Let's talk about enjoying therapy. Do you think that sounds impossible?
When I first started seeing clients, I felt a bit rigid and restricted. I mean, I was learning psychoanalytic style therapy, packing my brain with theory and ideas, trying to be a blank canvas and analyzing my own countertransference moment to moment.
I had come to this work after years and years of being a comic actress, and an all around funny human. Hence, why it was not feeling 100% right for me.
As the months progressed, and I started to settle in, I began to notice I was incorporating my personality in. I also noticed my clients seemed to be more invested and were experiencing real growth.
I firmly believe humor CAN be used in therapy. While we are spending time digging deep, and unearthing some real pain and trauma, we can also find moments of joy, find time to laugh and find connection through seeing the absurdity of life.
I mean, One of my favorite memes is:
(All resemblance to the real Sigmund Freud is .....well, you get it . He did not really say this.;) )
There are real mental health benefits of humor and laughter. It has been proven to reduce stress, depression, anxiety and fear. It elevates your mood and can help you connect. In session, a burst of the neurotransmitter dopamine serves as a reward for the brain, and laughter even decreases your cortisol levels, which reduces your natural stress response. Now, we should also be aware of when we use humor as a defense or a way to deflect from our real pain. While we don’t want to take ourselves seriously all the time, we need to take our trauma and pain seriously. We deserve that.
Your therapy should feel safe. Your therapy should not feel like torture. Your therapy should be the way you grow, heal, expand, become authentically you. And a laugh along the way is damn ok with me.