Summer break, summer, hellish heat. Against the adults’ desire to maintain some kind of routine, just the kind they can (for example—therapy, just one hour a week of routine and continuity)—stand kids and teens in July and August, with motivation, let’s say—less. Just generally less, nothing personal related to therapy, just less motivation overall. The kind of motivation a lazy creature who’s had its long claws ripped off from the tree trunk it was hugging so tightly for days and was told, “Come on, honey, empty the dishwasher.”
I open the door and burst out with cries of despair in front of the astonished mother (I don’t know why, after a long acquaintance, she’s still surprised, but it works in our favor): “Oh my God, I’m about to bring a mop and bucket instead of a child—here you have a puddle today! A kid in liquid form, who ever heard of such a thing?! Did you try putting him in the freezer?! Maybe we can restore him to his former self!”
He laughs, and so does she. “Come on, puddle, I have a huge basin in my room, let’s put you in there.” After a brief hesitation, he sluggishly moves towards the room, saying goodbye to his mother without further protests.
Sometimes even sessions are like this—liquid—and that’s totally fine, that’s the situation now. It’s also an opportunity to just be, to stare, to lie on the floor and look at the ceiling together, even to be a little bored together. And of course, it’s a great opportunity to realize this state through art materials—to work with liquids, puddles, slime…
But before all that—I want to take a moment to talk about humor seriously.
I don’t know why humor and the laughter that comes from it have such a bad reputation, like something unserious, something only unserious people do, maybe even contempt.
To me, humor is a very serious thing, an art, something that should be part of life at least as much as physical exercise, and somehow—physical exercise got a positive reputation as something related to quality of life, even though, between us, it often involves a lot of suffering.
After a rather long period full of gloom, in recent days I caught myself laughing. Really laughing, out loud, throwing my head back and laughing until I can’t breathe. I don’t know if suddenly everyone around became funny or if some things happened that opened me up to laughter and gave me more space for it.
Some people get addicted to Netflix series and follow them with great dedication. In recent years, I’ve been a devoted fan of the stand-up specials produced by Netflix. I especially like those performed by women—not just for principled reasons, some of them aren’t funny, but most are really funny!
And beyond just being “funny”—they carry a message, often about women’s place in the world (I almost wrote “women’s empowerment,” but I admit I don’t love that phrase), a message of capability, myth-busting, exposure in every sense—they show their flaws and laugh at themselves wearing them, there’s a lot of self-deprecating humor there, much more than men if we want to compare (not that we have to).
What impresses me most and really sparks envy in me—they talk about painful things, really painful things, about humiliating events, accidents, awkward sequences of events, and also about really serious topics, bringing them out with pain and sincerity, as if appearing completely naked, laughing about them courageously—not from contempt or belittling, but from understanding the importance of bringing them into the conversation. Women who were hurt, raped, humiliated, diminished so that others around them would feel more comfortable. Thrown away, worked degrading jobs, treated terribly by their families—everything is allowed by the format’s rules.
And they bring all these ugly realities, in such an intelligent, rounded, complex—and funny—way. I sit in the living room, laughing until I cry, sometimes identifying with them, almost ready to jump on the couch like Tom Cruise out of excitement. I watch them in awe and admiration and think to myself this is probably how someone feels going to church for a weekly sermon, sitting in front of an influential person and drinking eagerly what he has to say, understanding how it connects to their life and feeling strengthened by it. When I watch them I understand religious people a bit more, I understand a little more the charm of religious rhetoric, and the love of the situation of open listening to a person holding a torch whose light you connect to.
Good role models are a rare commodity these days and I’m filled with inspiration when I watch these women, standing with all their truth out there and rocking it. Breaking taboo after taboo and slaughtering sacred cows without blinking. I envy them. I want to stand there sometimes. Not always. Not even sure I could.
Sometimes I’m so amazed I invite Omer to be amazed too, inviting him to watch from the start. Often he doesn’t get what I’m talking about or why I’m so enthusiastic. I think it’s partly a gender thing, though I always see men in the audience of these shows who get very excited, and Omer and I are similar in many ways. Sometimes it saddens me that we’re not partners in enthusiasm for this thing. To his credit, he really tries.
I often find myself entering a funny place at work. More and more as years go by. I enjoy seeing the wonder on the faces of kids and teens as they absorb that we are not in an educational situation and that it’s okay to relax, not have to be politically correct, and that we can do things that wouldn’t be accepted otherwise. Exaggeration, caricature (sometimes really in art and sometimes in play)—allow us to come out later into the world with more breathing room. Conflicts or confrontations with people look different and become easier to handle after we extract their sting, dismantle them, and remember the powers the client has to overcome difficulties.
Humor is also a great way to soften expressions of suppressed and unspoken aggression, the kind that has no place normally, to let the aggression vent a little and acknowledge it exists, that everyone has it. Once it takes a turn outside, it’s much less monstrous and less likely to find cracks to explode through uncontrollably. Think about how many conflicts would be avoided if we kept a better grip on the valve of our aggression and released a little each time.
We imitate people, invent songs, create creatures or machines that will solve problems, imagine a lot—travel in time to change events, write (funny!) letters to people who have died or who we can’t actually send letters to, anthropomorphize toys, objects or materials, glue googly eyes on everything! (Try it once, it’s very very funny), make noises adults don’t really encourage us to make, and overall—we use lots of “noise” and loud voices, how freeing it is, how fun it is to shout, make animal sounds, talk gibberish, sing loudly, try it and enjoy!
All of course—adapted and sensitively, with boundaries and as part of a clear spoken agreement about what is appropriate and what is not. This atmosphere is also not always suitable or right for everyone. Sometimes I’ll be very restrained, low-profile, speak quietly—because that’s what is needed. And of course that’s totally fine.
All of this also in light of the client’s usual world and reality—I won’t do or encourage things that contradict the client’s life reality in a way that challenges their upbringing, I won’t go against or try to be “the cool and funny one” at the expense of the parents’ hard work. In the end—we’re all on the same side here.
Alongside the satisfaction over the child’s progress and improvement—sometimes a kind of sadness appears in the parents’ eyes, that I get to enjoy with the child while they remain with the daily gray struggles. I remind them that at my place there’s no need to brush teeth, do homework, or really do anything the child doesn’t choose to do. All very different from regular life, and it’s only one hour a week, obviously there’s a big gap. Still, it’s a “lab hour,” through which we can observe the child anew and understand better what makes the therapeutic process more present in the rest of the time.
I do enjoy seeing the openness, flexibility and parallel processes that parents go through over time when they see a child who arrived like a puddle and returns gathered, encouraged and happy—it motivates them to better understand what activates the child, what brings back their smile and helps them lift their head quickly, what pulls their attention, where their focus is, and how to bring more play and laughter into their lives instead of going head-to-head and confronting them with reality at every opportunity.
Humor in therapy, if it exists, grows out of the shared language that develops from the specific therapeutic relationship, a unique dialect spoken and expressed through free play with materials. Humor brings release and permission to come as you are, raw, to do without thinking or deciding if what is done is good or not.
This atmosphere, seriously playful, a “we came to work really hard but not to suffer” vibe, promotes processes and closeness, frees from expectations, opens a window in the dark cellars, and gives legitimacy to be imperfect, human. To deal directly, deeply and seriously with hard situations and serious problems that would otherwise remain tightly packed in some corner of our hearts’ attic and cause suffering and further problems.
I wish you lots of laughter, that freeing kind, until your body and face hurt, until you cry, sigh when it’s over.
