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To Laugh or Not to Laugh? : Exploring humour as a coping v/s defense mechanism

Updated: Oct 3, 2024

Disclaimer: This is a personal essay that chronicles the personal experiences of the author. This is not meant to be advice or a source of scientific information. It is also not a substitute for therapy or any kind of intervention. If you are experiencing issues with anything, please seek professional help.


It's been a very exhausting day. My mood is on a low tide and I'm generally not feeling great. One of my go-to's in times like these is watching a good stand-up comedy video, usually about everyday mundane things. A good Kenny or Kanan stand-up set is all I need to transition into the higher mood tide. They make me laugh and help distract me from whatever new thing is living rent-free in my mind.


Laughter is probably the most commonly used defense mechanism. If you look for familiar examples in pop culture, FRIENDS' Chandler shines through as the brand ambassador. One of the quintessential Chandler things is making jokes when he is uncomfortable. This made me want to write about my personal experience with humour and its use to get through the cannon balls and events of life that I can't control.


With each passing day, more people are becoming fluent in the language of pop culture. We are turning to pop culture for things beyond entertainment today. Pop culture has also become a primary source of humour, stand-up being the major example, especially for me, making it a necessary point of discussion in the roundtable of my experience. Artworks like Dark (by Daniel Sloss) do justice to this phenomenon. My first awareness of how I use humour came from this Special. He talks about how humour is used to take control back from unfortunate or painful situations. His Special makes you rethink your boundaries of humour and what constitutes funny and not funny. The Special helped me realise the use of humour to cope with difficult situations and how that might not be the worst thing to do. 


There is a difference between using humour as a coping mechanism v/s using it as a defense mechanism. In my opinion, the former is much healthier than the latter. Defense mechanisms are said to be ways that our mind deals with the conflicts between the Id (one that caters to our impulses and urges) and the superego (the morality principle). It becomes the white flag that the moderator ego uses to keep things in check and resolve what Freud called 'conflicts'. Coping mechanisms work more like the support you use when you've had a difficult leg day workout and your muscles beg for help. A major difference between the two lies in the acknowledgement of the situation. Asking for help requires acknowledgement and acceptance that the situation is not great and you require assistance. Defence mechanisms, however, do not entail this acknowledgement. The very word defence indicates some form of avoidance. This difference is something that I truly learnt about in the said Sloss' special. His jokes about his sister with cerebral palsy were one with the intent of coping. 


I'm not saying that using humour as a defense mechanism is terrible or must be avoided at all costs. Like everyone else, I'm just a girl 🎀, and I am no stranger to dodging painful emotions or situations. Most often, using humour in stressful situations prepares me to process it in healthier ways. It's like a test drive of sorts. I think the problem arises when one is unable to move past humour. It is important to process things in healthier ways once we get past the funny walls. 


One thing that I also learnt from Chandler was an acceptance of self-deprecating humour. I was in high school when I started watching the show and I found that laughing at yourself apparently makes people think you're funny and being funny is very cool. Self-deprecating humour brings mockery, ridicule and sarcasm. According to a research paper by Dr. Swaminath G, these have no space in a therapeutic intervention. When humour involves laughing at someone, even yourself, it never leads to positive outcomes that make humour an acceptable coping mechanism. 


To scientifically verify things a little, I'm putting on my research glasses and lab coat, and taking the textbook-y route. Freud believed that humour helped lift repressions (a defence mechanism where difficult or painful thoughts are pushed out of conscious awareness). Norman Cousins, the author of ‘Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient’, mentioned, "Even if laughter produces no specific biochemical changes, it accomplishes one very essential purpose. It tends to block deep feelings of apprehension and even panic that all too frequently accompany serious illness. It helps free the body of the constricting effects of the negative emotions that in turn may impair the healing system". Cousins is known for his work in The New England Journal of Medicine where he articulated his experience of how humour helped him cope with a serious illness. He goes on to clarify that while it did help, he in no way endorses it as a substitute for professional medical treatment. 

Albert Ellis (the founder of a therapy approach called Rational Emotive Therapy) frequently used humour in his practice. 


Like everyone else, I feel most comfortable around people I can joke around with. Thousands of shares of memes that strike the nostalgic cord of laughing with your friend after getting thrown out of class is one example of humour being a necessity in close friendships. This indicates the role humour plays in social relationships. 


Like everything else, moderation is heavily at play even in this humorous journey. Every article and research paper I read emphasised the appropriate use of humour. From Hrithik Roshan's famous ZNMD "it's not funny" meme phenomenon to real-life situations, we understand that humour needs to be kept in check, and sometimes a joke can go too far. Going back to the "support after a long day at the gym" example, we eventually want to be able to stand and sit down without the help of the support. As we take help, we also recover and reach a point where the pain gradually diminishes and our muscles grow stronger and we do not need the support. I think that's how it is with humour too. The goal is to eventually work to a point where we aren't using humour all the damn time. Eventually, the funny walls need to come down and we need to process our pain in healthier and more transparent ways.  However, we can always remember that like the bar, humour is always there when we need it, and we can rely on it from time to time.





References




This piece was written by Impana Jain.


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