The impact of humor therapy on people suffering from depression or anxiety: An integrative literature review

Humor in professional coaching: a literature review and research agenda

Introduction

Extensive research has explored the incorporation of humor in therapy, revealing its potential positive effects on clients' mental well-being and personal growth. However, limited research exists on how coaching could benefit from humor as an intervention and how its utilization impacts the interaction processes and outcomes for both the coachee and coach. Therefore, our research focuses on the use and effects of spontaneous humor within professional dialogues. This paper aims to extract insights from academic literature on humor in adjacent fields and apply these insights to the context of coaching.

Methods

This paper offers implications for coaching theory and practice, alongside a proposed research agenda. The initial phase involves analyzing reviews on humor in professional contexts, and coaching. Secondly, following the PRISMA guidelines for review, we identified 13 empirical studies, which address the role of humor in counseling, psychotherapy, and mentoring.

Results and discussion

Our findings suggest that humor serves as a valuable tool for establishing and deepening the working alliance, fostering adaptive coping mechanisms in clients, and enhancing the cognitive and behavioral process. Moreover, humor is shown to be advantageous for professionals in navigating challenging client relationships. These findings hold significance for the realm of coaching practice as well. In light of these insights, we propose the integration of humor use in education toolkits for coaching professionals.

Hearing laughter: a prescription for anxiety relief

Anxiety can have adverse effects on cognition such as impairing test performance or restricting working memory. One way of reducing anxiety is through humor, and the present research investigated if the perception of laughter, which is often seen as a reaction to humor, could impact self-reported anxiety. Participants completed the STAI battery containing subscales for both state and trait anxiety before and after one of three manipulations: a laughter sounds rating task, a neutral sounds rating task, or a working memory span task. Results showed that perceiving laughter decreased both state and trait anxiety, taking a working memory test increased state anxiety, and perceiving neutral sounds had no effect on either type of anxiety. These findings are interpreted as evidence that the positive emotions induced by hearing laughter help to regulate anxiety by undoing arousal, even when negative emotions are not present.

Psychological aspects of rehabilitation nutrition: A position paper by the Japanese Association of Rehabilitation Nutrition (secondary publication)

Psychological aspects of rehabilitation nutrition affect physical, cognitive, and social rehabilitation nutrition. When depression is recognized, not only pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, but also non-pharmacological therapies such as exercise, nutrition, psychosocial, and other interventions can be expected to improve depression. Therefore, accurate diagnosis and intervention without overlooking depression is important. Psychological aspects of preventive rehabilitation nutrition is also important because depression can be partially prevented by appropriate exercise and nutritional management. Even in the absence of psychological negatives, increasing more psychological positives from a positive psychology perspective can be useful for both patients and healthcare professionals. Positive rehabilitation nutrition interventions can increase more psychological positives, such as well-being, through cognitive-behavioral therapy and mindfulness on their own, as well as through interventions on environmental factors. Consequently, physical, cognitive, and social positives are also expected to be enhanced.