Let’s Get Real With Coach Menachem featured Yehudah Alcabes, LCSW, on Sunday night, June 30, for a virtual shiur on healing through humor.
Coach Menachem Bernfeld shared that this type of therapy can help a person to open up and talk about something pent up inside that he or she couldn’t talk about. It can help a person to start to heal.
Next, Yehudah Alcabes shared that there are many types of laughter, and there are levels of intensity of laughter.
First, he explained what improv comedy is and the benefits of using it for therapy. There are usually two or more people on stage, and they are asked to make up a scene on the spot. It’s an art form, and it is used all over the world, and it was used throughout history.
In the United States, a Jewish social worker in Chicago first used it with children on Ellis Island who didn’t speak the same language. She use improv theater to help them connect to each other. It worked very well, and they ended up performing at train stations. He said that it became an art form.
When he did this himself, he felt connected to the people in the room, even though he didn’t know them. It was a powerful experience. It provided a sense of comfort. It provided a place where you could remove your jacket, so to speak.
“In studying this, I found that there is a wonderful world of doing stuff that therapists talk about, like active listening, presence of mind, intimacy.” He explained that in improv theater you have activities, and you just perform them.
Mr. Alcabes experimented using improv to help people in anxiety groups and trauma groups. It is used as an adjunct therapy, and it speeds up healing.
In improv, there was a way of reverse engineering. They tried to figure out what they did that worked.
People laugh because they see two humans struggling and connecting to solve a problem and laughter comes from satisfaction. “Laughter comes out of connection.”
He added that if you are a musician and you play a song with people, in the end, you all laugh because of satisfaction. When humans get together and there is a unifying connection, then there is laughter.
The opposite type of laughter is one that distances people. This doesn’t bring people together. This is making fun of people.
He taught that human beings are meant to be creators. We have a desire to create. So, we are always pursuing some creative endeavor.
Being mentally healthy means being balanced in many areas of life. The ideal life has a creative component.
In the Q&A segment, someone asked about people laughing things off. He said that laughing things off implies something unhealthy. It could be used to avoid painful feelings, especially if someone laughs off someone else’s painful experience. This is not part of a mentally healthy life.
In our daily life, we are limited in how to influence the world around us. When someone can’t laugh about things, it could mean they take themselves too seriously. This could be a defense mechanism for a shaky ego.
If a person can laugh at himself, this is healthier.
He noted that Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, MD, taught that low self-esteem is usually at the core of most mental health disorders. Sometimes, being too serious or laughing can be a defense. If you are protecting yourself so the world doesn’t see your more fragile ego, you can do it either by making jokes or by refusing to laugh.
He said, “Life is serious, but we don’t have to take ourselves seriously.”
He noted that, as adults, we move away from our child self. A belly laugh is an intense expression of emotion.
Selfish humor is like pranks. These are degrading.
He then explained that the principle of improv is “yes and.”
Your scene partner says something, and then you respond back with “yes and…” You add to it.
You add because you are a member of the team. It shows you respect the other person. You contributed.
He shared that he believes that we are talking about our problems too much. “I realize that we need to do actions of connecting to someone else.” We need to be more playful and connected.
Connecting can be healthier than just talking about problems.
By Susie Garber
