The authors stress the interpersonal as opposed to the intrapsychic meanings of humor. Insofar as humor establishes contact, it is of special usefulness with severely disturbed patients. However, the authors' comments about the social nature of humor and the ways in which it is clinically helpful with schizophrenic patients also apply to work with less disturbed patients. Humor helps establish a constructive identification with the therapist by establishing affective contact on a preverbal or nonverbal level that is free of anxiety and paranoia. It creates a new perspective on what has seemed an insoluble problem by rendering the problem absurd for a moment. This “moment,” whatever duration it may enjoy, demonstrates a constructive experience of separation from one's pathology and from one's symbiotic tendencies