Humour in Freud

Sigmund Freud established that humor might be related with unconscious content². In “Jokes and Their Relation to The Unconscious" as well as in “Humor” Freud referred to contentious jokes ⁷. He distinguishes humor in three particular forms: joke, comic and mimetic. ³

Freud's theory of humor

In his view, jokes happen when the conscious allows forbidden thoughts which society suppresses.The superego allows the ego to generate humor². A benevolent superego allows a light and comforting type of humor while a harsh superego creates a biting and sarcastic type of humor³. A very harsh superego suppresses humor all together [2,3,7] . Freud’s humor theory was based on the dynamic between id, ego and superego⁷. The commanding superego will impede the ego to continue its pleasure-seeking from the id, or to momentarily adapt itself to the demands of reality⁷. Moreover Freud (1960)³ also contributes to the development of the relief theory of laughter in which he proposed that emotional energy is released by humor sense.Later Freud re-turned his attention to humor noting that everyone is not capable of formulating humor^3,8.

The different types of humor

Freud describes jokes as letting in forbidden thoughts and feelings which society suppresses into the conscious mind^2,3. Thus, there is an interaction between the unconscious and the conscious thoughts. For example Valerie Sinason (1994) mentions an eight years old patient who made a l joke of her profession when he accused her of being a "PISS-CO-ANAL-CYST", or a "PSYCHO-THE-RAPIST" ⁹.

Mimetic on the other hand is a process involving two different representations of the body in our mind^2,3,7. For example the phrase “He has his heart in the right place” The heart has two representations, one which is anatomical, while the other is a metaphorical way of being at peace with one self [reference needed] .

The "'comic" is “to apply to one and the same act of ideation two different ideational methods” (Freud, 1905, 300; as cited in ⁷. William Shakespeare’s Falstaff would be Freud's best example of the "comic", generating laughter by utilizing once repressed inhibition ⁴.An upset American says at Sunday School: "(Roosevelt) is my Shepherd; I am in want. He makes me to lie down on park benches; he leads me in the paths of destruction for His party's sake"⁶.

Criticism

Modern critics debate that Freud's division is artificial and not very clear^1,8. According to Altman (2006)¹ these three different types of humor are divided more in a semantically way than in a functional one. Hence, all three types of humor are a result of the dynamic of the conscious and unconscious^1,8. For example hate and anger can be hidden by a false sense of love and compassion which could be the opposite of what is meant and thus formulating a joke^3,1,7

References

¹Altman, N. (2006). And now for something completely different: humor in psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 16(5),573-577.

²Freud, S. (1928). Humor. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 9, 1-6.

³Freud, S. (1960). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. (J. Strachey, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1905).

⁴Kincaid, J. R. (2001). Falstaff as an example for Freud’s “comic”. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/kincaid2, retrieved from the web on the 12th May 2008.

⁵Marshall, R. (2004). Getting even on the jest propelled couch: humor and play in psychoanalysis. Modern psychoanalysis. 1(29),63-76.

⁶Martin J. (2006) Studies in American humor, University of Southern California, http://www.compedit.com/introduction.htm retrieve from the web 17th may 2008.

⁷Matte, G. (2001). A psychoanalytical perspective of humor. Humor, 14(3),223-241.

⁸Newirth, J. (2006). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious: humor as a fundamental emotional experience. Psychoanalytic dialogues, 16(5),557-571.

⁹Smuts, A. (2006). The internet encyclopedia of philosophy, Humor. http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/humor.htm#H3, retrieved from the web on the 12th of April 2008.