An old question in psychology, the “mind-body” question, asks if the mind and the body are one and the same thing or if they are separate. And, if they’re separate, do they influence each other, and which one is in charge? These questions can have profound effects on the ways we treat both physical and mental health.
Western medicine has traditionally separated body and mind, beginning with Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who argued that mind and body were completely separate entities and that the body could influence the mind but the mind could not influence the body. Descartes argued that diseases were physical alone and completely separate from the mind. This view dominated medicine for 300 years, becoming steadily more entrenched over time and eventually leading to the perception of mental disorders as less than real because no biological malfunction could be found to explain them.
However, on occasion someone would point out that there were instances where psychological events, like expectations, could have profound effects on our physical bodies. For example, in the late 1700s, Scottish physician William Cullen introduced the term “placebo,” meaning a substance with no apparent pharmacological effect on the body, after he noticed that his patients responded to fake medicines as if they were real, as long as the patient believed the medicine to be effective. The patient’s psychological beliefs and expectations had a noticeable effect on the body (Jutte, 2013).
Emergence of Mind-Body Medicine and Meditation Therapies
Evidence for the connection between mind and body accumulated and eventually led to therapies based on that interaction. In 1975, Herbert Benson and Miriam Z. Klipper published The Relaxation Response, based on Dr. Benson’s research on the stress response. Benson proposed that daily, short (10- to 20-minute) periods of meditation could effectively reduce high blood pressure, insomnia, chronic pain and anxiety (Benson, Beary, and Carol, 1974). At around the same time, Jon Kabat-Zinn introduced what has come to be known as mindfulness-based stress reduction meditation techniques (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Kabat-Zinn advocates the use of meditation and yoga to reduce pain, stress, anxiety and illness. Both of these innovators opened the way for mind-body medicine (MBM), which blends what we know about both body and mind and uses treatments based on that blend.
The formal use of humor as an aid to recovery from physical illness or injury can be traced to Henri de Mondeville (1260–1320), who advocated using jokes and humor to help patients recover from surgery (Kaplan, 2025). In the early 1900s, Sigmund Freud proposed that jokes, like dreams, could provide a release of desires and impulses that are usually suppressed by the rules of society (Freud, 1905) and in doing so, reduce anxiety. The use of clowning around (and clowns) in hospitals in the USA can be traced at least back to Dr. Hunter Doherty ‘Patch’ Adams, who began putting on a red clown nose as he made his rounds in a children’s ward in 1972.
Global Perspective on Depression and Historical Use of Humor as Treatment
The World Health Organization (2026) recognizes depression as one of the most frequently occurring mental health conditions worldwide, caused by mind, body, and social factors. Given its prevalence, the search for an effective treatment for depression continues. In 1621, Robert Burton, who suffered from depression himself, published The Anatomy of Melancholy. In that book, he proposed using humor as an effective treatment for depression. Given the many documented beneficial physical effects of humor (reduction in stress hormones, decreased heart rate, blood pressure and arrhythmias), all without the side effects of many pharmacological treatments, it is not surprising that the use of humor in treating depression gained support.
As it turns out, there are some instances where laughter and humor probably should not be used with a depressed patient. A recent review of the literature on humor therapy for depression outlines the potential benefits and risks of its use (Braniecka, 2026). On the plus side, humor can decrease depressogenic factors like rumination (the obsessive focus on a loop of negative thoughts), and the limited ability to inhibit negative information along with a tendency to focus only on negative cognitions. The reduction in stress hormone release seen with humor may also help buffer against those negative and often repetitive thoughts, helping the patient distance him or herself from perceived adversity.
Factors Influencing the Success of Humor Therapy
Braniecka also points out that to be successful, humor therapy needs to be delivered at the right time in the disease and in the right form. If humor can help the patient connect with other people and build resilience, then it may be a useful adjunct to therapy. But humor can mask emotional pain, and in some cases humor’s reliance on surprise or the absurd may produce a sense of alienation or disorientation in depressed individuals. Depression severity may also influence the effectiveness of humor therapy. Braniecka points out that in severe, acute depression “the relevant reward circuits and prefrontal integration centers are often chronically hypoactive or disconnected,” which shows up as a deficit in the brain’s ability to process humor, making humor therapy less successful (Braniecka, p. 2). In addition, severe depression may be accompanied by a compromised neural reward system preventing patients from feeling rewarded by humorous material, and that things like a hyper-reactive amygdala in severe depression may make humor be perceived as antagonistic or even trigger a defensive reaction instead of a therapeutic response.
Braniecka concludes by saying that humor therapy might benefit those suffering from mild to moderate depression or those who are in recovery from severe depression. However, “the demands may be overwhelming for those with pronounced impairments and could worsen their mood” (p. 13). She advocates for “more rigorous studies that examine diverse contexts, timings, goals, and types of humor in carefully recruited clinical samples” (p.13).
Depression Essential Reads
To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
