And Now For Something Completely Different: Humor in Psychoanalysis Commentary on Paper by Joseph Newirth

In this commentary, I argue that if humor is to be considered in an intersubjective context, the impact of any comment or action by analyst or patient cannot be predicted with much confidence. An interaction that is experienced by both parties as humorous depends on an unconscious confluence that is largely spontaneous. Efforts to orchestrate a particular outcome to an intervention that is meant to be humorous may well reveal more than was intended, and thus have an unpredictable unconscious resonance.