Humor and Psyche

Psychoanalytic Perspectives

James W. Barron

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780881632576
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134896493
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Applied Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Humor, a topic that engaged Sigmund Freud both early and late in his career, is richly intertwined with character, with creativity, and with the theory and practice of psychoanalytic therapy. Yet, until very recently, analysts ignored Freud's lead and relegated humor to the periphery of their concerns. Humor and Psyche not only remedies previous neglect of the role of humor in the psychoanalytic situation but opens to a broad and balanced consideration of the role of humor in psychological life.

Section I provides historical and theoretical perspectives on the concept of humor. Contributors review Freudian and post-Freudian theories of humor, address the inseparability of humor and play, adumbrate a postmodernist perspective on humor, and focus on the unique cognitive and affective properties of humor. In Section II contributors turn to the relationship of humor to various aspects of the therapeutic process, including the relationship of humor to transference interpretation, the enlivening effects of humor on the therapeutic process, and the multiple meanings of humorous exchanges between therapists and patients. Section III concludes the volume with three fascinating essays on the relationship of humor to character and creativity. They focus, respectively, on the role of humor in the 25-year correspondence of Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, on the interweaving of D. W. Winnicott's comic spirit and theoretical innovations, and on the relationship between humor and creativity in the music of the American composer Charles Ives.

Taken together, the contributors reestablish the importance of humor as a topic of psychotherapeutic relevance more than 70 years after Freud's final essay on the topic. Delightfully readable from beginning to end, Humor and Psyche edifies as it entertains.

Index

abstinence, 117, 150–151, 153, 154

absurdity, 37, 61, 62, 77, 133. See also nonsense

humor as exposing, 22

abyss, 61

acceptance, 70

acting out. See countertransference, enactments and acting out

admiration, 134

aggression, 32, 133, 163. See also anger

aggressive wishes, enjoyment of, 21

aggressors, mocking one’s, 168

Aleichem, S., 82

Alexander, F., 110, 116, 129

alliance. See collusions; therapeutic alliance

alpha function, 77

ambiguity, 46, 69

ambivalence, 46

capacity for, 72–73

anal mastery, 74

anal-sadistic stage, 74, 75

anal-withholding stage, 75

analysis. See therapy

analyst-patient relationship, 192

distance in, 145, 192n

real relationship, 144–146, 148

analysts. See also therapists

attitudes toward humor, 28

character of

influence on technique, 144

characteristics of the best, 139n

laughing spontaneously, 104

as mother-substitutes, 189

as object of joke, 142

regressive aspects of experience of, 154

self-exposure, 149

sense of humor

lack of, 89–91, 110

as mark of good analyst, 139n

use of humor. See under therapists

analytic third, 93

anecdotes, 22, 113

anger, expression of, 163

inhibited by humor, 141, 149

Anschutz, R. P., 33, 53

anxieties. See also fear

eliciting and containing, 126

apostolic and postapostolic eras, 20–25

Appelbaum, A., 144, 155

Arieti, S., 74, 8...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Frontmatter
• Introduction
• Part I Historical and Theoretical Perspectives
• Part II Therapeutic Process
• Part III Character and Creativity
• Conclusion
• Index