Laughter is the Best Medicine: Humor in Crisis Situations

From the outside looking in, tragedies are no laughing matter. Lives are lost, ruined, or haunted forever. People may perceive any form of humor in a crisis situation as a sign of callousness or insensitivity.

Humor, however, has shown time and time again that it is one of our best stress mitigators; and this benefit may prove useful in a crisis situation. It helps people cope with the situation; relieves tension; provides perspective; helps people bond; and offers much-needed hope and optimism through levity. It helps people face threat and fears instead of succumb to them. For those directly affected by the crisis, it can help them shock themselves out of the horrors or anxiety of the disaster. It can also help people through any residual grieving process.

After a disaster, there is an evolution of the types of humor used to cope with it that corresponds to the evolution of the survivors' emotional states. In the first "heroic" phase, spontaneous humor is used to relieve tension and overcome fear and anxiety as people struggle to get through the crisis. In the subsequent "honeymoon" phase, survivors' sense of optimism is reflected by more positive, hopeful humor. "Disillusionment" follows the "honeymoon," and as survivors become bitter, their sense of humor tends to subside or lean to negative or sarcastic humor. Finally, in the "reconstruction" phase, humor returns to a tone of coping, with an emphasis on community and common experience.

A crisis situation almost always conveys the possibility of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in both its victims and in emergency workers. Gallows humor often helps emergency workers deal with the trauma of caring for multitudes of dead or dying disaster victims. In immediate situations, however, people must remain mindful of appropriateness of the type of humor used and what phase of adjustment the recipient is in. In improper situations, humor can be more hurtful than helpful.