Humor and Healing in College Counseling

Humor is an often neglected but potentially powerful tool in college counseling center interventions. In this article we review potential benefits and hazards of using humor in a college mental health setting along with perspectives on humor’s mechanism of action and distinctions between types of humor. Therapist and client-specific considerations, such as culture and identity, are discussed in relation to the judicious use of humor in individual therapy. Based on our experience employing these techniques at an urban, private university counseling center, we make specific recommendations for the application of humor in therapy, the counseling center environment, and outreach materials.     

The Use of Humor and Storytelling with African American Men: Innovative Therapeutic Strategies for Success in Counseling

In recent years, the use of culturally appropriate humor as a tool for change within the parameters of counseling has grown within the literature. In comparison, the art of storytelling has had little attention within the literature as a tool for strategic change. This article outlines a framework for the use of humor and storytelling as innovative approaches for successfully counseling African American men. In addition, the growing research on the socialization of men is used to assist in the development of culturally appropriate strategies that help African American men utilize their inherent strengths within the counseling process.     

Metaphors for Change

Abstract

A metaphor is the symbolic representation of an idea or a concept in communication. In the counseling context, the use of metaphors provides an alternative intervention strategy when direct communication is ineffective or undesirable. Four critical aspects of the counseling process-communicating understanding, increasing motivation, overcoming resistance, and facilitating solutions-can be enhanced through the use of metaphors. Case examples demonstrating the efficacy and integration of therapeutic metaphors in a college counseling setting are provided.     

A Review of the Empirical Basis for Counseling: Implications for Practice and Training

This article reviews the empirical literature in terms of three components of counseling including existing counselor and client factors, the counseling process, and the outcome of client change. The counseling process is based on the therapeutic relationship, general factors, and common techniques or interventions, as well as specific counseling approaches. The review supports the contention that there are common factors exhibited by skilled therapists that are empirically related to positive client change. Recommendations are made for the use of this information by counselor educators in training student counselors and designing training programs.     

Considerations and Strategies for Teaching Online Counseling Skills: Establishing Relationships in Cyberspace

As technology advances and the use of online counseling becomes more routine, attention must be paid to instruction regarding online counseling skills. The authors present considerations for teaching basic online counseling skills to master's‐level counseling students. Recommendations are made for helping students to establish and maintain therapeutic relationships online. Suggestions specific to counselor preparation and future research are provided.     

Humor in Pedagogy: How Ha-Ha can Lead to Aha!

Abstract. Several studies have examined the pedagogical implications and cautions concerning the use of humor in teaching. Humor has been associated with a host of positive physiological and psychological effects. Researchers have identified that educators who use humor in their instruction are more positively rated by their peers and their students; others have suggested that humor may enhance learning. Although much of this evidence has been anecdotal, the present study assesses the impact of curriculum-specific humor on retention and recall, as well as student evaluations of the course and the instructor. The appropriate use of humor in a classroom setting is discussed and cautions against tendentious humor are addressed.     

Love in the Time of Facebook: How Technology Now Shapes Romantic Attachments in College Students

College counseling clinicians need to understand how students use technology to form, sustain, and end romantic attachments. Students now frequently incorporate aspects of these technologically based interactions, or mediated communications, into counseling sessions and often make important attributions based on them. Heavy daily use of a growing array of options includes telephonic conversations, text messaging, chat, Facebook, and e-mail. This article will provide a theoretical framework that integrates attachment and communications theory to assist college counseling clinicians to make positive therapeutic use of this remarkable shift in how students communicate in romantic (and other) relationships.     

幼儿教师幽默感及对幼儿的影响

幼儿教师幽默感是幼儿教师教育机智的重要体现,对幼儿具有重要影响。从幼儿身心发展的特点、幼儿对幽默的理解、幼儿教师对自身幽默感的认识等方面入手,利用观察法切身观察幼儿教师幽默感及对幼儿的影响,反思幼儿教师幽默感,积极挖掘、利用自身的幽默来潜移默化地影响幼儿,以引导幼儿教师合理利用自身的幽默感,促进幼儿健康发展。     

How humor makes or breaks student-teacher relationships: A classroom ethnography in Belgium

Humor characterizes daily classroom interactions and strengthens or weakens student-teacher relationships. Making use of ethnographic classroom observations, we examine how humor relates to student-teacher relationships. Results show that humor in the classroom serves different functions. While teachers use humor to facilitate teaching and learning, students apply it to express their attitudes towards school and teachers. The use of humor varies across classrooms and tracks. Our findings suggest the importance of analyzing the use of humor in classrooms for teachers (in training), and point to broader implications in relationship to the maintenance of and resistance to social inequalities in education.     

模因幽默——言语幽默的模因观

从模因论的角度分析言语幽默产生的语用特征。模因体现在语言使用中,语言本身也是一种模因。通过语言模因来实现幽默效果的言语被称为模因幽默。语言模因能够利用形式与内容之间的矛盾关系,激发听话人完成乖讹—消解的理解过程,从而实现言语的幽默。此外,某些语言模因还能够再现自身的幽默内涵,调动相关的幽默感受,从而使言语具有幽默效果。语言模因的基本特性,在言语幽默的表达和理解上均发挥着关键作用。     

Applying Qur’anic Metaphors in Counseling

In recent years there has been increased attention to the importance of appropriate and relevant counseling interventions with culturally and religiously diverse populations. In accordance with the fact that Muslims rely on Qur’anic verses when answering the larger questions of life, “metaphor therapy” comes across as a technique that counselors can employ with Muslim clients. Although several authors have suggested the use of therapeutic metaphors from various religious texts in a broad manner, relatively little has been published on the application of metaphors from the Qur’an in counseling. This article explains the value of Qur’anic metaphors as therapeutic tools in counseling.     

Freedom: Toward an Integration of the Counseling Profession

Freedom is presented as an overarching paradigm that may align and bring together the counseling profession's diverse counseling theories and open a doorway to a new generation of counseling techniques. Freedom is defined and discussed in terms of its 4 modalities: freedom from, freedom to, freedom with, and freedom for. The long‐standing problem of theoretical integration of counseling and psychotherapy is explored in combination with the phenomenon of therapeutic change in the context of freedom. The new paradigm generates new and possibly more effective counseling techniques by aligning and incorporating freedom with such ideas as agency, self‐determination, metacognition, mindfulness, and often unexamined Asian therapeutic techniques from yoga and Buddhism.     

论英语幽默语言的语用特征与修辞技巧

幽默语言的产生与违反合作原则之间存在着密切关系:貌似违反实则遵守合作原则或与其相反,都能产生幽默。幽默语言大体上具备隐含性、组合性、讽刺性、民族性、模糊性五个主要特征。幽默语言的形成主要依赖语法、词汇、修辞等语言技巧的妙用,修辞技巧在幽默语言中有很多具体的体现。     

“I May Be Crackin’, But Um Fackin’”: Racial Humor in The Watsons Go To Birmingham—1963

This article examines the utilization of racial humor in Christopher Paul Curtis’ novel, The Watsons Go To Birmingham—1963. The theoretical perspectives that inform the analysis include critical race theory and humor theory. The results of the analysis reveal that the use of humor in this book is influenced to a significant degree by race and racism.     

美国教育中的幽默

在美国,幽默被认定为教师"最强有力的教学策略"之一,并认为它对教育具有多方面的作用,美国许多教师在教学中频繁地使用幽默.本文介绍了美国教育中幽默应用的状况,重点在于展示美国在幽默对教育的作用方面所进行的相关研究,以期对我国的快乐教育提供借鉴.     

The Goodly Fellowship

In this study, we investigated the use of humor in college classrooms. We examined how students perceived professors' uses of various types of humor during class and the types of humor that students and faculty recommend for use in class. We also correlated the way professors incorporated humor into their class lectures with their perceived competence and effectiveness, and we investigated whether students felt their learning experience improved when their teachers used humor. We also discussed topics such as ''scarcasm,'' professor gender, student and faculty support of humor, and humor in classrooms, tests, and the rest of life. Humor appropriately used has the potential to humanize, illustrate, defuse, encourage, reduce anxiety, and keep people thinking.     

论《诗经》的幽默艺术

西方的“幽默”艺术与中国传统的“谐谑”技艺极为相似。《诗经》的幽默主要体现在下面几方面 :一是通过漫画式的描写 ,突出刻画被嘲弄者形象的某种缺点或特征 ,使其显得滑稽可笑 ,形成性格性幽默 ,如《豳风·狼跋》 ;二是具有幽默性格的人 ,往往对人生持乐观态度 ,常爱以谐辞谑语进行调侃、打趣 ,寻求快乐 ,由此 ,往往会产生出一种情景幽默与喜剧性效应 ,如《郑风》的《山有扶苏》、《狡童》、《褰裳》等。这两种幽默 ,遵循“谐而不谑”的规范 ,无伤大雅。此外还有一种讽刺性幽默 ,即微笑地玩弄世间荒谬事物的讽刺 ,它以辛辣的嘲讽 ,去揭示事物的可笑、愚蠢、荒谬与卑劣 ,在笑声中达到批判的目的 ,如《邶风·新台》、《陈风·株林》。应当说 ,在某些情况下 ,讽刺性幽默的运用 ,使人们在笑声中不仅揭露出事物丑恶的本质 ,同时在批判的过程中在精神上也获得了一定程度的满足感与愉悦感 ,因而也更有趣味。     

Effects of Principal Actor Time Structuring on Goal Attainment in Group Counseling

The purposes of this study were to determine whether clients' individual goal attainment was influenced by the structuring of principal actor time in a series of group counseling experiences and to discover the effects of such structuring on the therapeutic climate in the groups. Subjects of the study consisted of a combination of 84 university and high school students. Data for the study was obtained from responses to a behavioral goal questionnaire and the Truax Relationship Inventory. A multivariate analysis procedure was used to test for differences in individual goal attainment between structured and unstructured groups and in the level of the therapeutic relationship achieved between groups. Structuring of group counseling through the use of principal actor time did not result in differential goal attainment between clients of structured or unstructured groups. Neither was any significant difference noted in the measured therapeutic relationship achieved between counselors and clients of the respective groups.