Psychiatry in humour, humour in psychiatry

The first part of the title deals with the psychological, psychopathological and psychoanalytic aspects of humour. After Bergson’s important work it was Freud who gave a new light to the problem of humour. His book is a pioneer one in showing the significance of the unconscious, in the role of the repressed (especially aggressive and sexual tendencies) understanding the origin of jokes. Later Ego psychology considers humour a defence mechanism, a way for solution of conflicts, or an adaptive one coping with the difficulties of life. We could also see here various studies on humorists, comics, and clowns f.i. on the personality of Chaplin. Koestler considers humour a special field of creativity. Looking at the other side of the coin we can see the role of humour in psychiatry, especially in the psychiatric-psychotherapeutic practice. The caricature is well known: the patient is lying on the couch with the psychiatrist (psychoanalyst) on behind. The situation permits wide variety of jokes. Here we meet with the jokes on mental health, f.i. mental jokes (in Hungary “fool-jokes”). This sort of jokes contains the unconscious on the one hand, and social aspects on the other. They reflect the prejudices of lay people, proving their ?intellectual superiority” and otherness. Humour having mental and psychosomatic effect, is used for therapy (“Clown care” in paediatric departments) and prevention as well.