Humour (as a mature defence)
Mature defence; high adaptive level on the DSM-IV scale. The person sees and openly expresses the absurd or ironic side of a painful situation, so the feeling is acknowledged and shared, not hidden.
What drives it
Makes pain bearable and shareable while keeping it in view; it lowers tension for everyone without anyone having to pretend.
How it shows
Work
In a crisis meeting the CFO says, dry: “Good news, we've found the bottom. Bad news, it has a basement.” Everyone laughs, then gets to work on the actual problem. The joke names the fear rather than dodging it. Contrast the deflecting joker, whose jokes arrive to end the conversation.
Relationships
Couples who can laugh at their own pattern mid-fight and then return to the issue. Gallows humour at a deathbed that brings the family closer.
Self
After the laugh you can still talk seriously about the thing. If joking is the only way you ever mention it, it's deflection, not mature humour.
What tells it apart
Manic defence: Manic jokiness is relentless, speeds up as pain approaches and blocks serious talk; mature humour is occasional and opens the way to it.
Devaluation: Sarcasm that belittles a person is devaluation dressed as humour; mature humour is aimed at the situation or at oneself and leaves others included.
Denial: Deflecting humour makes the fact disappear; mature humour keeps it in the room.
A test
Watch what happens after the laugh; if the conversation returns to the problem it is probably mature humour, and if it moves away with more jokes whenever the topic returns, it may be deflection.
Questions to carry
- After the laugh, where does the conversation go, back to the problem or further away?
- Which subject do I always joke about, and what would happen if I didn’t?
How strong the research is
clinical. Rated reliably in Vaillant's and Perry's work and linked to good outcomes; research on humour styles shows self-defeating and aggressive humour carry the opposite associations.
Where it comes from
Sigmund Freud, 1905 and 1927; George Vaillant, 1977
On the family tree: Sigmund Freud