Trauma as a Laughing Matter

“Humor is just another defense against the universe.”— Mel Brooks

Humor holds an important place in the therapy room. It often sits right alongside grief, trauma, and loss. While tears are expected in session, genuine laughter shows up just as often—and both have value.

Clients share stories filled with painful realities: abuse, abandonment, relational wounds, and profound heartbreak. These are serious experiences deserving of care and space. And yet, within many of these stories, there are moments of absurdity.

Sometimes it is the outrageous parenting tactics people survived as children. Sometimes it is the bizarre contradictions within dysfunctional family systems. Sometimes it is the unbelievable thing an ex-partner said with a completely straight face.

And sometimes, after safety and trust are established, something shifts—and we laugh.

Laughing matters.

I've often wondered if humor is one of the ways humans perform emotional alchemy.

We take something painful, confusing, frightening, or overwhelming and somehow transform it into a story, a joke, a perfectly timed observation, or a moment of connection.

I know this has certainly been true in my own life. Some of my greatest ridiculousness has been fueled by my own pain. Not because the pain itself was funny, but because humor helped me carry what otherwise felt too heavy.

Perhaps that is part of what Mel Brooks meant when he said that humor is another defense against the universe.

Something I've noticed repeatedly in therapy is this: people who have endured significant hardship are often incredibly witty, perceptive, and emotionally intelligent. They are quick to notice contradictions, tension, and the absurdity hidden inside difficult experiences.

It's not accidental.

When you grow up in unpredictable or unsafe environments, you learn to read the room quickly. You become attuned to subtle shifts in mood, tone, and behavior. Humor can become more than entertainment—it becomes a way to create relief, connection, and meaning in situations that once felt unbearable.

Sometimes it shows up as dark humor. Sometimes as sharp wit. Sometimes as the uncanny ability to say the thing everyone else is thinking but cannot quite articulate.

This is not about minimizing pain.

It is about surviving it.

Humor doesn't erase suffering. It transforms our relationship to it.

It takes an experience that once left us powerless and allows us to hold it differently. Not with denial, but with perspective. Not with avoidance, but with enough distance to breathe.

In many ways, the ability to laugh in the face of suffering reflects creativity, resilience, and post-traumatic growth—a kind of emotional alchemy.

Research even shows that laughter releases endorphins, lowers stress hormones, and activates dopamine. For many people, humor was helping regulate the nervous system long before therapy ever began.

In therapy, we do not take that away—we honor it.

Because when someone can cry about what they lost and laugh at the absurdity of what they survived, we are not minimizing the story; we are expanding it.

Comedy and tragedy are not opposites. More often, they are intertwined, each giving shape and meaning to the other.

So dear friend, if you find yourself laughing at something that once felt unbearable, know there may be wisdom in that too. It may simply be your mind and body finding a way to hold what once felt too heavy.

And I consider it an honor to sit with clients in those moments—acknowledging the pain, the resilience, and sometimes, the absurdity of it all together.

I may not be a comedian, but with EMDR and Brainspotting, I do come carrying a few props.

Humorously yours,

Mandy