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.
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious remains one of Freud's most memorable books, yet psychoanalysts have been reluctant to discuss the role of humor in therapy. Even Freud, great collector of jokes that he was, had little to add about the subject after the publication of his joke book in 1905. Many psychoanalysts have agreed with Lawrence Kubie's (1971) influential judgment that the analyst's humor is inappropriate as a therapeutic technique. Given Kubie's solemn belief that an analyst's humor during therapy is an exhibitionistic defense against anxiety, it is understandable that psychoanalysts have been unwilling to publish articles and books extolling humor as a legitimate analytic technique. Humor, alas, is no laughing matter in therapy! A few analysts, most notably Warren Poland (1990), have recognized the gift of humor, but they have been the exception. It is for this reason that the publication of James Barron's edited volume Humor and Psyche is a welcome addition to psychoanalytic scholarship.
Humor and Psyche is divided into three sections: “Historical and Theoretical Perspectives,” “Therapeutic Process,” and “Character and Creativity.” The ten essays in the volume cover a wide range of subjects and reflect diverse strengths. Martin Bergmann's lead essay, “The Psychoanalysis of Humor and Humor in Psychoanalysis,” which is one of the best in the collection, notes that although analysts have been reluctant to go beyond Freud's analysis of humor, they are slowly beginning to recognize the healing aspects of humor. Bergmann ends his erudite discussion with the observation that whereas the Greek and Roman gods