to describe humor during clinical encounters. We analyzed 112 recorded clinical encounters. Two reviewers working independently identified instances of humor, as well as information surrounding the logistics of its use. Of the 112 encounters, 66 (59%) contained 131 instances of humor. Humor was similarly frequent in primary care (36/61, 59%) and in specialty care (30/51, 59%), was more common in gender-concordant interactions (43/63, 68%), and was most common during counseling (81/112, 62%). Patients and clinicians introduced humor similarly (63 vs 66 instances). Typically, humor was about the patient's medical condition (40/131, 31%). Humor is used commonly during counseling to discuss the patient's medical condition and to relate to general life events bringing warmth to the medical encounter. The timing and topic of humor and its use by all parties suggests humor pl...

Motivation and emotion, 1999

As Coser (1962) demonstrated in her landmark hospital study, a humor is one of the great tools of reassurance on the hospital ward. After all, if something is ridiculous, how can it be threatening? In this study, the authors examine the role of humor in medical interactions, ...

Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy, 2019

Medical professionals seem to interpret their uses of humor very differently from those out-side their profession. Nurses and physicians argue that humor is necessary for them to do their jobs well. Many (potential) patients are horrified that they could one day be the butt of their physician’s jokes. The purpose of this paper is to encourage the respectful use of humor in clinical practice, so as to support its importance in medical practice, while simultaneously protecting against its poten-tial abuse. I begin by examining two extremes of supporting or chastising the use of medical humor. I look at these views through the lenses of popular theories of humor to help explain their theoreti-cal bases. In this second section, I explain the emotional aspect of humor as an embodied and em-bedded transformation of the world. This clarifies the role that humor plays in our daily lives, as well as why the ethical or unethical nature of its use is dependent on context. Third, I address the potential problems in the relationship between humor and clinical sympathy, and how this further affects the relationship between medical professionals and their patients. I conclude by arguing that humor can conflict with clinical sympathy, but this need not be the case. If medical professionals actively engage with clinical sympathy and focus on using humor in a way that is respectful towards their patients, then humor can continue to be a positive force in their lives while still providing the best care for their patients.

Education for health (Abingdon, England), 2010

Humor and laughter in medicine has received much attention in the medical literature. The use of humor by medical students, residents and medical personnel is not uncommon. Laughter can be therapeutic, for patients and practitioners alike. However, when inappropriately directed towards patients humor can be seen as unprofessional, disrespectful and dehumanizing. How physicians interpret their day-to-day professional experiences, and when and how they use humor is influenced by the perspective that is taken, the social distance from the event, culture and context. Some argue that social and physical distance makes it more acceptable to laugh and joke about patients, but not everyone agrees. To laugh with and not at others is the appropriate use of humor in medicine. To cry against the suffering of others and the injustice behind that suffering and not with them in their agony and frustration is the appropriate response to tragedy.

Enfermería Nefrológica

Objetivo: Evaluar si la visualización de películas de humor durante las sesiones de hemodiálisis mejora el bienestar subjetivo y el sentido del humor, al tiempo que disminuye los niveles de estrés / ansiedad y depresión, en pacientes con hemodiálisis. Material y Método: Se realizó un estudio pre-post intervención con un grupo de control no equivalente, en pacientes con enfermedad renal crónica en hemodiálisis, en dos unidades de hemodiálisis de Diaverum Clinics. El estudio incluyó a 34 pacientes en el grupo de intervención y 33 pacientes en el grupo de control. La intervención consistió en la visualización de películas de humor durante diez sesiones de hemodiálisis en un período de cuatro semanas. El grupo control vio películas neutrales. Los datos se recogieron mediante un cuestionario de información sociodemográfica y de salud (edad, sexo, nacionalidad, educación, ocupación, estado civil, duración de la sesión de diálisis, presencia de hipertensión y diabetes); la escala subjetiva...

2020

It has been empirically demonstrated that humor can positively affect psychological and physical well-being, and that sense of humor is a major component of high-hope individuals [1]. Sharing humor contributes to feelings of togetherness, closeness, and friendship and promotes positive communication in prevention, perception, and perspective of results. To assess the perception of health professionals about the use of communication competences, among which, the use of humor in the therapeutic relationship, a qualitative study was developed with 88 health professionals, namely Portuguese doctors and nurses in central hospitals and health units in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, Portugal. In this context, 14 focus groups were held, lasting about 60 minutes, with participants of both genders, 64 female and 24 male, with an average of 43.2 years of age between 24 and 68 years old, having all signed a prior informed consent, with authorization from the ethics committee (process n ̊. 57/...

Hastings Center Report, 2011

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 1992

Analysts have ciiaracteristic stjles in working with their patieiits. At times of crisis or staleniate, aii alteration in stjle niay facilitate the progress of the treatmia,i&. To illistrate the itnkedirig effects of mi analjtic sljle at a partictilar phase of aiialjsis, I describe a staleinate iii &he analjsis of a severelj self-ciitical patielit. Recogiiitioii of the linitiiig esfecls of sljle oii the &reatitieii& becaiiie n/$areii& iii a coic,itertraiisfereiice eiiactitieiit, i@ flueiiced by tile patieiit-ciiinljsL inatch. Self-aiinlyis and alteration i i i the charncteristic stjle of the analyst resolved &he stalemate aiid eiiabled the ana@ic work to progress. ACH ANALYST POSSESSES A CHARACTERISTIC Style in conduct-E ing analytic work. This style is the result of conscious choices as well as more fundamental, generally unconscious, configurations of character. Of course, each individual style has variations and, depending on the characteristics of the particular patient, some aspects of the analyst's style are more prominent in one analysis than in another. Overall, however, there are identifiable qualities in each analyst's mode of working which are distinctive, and certain general tendencies in the analyst's methods which permit broader categorization. One of the possible categories is the analyst's perspective on the patient's experience. Some analysts tend to expand the patient's own point of view, in contrast to offering a perspective emphasizing Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute; Instructor, Department o f Psychiatry at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard hledical I wish to thank Dr. hi. Robert Gardner for both the hclpful consultatiori and review of this paper. I also wish to thank Drs. Natalie Bluestone, James Dalsimer, Paul Kantrowitz, Anton h i s , and Judith Yanof for reviewing this papcr and for their thoughtful suggestions. Accepted for publicativri hlay 8, 1990. School,

Health Communication, 1998

This article presents a sociolinguistic analysis of humor as a face-saving device in a memory clinic. Data for this article were transcripts of audiotaped clinical examinations between 4 clinicians and 17 patients, conducted at the Memory and Alzheimer's Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco. The study focused on the functions of humor and the complexity involved in examining those functions. Four aspects of humor were examined: (a) who initiates humor, (b) what topics the humor is based on, (c) what the function of the humor is, and (d) who the focus of the humor is. Results indicated that dementia patients initiated a greater number of humor exchanges than did clinicians or third-party observers. In particular, patients initiated a greater number of a specific kind, called dominant humor, with which the initiator controls the interaction. In spite of the power differential between patients and clinicians, dementia patients asserted some dominance over a face-threatening situation. These findings imply the need for further research on nurturing, as well as communicative training of family and caregivers of dementia patients to enhance successful communication and thus successful life experiences for these patients.

The appreciation of both humor and interpretations requires high symbolic reasoning. Some psychologists are not good at humor or interpretations because they are too concrete in their thinking. This reminds me of a psychologist who hollered at a child for putting his footprints in the psychologist's recently paved walkway. The boy's father said, "Didn't you tell me not to scold my child in anger?" The psychologist replied, "That was in the abstract. This is the concrete."