Therapists can Find Deep Meaning in Laughs

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new study shows a laugh signifies more than humor and ridicule, at least when used in therapy. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have found the first physiological evidence of the role of laughter during psychotherapy.

Carl Marci, M.D., lead author of the study, says many therapists are caught up in the old notion that using laughter in therapy is inappropriate. But, he says, current research shows laughter is more about communicating emotion than about humor. Even more, when patients and therapists laugh together, it magnifies the emotional intensity and creates rapport between them.

Researchers videotaped therapeutic sessions and took physiological measurements of both members of 10 patient-therapist pairs where patients were being treated for outpatient mood and anxiety disorders.

There were 145 episodes of laughter during the sessions. On average, patients laughed more than twice as often as therapists. However, patients' physiological response when therapists did laugh showed they felt validation of the emotions they were expressing.

Overall, laughter showed to produce physiological responses in patients and therapists, with arousal strongest when both laughed together.

Dr. Marci says he was surprised to find how common laughter was in therapy. He says: "Taken together with the current understanding of laughter outside of psychotherapy, our findings suggest that the patient who is laughing is trying to say more than has been expressed verbally to the therapist. Laughter is an indication that the subject is emotionally charged."

This study, the researchers say, supports the need for therapists to pay closer attention to when patients laugh during therapy and for them to explore the meaning of what is said immediately before the laughter.

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SOURCE: The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 2004;192:689-695