TOnsia and discomfort? To get well there is an unexpected solution: a good dose of humor. Well yes, surprisingly, among the more effective self-help strategies to overcome the unease with which life often forces us to come to terms there is a sense of humor. A valuable resource that we can learn to train on a daily basis. Humor can indeed be understood as one tool that allows a reversal of perspectiveallowing you to face adversity with more lightness and to appreciate more all that is good and beautiful often you cannot perceive.
According to L’Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH), a non-profit organization dedicated to the study and application of humor to bring about positive changes in individuals, humor can in fact be described as “any intervention that promotes health and well-being through the stimulation of a fun discovery, the expression or appreciation of absurdities or inconsistencies in life situations. This intervention can improve health or be used in a complementary way to facilitate healing or physical, emotional, cognitive, social or spiritual coping ”.
So how to exploit the benefits of this precious resource? We asked Antonio Scarinci, psychologist and psychotherapist, psychologist executive at the DSM of the ASL of Viterbo as well as author of a dedicated book right to humorous self-therapy.
Self-therapy of humor: the book
Titled “Procedures and tools of humorous self-therapy – Humor as an effective tool to promote well-being” the volume, published by Franco Angeli, illustrates the functioning of human beings, describes the malaise which can manifest itself when yes they live the events of life in a dysfunctional wayto get to reveal how it is can manage the discomfort using precisely the “Sense of humor” as a useful tool to achieve therapeutic and wellness goals.
“We have conducted various researches – explains Dr. Scarinci, author of the volume – which have shown, together with many others already present in the literature, how humor can be used to improve emotional regulation and metacognition. Even in patients with serious pathologies ».
The cover of the book “Procedures and tools of humorous self-therapy – Humor: an effective tool to promote well-being”. AND. Franco Angeli
Humor for not taking yourself too seriously
But if humor and irony are tools widely used in many psychotherapeutic approaches, they can also be considered one valid self-help strategy which allows you to don’t take yourself too seriously and to face the vicissitudes and difficulties that arise with greater resilience.
“A sense of humor can also prove to be a useful tool for those who have some existential restlessness – specifies Antonio Scarinci – Today there are thousands of people who suffer from anxiety and depression and therefore some humorous self-therapy procedures they can be helpful in dealing with problematic situations ».
Sense of humor: are we all gifted with it?
The sense of humor, however, is often considered a prerogative of only some people. The question, therefore, is whether the strategy of humor can be suitable for everyone.
“Each of us is endowed with a sense of personal humor – underlines the author of the volume – However humor is also a skill that we can train: it is indeed possible foster divergent creative thinking that can help in some way to adopt a humorous perspective with respect to difficult events and situations encountered in life ».
Humor: how to train it
In fact, in the volume they are reviewed a number of techniques and strategies which can be useful for drawing on humor in everyday life (some suggestions in the gallery).
«The intent is to get to decatastrophize to play down those situations that stress us and that we want to live in a lighter way – explains the psychotherapist – Someone said that suffering arises from the resistance we offer to pain: humor, in this sense, can be seen just as a tool that helps us to reduce the resistance to pain in the moments in which we suffer“.
Humor as therapy: the approach
He was among the first to use humor in therapy Albert EllisUS psychologist, founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.
“The theoretical approach that we propose in the book is that of Ellis which refers to rational emotional therapy – explains the author – Ellis said that the sense of humor in itself does not heal all emotional problems, but learn not to take it too seriously every unpleasant event in life represents an excellent step in that direction ».
Although Freud had already spoken of “wit”, speaking of humor in the context of psychoanalytic therapy, it is certainly the cognitive-behavioral approach the one that more than the others exploits this strategy as care tool.
“Of course the humor in psychotherapy must be used appropriately – continues Dr. Scarinci – In fact, it is not always possible to resort to it: it is a strategy that should be avoided with patients who have significant depression but which is also inconvenient in some phases of the therapeutic process, when, for example, it is not yet a strong therapeutic alliance with the patient has been established ».
Self-therapy of humor: because it is good for you
In short, even if the classic advice “Come on, laugh at it” often makes you angry, it may be time to reconsider. And to really adopt it as a winning strategy to knock out those daily anxieties from which it is difficult to get rid of.
Starting from a simple but effective consideration: “We are the main builders of our history – write the authors of the book – and we can do it by assuming a passive and resigned attitude in relation to events or exercising a role as active protagonists that they look at the succession of events with disenchantment and amusement. By managing to change the things that can be changed, by courageously accepting those that cannot be changed and having the intelligence to understand the difference between each other ».
How to prove yourself? In the gallery 7 self-help strategies based on a sense of humor taken from the book “Humorous self-therapy procedures and tools”.
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