You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Observation of patients who failed to see the joke in certain cartoons revealed that this occurred where the theme of the cartoon approximated to an important conflict of the patient. Often the failure operated by means of the denial of a perception. This is the mark of a scoptophilic conflict over the exposure of the impulse. Those people who are chronically humourless have too punitive a superego to allow themselves the pleasure of the temporary and controlled regression which humour involves.