What Made Freud Laugh

An Attachment Perspective on Laughter

Judith Kay Nelson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136243790
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In her characteristically engaging style, Nelson explores a topic that has fascinated and frustrated scholars for centuries. Initially drawn to the meaning of laughter through her decades of work studying crying from an attachment perspective, Nelson argues that laughter is based in the attachment system, which explains much about its confusing and apparently contradictory qualities. Laughter may represent connection or detachment. It can invite closeness, or be a barrier to it. Some laughter helps us cope with stress, other laughter may serve as a defense and represent resistance to growth and change. Nelson resolves these paradoxes and complexities by linking attachment-based laughter with the exploratory/play system in infancy, and the social/affiliative system, the conflict/appeasement, sexual/mating, and fear/wariness systems of later life. An attachment perspective also helps to explain the source of different patterns and uses of laughter, suggests how and why they may vary according to attachment style, and explain the multiple meanings of laughter in the context of the therapeutic relationship. As she discovers, attachment has much to teach us about laughter, and laughter has much to teach us about attachment. This lively book sheds light on the ways in which we connect, grow, and transform and how, through shared humor, play, and delight, we have fun doing so.

Part 1

A Theory of Laughter

1

Laughter as Attachment Behavior

Foundations of a Theory

During a visit to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico (September 2008), I read the following oral history in a display case:

Babies usually laugh for the first time at 3 months. It is best for a baby to laugh to a relative who is good-natured. The person who makes a baby laugh for the first time has to host a party to celebrate the baby’s successful transition into the adult world. This person provides food, treats, and natural salt. Relatives and friends come to the baby’s first-laugh party to assure there will always be togetherness. Lillie Lane; Diné (Navajo)

Every baby’s first laugh is cause for celebration, but the reason is often assumed to be because it means the baby is “happy” or enjoying a playful moment. If pressed, we might say that it was joyful for the caregiver, too, and that it was fun and made her feel good. What is often missing, however, is the idea that laughter is first and foremost about togetherness and community. Not so with the Navajo tradition, which points directly to the relational significance of laughter in infancy. First, it joins the caregiver and the infant in a community ritual, conferring special honor and responsibility on the person who first “makes” the baby laugh. Second, it marks the laughter as the beginning point of the baby’s transition into the adult relational world. The party is the way for the baby’s familial community to carry forward his or her best wishes that, as in the first experience of laughter, the child will always know togetherness—in good times (the special foods) and bad (the natural salt), in love and in loss.

We are born to attach; we are equipped from birth with behaviors that enable us to make the connections with our caregivers, and that make attachment possible. Infants need caregivers to help soothe them in times of distress, and for that we have crying, the inborn attachment behavior that makes a baby’s negative arousal clear and creates a corresponding negative arousal in caregivers. It is designed to keep caregivers in close proximity or bring them back quickly when the baby is in distress. Within the first two or three months of life, however, the infant develops another of our inborn attachment behaviors: laughter. Laughter is designed to connect infants with their caregivers when they are not stressed, at times when they are open to new and unusual experiences. From the beginning, laughter is linked to play with the caregiver, as crying is linked with separation from the caregiver. Both are important to our future attachment security, and both represent crucial experiences of affect arousal and regulation. Upbeat, well-modulated, easy laughter shared by infant and caregiver serves to solidify their early connection. Repeated cycles of playful arousal and positive engagement, fed by the laughter of both caregiver and infant, help to initiate, support, and maintain the caregiver-infant bond we know as attachment.

Laughter like this is a warm, fuzzy attachment behavior enticing caregiver and baby to stay close and keep coming back for more, whereas crying is an aversive attachment behavior—we come to help and stay close so we can get it to stop. Both are powerful behaviors infants can do on their own—from birth in the case of crying, and within the first three or four months in the case of laughter. Both behaviors are recognizable in infant-parent pairs the world over.

In order to establish the foundation for an attachment theory of laughter, we will begin by looking at the type of baseline, genuine, unfiltered laughter that occurs in optimal caregiver-infant relationships, and in positive, humorous, connected experiences between adults. This is the type of laughter that is firmly rooted in the attachment system and linked with the exploratory/play system. In the remaining chapters in Part 1, we will use this foundation to round out a classification of different types of laughter based on the links between the attachment system and other systems of behavior, such as conflict/aggression, fear/wariness, and mating/sex. In subsequent chapters, we will establish an attachment-based prototype for exploring laughter in infancy, childhood, and adulthood, then look at how it is associated with the development of attachment security and insecurity, and finally look at the ways in which it can inform our clinical understanding and interventions at each developmental level.

Laughter as Connection

Freud recalled with great fondness an important but normally very serious professor of his who walked in to class one day laughing. He told the class a simple joke that had amused him and burst into laughter again at its conclusion. Freud recalled that the joke itself had not impressed him; rather it was the hearty laughter of his professor that stood out in his memory. He seemed to say that because he and his fellow students idealized their serious teacher, they were both surprised and pleased to see him acting out of character, relating to them on a less serious and perhaps more personal level. When the professor shared the joke with the students, even though they did not find the content especially humorous, his laughter made them feel more connected to him—significantly enough that Freud recalled that event fondly years later.

In his oft-cited book Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Freud (1905/1983) mentions laughter frequently—though he makes it clear that laughter is not his focus—and in it he quoted Dugas, a French philosopher, who said that there is “no behavior that remains more unexplained” (as cited in Freud, 1905/1983, p. 146). As I reread Freud’s book with laughter in mind, however, I was struck by the number of times that Freud reported on something like the above that made him laugh. In fact, he said that was one of the criteria he used for selecting the jokes to include in his analysis. As he put it, “It is natural that we should choose as the subjects of our investigation examples of jokes by which we ourselves have been most struck in the course of our lives and which have made us laugh the most” (p. 15). Tipped off by that personal reference, I could not help noticing that not only the jokes he collected, but also the contexts in which he recalled laughing at them, were more about his attachment relationships than about the jokes themselves.

Elsewhere in his book, Freud described laughter at a dinner party where he was a guest. At the end of the meal, a complicated dessert known as a roulade was served. Someone asked, in German, whether it was homemade. The host replied by saying that indeed it was a “home-roulade,” a pun that combined the name of the French dessert with the English term “home-rule,” which was at the time part of a political controversy being much discussed in the press. Freud (1905/1983) wrote, “When those of us present heard this improvised joke it gave us pleasure— which I can clearly recall made us laugh” (p. 94). This instantaneous, multilayered, multilanguage pun was a reply to a serious question asked by a guest in German. It juxtaposed the name of the French dessert with an English word “rule,” while simultaneously making reference to a political controversy involving the English.

Freud (1905/1983), having looked deeply at jokes for their unconscious meaning, was mystified by this particular one, which he notes is like countless other “improvised” jokes where the “hearers’ feeling of pleasure cannot have arisen from the purpose of the joke or from its intellectual content” (p. 94). He was left to conclude that the “feeling of pleasure” must be connected “with the technique of the joke” (p. 94). The “technique” that seems most in evidence, however, is almost purely relational: relying primarily on the intimacy and proximity of the guests. This complex “in-joke” is a perfect example of one where “you had to be there” to find it funny. The quip was expressed in three shared languages among a group of friends sitting together at the end of a meal in one of their homes. In a flash of wit that certainly could not have been prepared or planned in advance, the host responded to a simple question and everyone was transported simultaneously into shared laughter. Everyone got it: each knew the French dessert, the political reference, and the three languages, along with the intended meaning of the original question.

Spontaneous laughter at an in-joke helps to create, maintain, and acknowledge group connectedness. “We all get it” is the clear message, but instead of nodding appreciatively or responding with a polite comment, there is, without thought, mutual arousal of each individual’s attachment system, exhibited as a burst of unplanned, nonverbal, implicitly understood attachment behavior: laughter.

Freud (1905/1983) elsewhere in the book called punning Kalauer, the “lowest” form of humor (p. 45), by which he seems to mean the least intellectually and technically challenging and the least analytically interesting. Yet here he recalls the whole group joined in laughter at the complex pun in this special moment of togetherness, enjoying food and each other’s company.

While many people have commented on Freud’s sense of humor and love of jokes (Oring, 1984), I found myself understanding him here in the context of his friendships rather than simply recognizing his ability to appreciate “joke technique” intellectually or his analysis of intrapsychic pleasure. I like knowing that Freud had good friends and sat around the dinner table and laughed with them at a clever remark. Picturing his attachments and laughter, I feel connected to Freud the person, rather than just to his brilliant mind.

I found another example highlighting the relational aspects of laughter for adults when I began to read about the practice of Laughter Yoga and Laughter Clubs. Laughter Yoga is a series of laughter exercises originated in 1995 by Madan Kataria (2008) in India. The first Laughter Club founded by Dr. Kataria had five members, though that number has now grown to an astounding 6,000 clubs in 60 countries. Laughter not only draws individuals together, it is also contagious. Laughter creates a communal, connected experience that crosses gender, age, and cultural barriers.

As part of the research for this book, I arranged to visit a Northampton, Massachusetts, Laughter Yoga group to check it out for myself. I had expected something like the usual yoga practice where individuals are on mats doing their poses while facing the teacher. Instead, we were instructed to do all of the laughter exercises while walking around the group looking directly into each other’s eyes. As awkward as we felt, we nonetheless served as momentary partners in the practice of laughter, signifying its relational core. Togetherness, even with strangers, stimulates laughter far more successfully than trying to laugh alone; we are, in fact, 30 times more likely to laugh when in the company of others (Provine, 2000). A YouTube video (Kataria, 2006) titled “Benefits of Laughter Yoga With John Cleese” shows a Laughter Yoga group in action, including the interactive engagement of participants, which was engaging enough even on video to make me laugh right along with them.

When searching on the Laughter Yoga website trying to learn more about its philosophy and techniques, I came across a discussion about the problem of what to do with the desire to practice Laughter Yoga while alone in public. Kataria (2008) said that he had faced this problem while stranded in the Hamburg airport waiting for a flight. His solution was simply to open up his cell phone and hold it to his ear as if talking with someone. As long as it looked to others as if he were engaged in a telephone conversation, he felt comfortably inconspicuous laughing uproariously for as long as he wished. Kataria knew instinctively, as do most of us, that laughing alone out loud in public would be certain to attract attention. Without the cell phone, his solitary laughter might well have been considered somewhere between strange and downright mad, and would no doubt have made his fellow passengers take notice and be a bit leery of him.

The Case for Viewing Laughter as an Attachment Behavior

As with most other relationship behaviors, such as those associated with caregiving, mating, or affiliation, it makes sense to search out laughter’s roots in the attachment system. John Bowlby (1969) first defined the human attachment system and enumerated the inborn behaviors that help to support and maintain the attachment bond. His list of behaviors includes “crying and calling, babbling and smiling, clinging, non-nutritional sucking, and locomotion as used in approach, following, and seeking” (p. 244).

Since laughter is not on that list, I combed through all of Bowlby’s writings and was amazed to find not one mention of the word laughter. I e-mailed colleagues in London, one of whom had been a close associate of Bowlby’s, to ask about this omission, and they put me in touch with Sir Richard Bowlby, John Bowlby’s son. Both my friends and Bowlby’s son said that Bowlby certainly appreciated humor, yet they could not account for his never having mentioned laughter in his writing. Sir Richard Bowlby agreed with my suggestion that his father may have been influenced by Darwin’s view, that smiling and laughter exist as one behavior differentiated only on a continuum of intensity.

My father would have considered laughter to be a natural extension of smiling in which he was very interested. He was a synthesizer of other people’s work, and at the time he was working he did not have people like Panksepp [a laughter researcher] tickling his rats, he had to rely on existing publications and was probably more influenced by Darwin. (R. Bowlby, personal communication, October 20, 2008)

Sir Richard Bowlby also graciously wrote that his father was always interested in new ideas and research that might have some bearing on attachment.

I also took heart from the fact that Bowlby inserted a qualifier before his list of attachment behaviors: “Attachment is mediated by several different sorts of behavior of which the most obvious are [italics added] …,” which I take to mean that he left room for the inclusion of other related behaviors, as well. Other theoreticians and researchers who have written about attachment behaviors (Cassidy, 1999; Marvin & Britner, 2008; Sroufe, 1995; Sroufe & Waters, 1977) have generally worked from Bowlby’s list. Ainsworth (1964), Bowlby’s collaborator and an attachment researcher, also left room for additions to her list when she wrote, “This catalogue is probably incomplete” (p. 57). Sroufe and Waters (1977) pointed out that both separation/distress and engagement/positive behaviors such as “smiling, clinging and signaling” are functionally related in that “all lead to the same predictable outcome—caregiver-infant proximity.” Both, they wrote, “are used by the infant in the service of proximity or physical or psychological contact” (p. 1189).

During the years I was studying the meaning of crying and attachment, I would write the word “laughter” in the margin next to ideas about other attachment behaviors that seemed equally to relate to laughter. For example, Bowlby (1969) wrote, “An infant often calls persistently and, when attended to, orients to and smiles at his mother or other companion. Later, he greets and approaches her and seeks her attention in a thousand attractive ways” (pp. 203–204). Laughter certainly seemed to qualify as one of those “thousand attractive ways” an infant uses to initiate and prolong playful engagement with caregivers.

My efforts to study crying, a difficult and multilayered behavior, were inextricably linked to my understanding of it as an attachment behavior throughout life (Nelson, 2005). Crying clearly functions as a powerful signal beckoning the caregiver: “Come here, I need you.” Based on this understanding, I was able to look at crying through the lens of attachment; that was the key to unlocking its mysteries, developmentally, clinically, socially, and even spiritually. I was also able to classify different types of crying and inhibited crying and to speculate about how attachment styles and early caregiving experiences are related to later crying behavior. Crying, I learned, from an attachment perspective, is about love and loss, about separation and grief, about hope and healing.

When the time came to turn that same lens onto laughter, I was confident that attachment would also be the key to unlocking its mysteries. Initially, I thought many of the same insights I had developed about crying would also apply to laughter, but I encountered some unexpected difficulties. The first was the fact that laughter was not on any list of attachment behaviors, and the second was that, as a behavior, it is far more diverse than crying.

Before I could attempt an attachment classification of laughter throughout life, therefore, I needed to determine with some level of confidence that laughter does indeed originate in the attachment system. I was eventually able to do so through careful study of attachment behavior literature and research, with a particular focus on smiling and the findings of neurobiological attachment research described below. Further confirmation regarding the link between laughter and attachment came from careful study and analysis of the many theories about laughter in philosophy, psychology, and psychoanalysis, and from general laughter research, the subjects of the next two chapters.

Attachment Characteristics of Smiling That Also Apply to Laughter

Though Darwin thought that smiling and laughter are the same behavior on a continuum of intensity, a number of other writers, including myself, disagree (Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Keltner, 2009; Nelson, 2008; Sroufe & Waters, 1976; Wolff, 1987). Wolff (1987), an infant emotion researcher, distinguishes between the two behaviors based on the fact that each one employs different motor and respiratory components, facial muscles, and vocal patterns: smiling is silent, and laughter is vocalized. In addition, he points out, smiling and laughter have different developmental pathways, are elicited by different stimuli, and create different responses in companions and observers.

While I agree that smiling and laughter are different behaviors, I am struck by how many of Bowlby’s ideas about smiling as an attachment behavior also apply to laughter. Because Bowlby, as his son pointed out, did not have access to later research and depended on Darwin’s view that smiling and laughter are the same behavior on a continuum of intensity, we may assume that his ideas about smiling are also relevant to building a case for laughter as an attachment behavior.

Here, for example, are a few of Bowlby’s (1969) ideas about smiling that apply equally to laughter. If the word “smiling” is replaced with “laughter,” the statements still hold true.

1. The smile of a human infant is so endearing and has so strong an effect on his parents that it is no surprise to find that it has...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1: A Theory of Laughter
• Part 2: Laughter in Infancy
• Part 3: Laughter in Childhood and Adolescence
• Part 4: Laughter in Adulthood
• Part 5: Transcendent Laughter
• References
• Index