Let’s Take Humor More Seriously

Published January 5, 1984. If you were to ask me to list some characteristics of a healthy marriage, among those on the list would be having a sense of humor. I don’t mean that a husband and wife have to become first rate nitwits or engage in cutting sarcasm often depicted on television. I simply mean they need to have the ability to laugh at the inconsistencies of life and not take themselves so seriously.

Others have expressed similar observations. In their highly successful book “A Guide to Successful Marriage,” Dr. Robert Harper and Dr. Albert Ellis note, “Perhaps nothing helps more than a sense of humor to establish or reestablish effective communication in marriage. It is easier, of course, to see humor in other people’s marriage troubles than in your own. It is also easier to find something funny about one’s mate’s predicaments than about one’s own. For humor to facilitate marital communication, it must be shared by husband and wife.”

Harper and Willis also note, “Does it take a third-rate comedian to succeed in modern marriage? No, it takes acceptance, if not immediate resolution of differences. Since, however, anxiety is an omnipresent block to understanding and accepting and dealing rationally with differences between two intimate associates, and since humor is one of the best methods of reducing anxious blocking, shared humor in marriage is one of the better communication techniques.”

During the past few days I have been reading a fascinating book titled “Laugh After Laugh. The Healing Power of Humor.” It was written by a physician, Dr. Raymond Moody Jr., who was also the author of the widely read book “Life After Life.” The later book describes reported experiences of people who were clinically dead, came back to life, and described amazingly similar experiences.

In “Laugh After Laugh” Dr. Moody gives an interesting account of how humor has implications for the medical profession. In his chapter “Healing By Humor” he cites numerous case studies where humor has either cured or helped to cure various types of diseases and ailments, both physical and mental. Most notable is the documented ability of professional clowns to help children and adults out of a state of regression, which is a reversion to a former state of life. Clowning, he notes, is a socially acceptable form of regression where observers revert back to happier, more carefree days of childhood.

Dr. Moody gives a historical review of how humor and laughter have been viewed by various cultures. He quotes Proverbs 17:22 in the Bible: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” He also points out the destructive use of humor and laughter used by man to humiliate and degrade others. This kind of humor is debilitating when people laugh at someone else. The physician notes it is only when people are able to laugh together with someone that communication bonds are formed. People are then often able to take a different and perhaps less serious perspective of life and its many problems.

William K. Zinsser once wrote, “What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they’ll see things more seriously.” Read Dr. Moody’s book “Laugh After Laugh,” and I think you’ll agree that we should give more serious thought to humor and life.