Abstract

Humour in psychotherapy is commonly occurring, yet seldom discussed as a resource in the training and education of therapists, nor considered from the perspective of clients in therapy. This qualitative study explored how clients and therapists perceive the impact of humour in psychotherapy on the therapeutic alliance, experience, and process. 12 clients and eight therapists contributed their perspectives on humour’s impact on the therapeutic experience, considering both its helpful and unhelpful contributions. Not all humour is equal, and special consideration was given to how different humour styles may impact psychotherapy. Reflexive thematic analysis from 20 semi-structured interviews suggested that humour is predominantly seen as a positive force in psychotherapy but comes with cautionary labels. Clients identified how humour increases therapeutic alliance and engagement, whilst therapists focused on its function as stress relief and ability to demonstrate psychological flexibility in therapy. Clients and therapists appeared to meet in their perspectives of humour as a humanising agent, in addition to its potential to disrupt relations through misalignment. Clinical and future directions were considered in the context of findings and the pre-existing literature on the topic. Findings emphasise the nuanced role of humour in therapy and its potential to act as a resource in the training of future clinicians. Keywords: Humour style, psychotherapy, client, therapist, perspective

Awarding Institution(s)

University of Plymouth

Supervisor

Sonja Heintz

Keywords

Humour style, psychotherapy, client, therapist, perspective

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Date

2025

Embargo Period

2026-09-10

Deposit Date

September 2025

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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