He keeps asking me for money and I don’t know what for,” complains a 40-year-old client. She blames herself for financially supporting her son behind her husband’s back . None of the conversations that the woman had with the son on the therapist’s advice changed anything. “Your son is a pretty mean dog. Why don’t you growl when he hits you again,” advises the psychologist now.
Two weeks later, the client comes to the next session. “I did it,” she reports with a satisfied smile. “Growled like a dog. You should have seen his face. Next time I’ll bark.” Now the therapist laughs too. Much later, the client says: “I found that to be a great confirmation. That’s when I realized that you really understand and like me.”
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Laughing together becomes a creative tool
The Swiss psychoanalyst Verena Kast experienced this scene in her practice. Of course, she uses such humorous advice consciously and only when the patient and the course of therapy allow it. But then with success. “The humor broughtTolfioowity and hope to this situation,” says Kast. “It was an important moment of togetherness for both of us. Something came loose. Tension gave way to trust.” Humor in Psychotherapy? Yes, you read it right. In current studies, it consistently proves to be a powerful motor of recovery.
In group therapy, depressed people learn to (re)discover what is funny in different situations. More and more doctors and therapists use irony, jokes or simply laughter in their treatment. Because humor helps to convey therapeutic insights. It serves as a diagnostic gauge that shows how profound a mental illness is and how much therapy has already achieved, and as a creative tool to look at life and its problems from a different angle, it makes the stuck flexible. “Sometimes humor opens up a new perspective in a flash,” agrees Prof. Barbara Wild , neurologist and psychiatrist at the University Hospital in Tübingen. Does that help to cope with life crises?
And what if you stop laughing? Can we practice humor? Wild has been dealing with such questions for years. In 2007 she published a pilot study on clowns in psychiatry. She studied how depression, schizophrenia and tissue changes in the brain alter the sense of humor. “I have repeatedly seen in therapy that interpretations of their condition with irony and a wink evoke positive feelings in patients,” says the expert.
Humor makes us freer and braver
Humor acts as a kind of protective zone for the soul. Because a laugh or a smile is not necessarily a reaction to good jokes. “With the help of a smile, we can express our views on a trial basis, but we can also take them back again, move within the realm of possibility, so to speak,” explains Prof. Wild . Humor takes away our fear of facing the unpleasant. That makes you freer, braver. This also applies – and especially – in everyday life. Seriously, how many conflicts have you defused with a laugh? Smilingly asking for something that seemed unattainable – and actually getting it? Just.
“ Humor is a strategy for success ; in private life, in professional life, for entire companies,” confirms Jumi Vogler, communications trainerfrom Hannover. During her lectures, she sometimes lets red noses rain down. She wants to teach people a humorous way of life. More precisely: skills that are linked to humor. “They lie dormant in each of us. Usually they just have to be kissed awake,” says Vogler, who also developed the following exercises.
The trick: Once our psyche has access to humor as a source of strength, it really blossoms. We become more relaxed, more creative, appear more present.
Humor challenges the perfectionist in all of us
Does that mean we should all go through life with a permanent grin? “For heaven’s sake!” Jumi Vogler protests. It’s about much more than that. “It doesn’t matter whether you give a speech, enter a room or go to the boss to negotiate more salary – you will be seen.” Women in particular then tended to sabotage themselves with negative thoughts (“I can’t do that!”). ). Vogler trains her clients in such situations so that they can experience the most important quality of humor: it creates intellectual distance. It helps to see things again as they are. “The humorous person sees himself and others with their quirks and can still like them.
Real humor is characterized by appreciation and tolerance for mistakes,” emphasizes Jumi Vogler. In fact, he’s actually very serious because he takes a close look and questions the perfectionist in everyone. “Anyone who can do that,” promises the expert, “develops empathy, sharpens his gut feeling and strengthens his self-confidence.” Neuroscientific studies show that humor has a similarly holistic effect on the brain. It not only activates our emotional center, but also areas that are responsible for logical thinking, decision-making and creativity. “Humor is an innate skill that we all have to play with our thinking skills and develop them further in this way,” says US psychologist Paul E. McGhee of Oakland University in Michigan, one of the pioneers of humor research. In other words: anger bites itself. Humor finds a solution.
Showing the red nose to everyday life
Humor has nothing to do with a permanent smile. It is an inner source of strength that wants to be (re)discovered. These seven exercises will help you. The more you use them in your everyday life from now on, the easier it will be for you to relax and put on your red nose.
Exercise 1: Release the humor brakes again
Many people are no longer aware of who or what gives them real joy. This helps: Draw two columns on a piece of paper. On the left write what you don’t like, what bores you, annoys you or makes you unhappy – your humor brakes. In the right column, list who or what fills you with deep joy, what you absolutely want to do and achieve. These are your humor accelerators. From now on, try replacing brakes with accelerators, or failing that, balance humor blockers with humor boosters.
Exercise 2: Play humor tennis
Children laugh up to 400 times a day, adults only 15 times. This helps: Get your childish imagination back! Make up fantasy stories with your partner or a friend. Not necessarily realistic, but conclusive. Don’t set any limits to your imagination. One starts and gives up after a few sentences. The other continues to tell the story from the first-person perspective.
Examples:
- A journey with a talking dog who ends up wanting to propose to you romantically.
- You found a mushroom in the forest that can eliminate all annoying bugs in computer programs.
- You make a film about your life that wins five Oscars in Hollywood.
Exercise 3: defuse quick-witted
Having a sense of humor does not mean accepting everything with a smile, but skillfully calming conflicts when others resort to manslaughter arguments. The best example: “We’ve always done it this way.”
That helps: Try one of these answers: Did it ever work?
- Oh, you must be capable of suffering.
- Exactly, and now let’s do it differently.
- It’s dusty here (then blow in the air).
- In your face I see creativity and the will to change. You will need it now.
Of course, not every answer is always right. But just imagining them trains your eloquence – and is fun.
Exercise 4: Turning the inner saboteurs into joke figures
Humor enables us to see the funny or absurd even in difficult situations (see exercise 5 “Humor glasses”). An example from Jumi Vogler’s practice: “A manager was afraid of speaking because of negative thoughts. I slipped into the role of his self-doubt and gave them names like Waldemar and Friedhelm. One lisped, the other scolded. Result: I pissed him off and he had to laugh and pull through with his speech. His inner resistance became an outer one and therefore vincible.” And now you: the next time your inner saboteurs come forward, give them silly names and voice their concerns out loud. A good friend can also take over this part wonderfully.
Exercise 5: The “humor glasses”
Imagine two or three situations in which something unpleasant happened to you. How did you feel back then? Were you angry, depressed? Now try to find something funny or at least good in your experiences.
Example 1: You lost your wallet – definitely no fun! That helps: a pinch of sarcasm. What the hell? Nobody recognizes me from the photo on my ID card anyway. I’m going to treat myself to a new series of portraits and let myself be pampered at the hairdresser’s beforehand.
Example 2: You can’t think of the first name of a friend of yours. How to save the situation: “Hello, unfortunately I don’t remember your name. Up until now you’ve always been ‘Claudia’s nice friend’ to me.” The embarrassment melts away and you create a humorous, emotional connection.
Exercise 6: Diary for laughs
In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we quickly lose sight of what is exhilarating. That helps: train this sense! Put e.g. For example, take out a notebook (or a text file on your computer) and write down all the funny situations you encounter during the day. Jokes are also part of it. Just for fun! When leafing through, bad mood disappears in a jiffy. And if your partner, girlfriend or colleague is feeling down, you can bring them out of the low with a little anecdote. “If you are looking for comedy in your life, then comedy will find you,” writes Jumi Vogler in her new book (“Erfolg lacht”, Gabal, 224 pages, 19.90 euros).
Exercise 7: Paving the way for the funny
Humor makes you creative. He gives a special power of observation that allows us to discover the surprising in everyday life. But it also works the other way around: if you consciously engage in creative mind games, you almost automatically pave the way for the funny.
This helps: Write 14 objects on a piece of paper, e.g. B. Bouquet, cheese, secretary, herring, crocodile, contract, cyclamen, cucumber, snake, boss, toast, toothpaste, cling film, lemonade. Now try to memorize this list by inventing a story that is as abstruse as possible (“The bouquet of flowers was amazingly peppered with cheese. Alfons, the secretary, nodded happily and added another herring…” etc.). In the end you can’t (and don’t want to) stop laughing. Promised!
