There's a kind of tailoring to the individual and the circumstance. Humour is a way of getting a foot into the glass slipper - sometimes it fits and sometimes it doesn't. There have been times when I have been clumsy and inept or poorly responsive and the client has forgiven me. Miriam Polster, Co-director, Gestalt Training Center, San Diego, Calif., is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Universtiy of California, San Diego and a therapist in private practice. Tragic figures get stuck in thinking they are in a terrible position.
Comic figures have a wonderful gift of feeling they are smaller than life.
I charge enough - that's not the problem. You really have to be suspicious of people who cry too much in therapy. We don't laugh at their feelings but at their choices. I think therapy should be fun. If we're doing it right, it should be fun.