“Humour me”: The role of laughter in hypnotherapy

Now that’s a big bold banner headline… so to set the tone, let me kick off with a joke about hypnotherapy...

A hypnotherapist invited me to their house for spaghetti bolognese; when I arrived, he said, “Sorry, but the shop was out of spaghetti, so it’s pizza instead”; when I complained he said, “Don’t worry – it’s a really positive outcome”; when I said, “Why’s that?” he replied, “Because the pasta’s gone”

“The pasta’s gone” – geddit? “The past has gone.”

No?

Wow! Tough crowd… OK, I’ll get my coat…

To be fair, when people meet me for the first time and discover that I’m a hypnotherapist, they sometimes say, “You? Seriously? You must be having a laugh?”

OK, OK – I’ll stop with the ‘jokes’ for the time being; I promise.

Let’s talk about you. What makes you laugh?

Funny memories? Clever memes? Going to a comedy gig? Hearing a rude joke? Seeing somebody fall over in the street?

The beauty of humour is the individuality of stimuli aligned with the universality of outcome, i.e. what may make me laugh might be very different from what makes you laugh, but we can both roll around crying uncontrollably if our ‘funny bone’ is tickled in just the right way.

In many ways, laughter can be the best medicine. If, in the moment, having a good belly laugh takes all of your blues away (mentally and physically), then there must be an explanation of what’s happening in your brain as you grab hold of your sides and struggle to catch your breath.

Where we might think of laughter as a reflex action, in fact, it stems from a precise set of responses encompassing the emotional, cognitive and mechanical parts of the brain; there are three main steps:

The ‘hook’

Seeing or hearing something that we perceive to be amusing triggers a response in the emotional part of the brain: In the amygdala (Is this funny or offensive or something else?), in the hippocampus (have we laughed at this sort of thing before?) and, sometimes, the hypothalamus will invoke involuntary laughter as a stress release.

The ‘catch’

Now the intellectual brain is engaged; the frontal cortex identifies something unexpected or absurd, and the pre-frontal cortex interprets and rationalises the mismatch in a non-threatening way… it explains the absurdity.

The ‘release’

The motor system executes laughter, and dopamine and endorphins are released.

Paradoxically, although I’ve previously stated that what one finds to be amusing is a very personal thing, we can use laughter as a tool of social integration (feeling secure) to release serotonin, and also as a social bonding tool to release oxytocin.

The release of positive neurotransmitters and the beneficial impact on well-being through laughter has been validated by numerous studies: for example the meta-analysis undertaken by Stiwi & Rosendahl (Efficacy of laughter-inducing interventions in patients with somatic or mental health problems: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized-controlled trials - PubMed) reaffirms that laughter has been statistically proven to reduce anxiety, decrease stress and improve quality of sleep, amongst other benefits.

As a solution-focused hypnotherapist, I find humour and laughter is a quintessential weapon to have in my therapeutic arsenal; from the first few seconds of greeting a client I want them to feel safe, secure and positive – as that means they’re working from their left pre-frontal cortex, which means they are at their most enthusiastic and pliable to effect the change of which they’re searching.

However, there does seem to be a dichotomy between treating mental anguish, anxiety, childhood trauma, PTSD, etc., and (metaphorically) greeting clients dressed up like a clown, holding a bicycle horn and a bucket of glitter.

It can seem irrelevant, inappropriate… perhaps even tasteless?

Furthermore, as a therapist, if the thought of consciously trying to be ‘funny’ seems daunting or alien, then putting that pressure on yourself may mean that you may not give that client the best experience in that session.

Sure, some people are naturally more at ease with using humour as a therapeutic tool, but I suspect we all use it in everyday life much more than we give credit for… It’s such a fundamental way of connecting with other human beings.

Types of humour that can easily be utilised in a client session are word play, puns, ‘Dad’ jokes (more groaning than laughing) and self-deprecation. For me, it’s fundamental to ‘know your audience’, and I tend to find that the information that I glean in the initial consultation is absolutely instrumental in establishing a number of topics that can be safely leveraged to inject levity into the session. Using (safe) common ground – perhaps relaying a funny story of something that has happened to me since the last session – gives familiarity and reassurance, which will only help to cement rapport and put your client at ease and also make us seem more relatable as people rather than therapists.

Before I go, here’s another hypnotherapy joke that you can freely use:

“Did you know that – before he became a vampire – Count Dracula had a hypnotherapy clinic?”

“Whereabouts?”

“Trance-ylvania”

Thank you – you’ve been a great audience!

*Sound of coat being put on and door firmly closing.*