Table Of ContentWHAT MADE FREUD LAUGH
In her characteristically engaging style, Nelson explores a topic that has fascinated
and frustrated scholars for centuries. Initially drawn to the meaning of laughter
through her decades of work studying crying from an attachment perspective,
Nelson argues that laughter is based in the attachment system, which explains
much about its confusing and apparently contradictory qualities.
Laughter may represent connection or detachment. It can invite closeness, or be a
barrier to it. Some laughter helps us cope with stress; other laughter may serve as
a defense and represent resistance to growth and change. Nelson resolves these
paradoxes and complexities by linking attachment-based laughter with the ex-
ploratory/play system in infancy, and the social/affi liative, confl ict/appeasement,
sexual/mating, and fear/wariness systems of later life. An attachment perspective
also helps to explain the source of different patterns and uses of laughter, suggest-
ing how and why they may vary according to attachment style, and explaining the
multiple meanings of laughter in the context of the therapeutic relationship. As
she discovers, attachment has much to teach us about laughter, and laughter has
much to teach us about attachment. This lively book sheds light on the ways in
which we connect, grow, and transform and how, through shared humor, play, and
delight, we have fun doing so.
Judith Kay Nelson, MSW, PhD, is the former dean and currently on the
faculty of the Sanville Institute for Clinical Social Work and Psychotherapy, Cali-
fornia. She also teaches attachment and neurobiology in the clinical social work
doctoral program at Smith College, Massachusetts. She has taught and presented
throughout the United States and Europe on topics related to crying, grief, laugh-
ter, and attachment.
WHAT MADE
FREUD LAUGH
An Attachment Perspective
on Laughter
First published 2012
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Judith Kay Nelson
The right of Judith Kay Nelson to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted
by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Nelson, Judith Kay, 1941-
What made Freud laugh : an attachment perspective on laughter / by Judith Kay
Nelson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Laughter. 2. Attachment behavior. I. Title.
BF575.L3N45 2012
152.4’3—dc23 2012005595
ISBN: 978-0-415-99832-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-99833-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-10326-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For Aurelia June and Leo Cassady
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Part 1 A Theory of Laughter 5
1 Laughter as Attachment Behavior: Foundations of a Theory 7
2 Types of Laughter 22
3 Theories About Laughter from an Attachment Perspective 31
4 Laughter Research and Attachment 40
Part 2 Laughter in Infancy 53
5 The Development of Laughter in Infancy 55
6 Affect Attunement and Misattunement and the Formation
of Internal Working Models of Attachment 71
viii Contents
Part 3 Laughter in Childhood and Adolescence 91
7 The Development of Laughter in Childhood 93
8 Childhood Laughter in a Clinical Context 112
Part 4 Laughter in Adulthood 137
9 Adult Laughter in Everyday Life 139
10 Laughter in the Clinical Hour 159
Part 5 Transcendent Laughter 177
11 Divine Comedy: Transformation and Transcendence
in Laughter, Humor, Comedy, and Wit 179
References 203
Index 213
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I once read that only a person with no sense of humor would attempt to write a
book on laughter. The following people are responsible for helping me keep mine
alive and well while working on this project, and I extend a hearty thank you to
each of them and wish for them much laugher and happiness.
George Zimmar at Routledge has been a supportive and understanding edi-
tor. His patience and words of encouragement have kept me steady and on track
throughout. I also greatly appreciate the help of Marta Moldvai, who has been a
steady presence during the publication process.
My team of writing helpers has also been amazing. The time, effort, and sheer
brain power they have donated have made all the difference in preparing this
book. For help on the front lines, I thank Cynthia Nelson, Rose Jade, Marcia
Hoogstra, and Lori Pesavento for standing by at all hours to read and edit, and
Greta Christina, Ingrid Nelson, and Russ Nelson for fi elding my editing ques-
tions by return e-mail. My colleagues/readers—Maureen Adams, Ann Cameron,
Yvette Esprey, and Charles Rizzutto—have been responsive, helpful, supportive,
and generous as they diligently read and responded to the chapters I sent along at
regular intervals. I appreciate their generosity and their individual and collective
wisdom and know that the work is more solid because of them.
To the many colleagues who have shared anecdotes, brainstormed about ideas
and theories, and generally supported and encouraged me, I am grateful beyond
measure: Cynthia O’ Connell, Lise and Neal Blumenfeld, Suzanne Bennett, Allan
and Judy Schore, Kate White, and Merle Davis. Colleagues and students from The
Sanville Institute for Clinical Social Work and Psychotherapy have been standing
by with ideas, examples, and much good old-fashioned laughter. I especially thank
Gregory Bellow, Jo Ann Bellow, Mary Coombs, Tina Casenza, Angeleen Campra,
Deborah Levine, Silvio Machado, Lonnie Prince, and the Sanville students who
x Acknowledgments
worked on the laughter project: Hillary Dreyfuss, Michelle Frisch, Paula Holt,
Sidney Mullen, and Cazeaux Nordstrom. Several Smith College School for Social
Work doctoral students also contributed ideas and examples. Thank you especially
to Sally Comer and Maria Oliva.
I would also like to thank some of the dear friends who have helped to make
this project both fun and funny. To the Women’s Group —Margo Arcanin, Mar-
garet Ballou, Barbara Miller, Judy Morhar, Donna Rosenheim, Susan Sandler, and
Ruth Sands—I offer my gratitude for the deep bonds of friendship, closeness, loy-
alty, and confi dence over so many years. Thank you, too, to the Women’s Potluck
Group —Pattie Howard, Cindy Black, Trudi Elm, Cathy Parker, Brenda Adams,
and Diane Fischer—for the regular infusions of creative energy and good food.
Laughter, for me, began in my family. Thank you to my sister, Marcia, who has
been giggling with me since childhood, to the new kids in the family, Ava and
Cecilia, Tanner and Wyatt, for reminding me about childhood, and to the former
kids, Corrie Hoogstra, Dirk Hoogstra, and Ingrid Nelson, for demonstrating de-
velopmental changes and entertaining me in the process. Thank you also to Craig
Hoogstra who likes to tell jokes, Russ Nelson for playing second string on the
“yo-yo” team, my mother, Lucille Baker, who had the loudest laugh in the world,
and my father, Kenneth Baker, who could insert odd jokes and facts in the fun-
niest places. I am grateful also to Uncle Jack, Aunt Pauline, and the McDermott
cousins who taught me about true wit and kept it coming; the rest of the Payne
cousins in Michigan, Joan and Jerry Horne, Larry, David, and Barbara Payne, for
making childhood fun; the Payne cousins in Mississippi for all the good times on
the farm; and the Baker cousins in Mississippi, especially Dorothy Jean Latham
and Sonny Latham, for keeping the southern storytelling traditions alive. I would
also like to thank my in-laws of the past 25 years, Dick and Jeri Williams, for the
good company and warm winter hospitality, Ellen Pesavento and Teri and Michael
Miranti for being family, and Derek and Jordan Miranti for all that kid energy
and playful good fun.
I would like to thank my immediate family—the San Francisco branch, Ingrid
Nelson and Greta Christina, for their enthusiasm and understanding of what it
takes to get this done, and the Portland branch, Cynthia Nelson, Dusty Reske,
Aurelia, and Leo, for making every day for play and laughter.
Lori Pesavento has managed to be my primary support squad, my primary
attachment fi gure, and my best laughmate throughout this process, and for that,
“thank you” only scratches the surface.
INTRODUCTION
“Laughter,” comedian Victor Borge once said, “is the shortest distance between
two people.” A simple behavior, common to all human beings and quite a few of
our close animal relatives, laughter is nonetheless mysterious, profound, complex,
and confusing. Philosophers, theologians, psychologists, scientists, and humorists
of all stripes are drawn to study it and formulate theories, yet most who try are
humbled by the process. Freud, writing about jokes and humor almost 100 years
ago, said he would not even attempt to consider everything that had been written
about laughter. He quotes the preface to a book on the psychology of laughter
published a few years earlier (Dugas as cited in Freud, 1905/1983):
There is no action that is more commonplace or that has been more widely
studied than laughter. There is none that has succeeded more in exciting
the curiosity both of ordinary people and of philosophers. There is none
on which more observations have been collected and more theories built.
But at the same time there is none that remains more unexplained. (p. 146)
A student of laughter in the 21st century is even more inundated by theories
and scientifi c studies on the subject. During the decades when I was studying cry-
ing from an attachment perspective and working out a theory to explain its mean-
ing throughout life, I kept thinking that focusing an attachment lens on laughter
could help to clarify some of the confusion and controversy among the prevailing
theories and help psychotherapists navigate some of the tricky aspects of laughter
in psychotherapeutic treatment. I determined that as soon as the dust had settled
from the completion of my book Seeing Through Tears: Crying and Attachment, I
would begin work on building an attachment theory of laughter. I felt confi dent
that the same principles I had applied to crying would also apply to laughter and
