Therapy is serious business. After all, people go into it at a critical time in their lives. So why would they feel like laughing during it?
US-based therapist Enda Jenkins has written several reports on the benefits of laughter as a therapy, and has developed a therapeutic speciality that uses laughter as a major part of the healing process.
'If one entertains the idea of laughter as a physical process that releases emotional pain, then a laughing response to serious triggers like stress, anxiety and tension makes sense,' she says in a report, The Power of Laughter in Therapy. 'Cathartic psychotherapy believes that laughter releases emotion. It provides the physical process that powers out certain kinds of pain. In addition to fear, laughter releases light anger.'
Jenkins says the laughter catharsis does not change the facts, but can change the way we relate to them. 'It allows a person to see things from a bird's-eye view, where horrendous misfortune seems much more bearable.'
She concludes in her report that laughter in therapy is not a paradox. 'Laughter and pain are so perfectly paired. We often overlook the connection.'
Furthermore, taking time every day to laugh at funny movies provides some of the same heart-healthy benefits as regular aerobic exercise, according to a recent study by the University of Maryland. Researcher Michael Miller says he wants to enlist a large number of people and prescribe regular laughter for two to five years to see if it reduces heart attacks.