After reading Steve Wells (PET) comments on humour and therapy I felt trully inspired to blog more. Humour is a tremendous tool to use in therapy. People often have the view of therapy as this serious world where there is endless crying and great distress. Well sometimes, occasionally it is, however for the most part if you are using techniques that get results it can be a stunningly uplifting experience. I have spent many a session laughing away WITH my clients as we piece by piece clear their issue.

As Steve mentions, blow out/ exaggeration techniques are brilliant for getting fast results. They ramp the problem up until the point that the client starts to feel it is totally ridiculous. At this point the client will often say, “well it is not that bad”, or they just laugh and say, “I really can’t believe that I ever thought that way“.

Another way I slip humour in is as a casual comment when doing the EFT. The following example highlights this. The client felt that something they did many years before was going to somehow come back and have repercussions now. As per usual in EFT, I focused on the problem tapping on the different acupoints, as the client tapped along on the problem statement as we reached the under eye point, I just slipped in, “it is taking its time” (the original event/s had been decades in the past). Of course the client smiled at this and saw the humour. Using humour in this way can make therapy more gentle and speed up the time it takes to get results.

Of course there is an art and skill to using humour. If you really want to use humour in your therapy sessions I recommend that you master the art of gaining rapport and learn how to pick up on the client’s unconscious communication. If you don’t bother to develop these skills, go to the gym and learn to run really fast (because you will need it). It is not always appropriate to use humour. You need to read your client’s body language to know when it is appropriate to use. For some people they are not in a place where they would appreciate humour. Using it with these clients would break rapport. Rapport is essential for effective therapy to take place. Therefore developing the sensitivity to pick up on when you can and cannot use it, is important.

Timing is also important. Your timing is more likely to be spot on if you are trully confident applying your EFT. To be trully confident you need to have got yourself “out of the way”, as Gary Craig often says.

Well next time you watch a TV Show and see all the angst as the person undergoes endless therapy for week after week, realise it is just fiction. Therapy can be a fun experience.