Health, Laughter and Contrarianism

Posted by Dr. Kaplan

December 12, 2011 |

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

Do you appreciate authorities telling you what to do with your life? No? Not in any situation? What if you had a bad accident and felt pain in your neck. Would you want an orthopaedic surgeon telling you what to do? Sometimes direct authoritarian instruction is very good for you and this is certainly the case when it comes to emergency medicine.

In the world of counseling and psychotherapy however, direct advice is often less than useful. Most therapists and counsellers are aware of this and avoid giving it. But what if someone – far from giving sensible advice – would take the side of your problem and warmly order you to do things that clearly would not serve you well? What if they offered you absurd solutions to your problems and with a twinkle in the eye and genuine affection in the heart, ‘advised’ you to do more of the very same behaviour which hasn’t helped you get what you want in life?

Provocative Therapy is the cutting edge in the use of humour and reverse psychology in brief therapy. Sessions start with you giving the Provocative Therapist permission to say absurd things – all in the hope of ‘provoking’ you to implement the real solution to any issue in your life. Where is that solution to be found? Why in you of course! The idea is to use humour and reverse psychology to provoke you (Latin: pro vokare – ‘to call forth’) to locate, articulate and finally implement that solution.

Provocative Therapy embraces the use of paradox and contrarianism in psychotherapy. Interestingly, the central idea of homeopathy ‘let likes be cured by likes’ is also contrarian. I’ve written about this connection here. and I was pleased to see that Frank Farrelly, the founder of Provocative Therapy, has a note on this on his website.

I studied the therapeutic effects of laughter for many years and formulated Kaplan’s Mnemonic to remember them. There is no doubt that laughing at anything or nothing is good for you. When you laugh at your Inner Joke (the funny side of how you, yourself are sabotaging your own chances of fulfillment in life) you get much more than these physical health benefits. You are provoked into making the necessary changes in your behaviour to give yourself a good chance of getting what you need in life. This is how Provocative Therapy works.

Provocative Therapy is not suitable for everyone and a Provocative Therapist will assess your situation before accepting you as a client. You also do need to believe that your sense of humour can help you change for the better and give the Provocative Therapist explicit permission to provoke you therapeutically. Nobody is ever ‘ambushed’ by this unususal approach and patients are always made fully aware of the contrarian nature of Provocative Therapy.

Make sure you use this Christmas to have as many family fights as possible!

Sorry I should have asked permission before saying that!