He was also not above using humor to puncture the personas of “stuffed shirts,” as he did in his 1936 trip to America, when he was entertained by some “Boston Brahmins” who were very full of themselves. That is her redeeming quality.”Īnyone who spent any amount of time with Jung quickly came to realize he had a hearty sense of humor and a huge “belly laugh,” and, as the above quotes indicate, he recognized the therapeutic value of laughter and humor. I know Barbara Hannah once didn’t want to take on a crazy old schizophrenic, but Jung said, “Oh, for God’s sake, take her! She’s so funny. I could bring her back from the underworld in that way it was absolutely saving. It had to be terribly vulgar, but when I merrily told it she would always laugh and become normal again…. Once I took such a case, and whenever she showed signs of going off into a psychotic episode, I let myself sink back in the unconscious and it would give me the idea of some obscene joke. You might not cure them, but you can keep them afloat. Of those, Jung would say, “Oh, take them, they have such a sense of humor. On the other hand, even severely psychotic people sometimes have a sense of humor. People who have no sense of humor are very difficult to treat, and if they are psychotic they are practically incurable. Once he told me that he made it a great point to see if his patients had a sense of humor. Schopenhauer once said that the sense of humor is the only divine quality in humans. It was the Negro servant, and it was the real American laughter, that grand, unrestrained, unsophisticated laughter revealing rows of teeth, tongue, palate, everything, … How I loved that African brother. “Well,” I thought, “Indian blood, wooden faces, camouflaged Mongols, why not try some Chinese on them?” So I came to my last story, really a good one-and no sooner had I finished than right behind my chair an enormous avalanche of laughter broke loose. But I could not arouse that hearty and generous American laugh which I love and admire.
These were greeted with condensing smiles.
MARIE LOUISE VON FRANZ SMILING CRACK
Eventually I could stand it no longer, and I began to crack jokes for better or worse.
Everyone was just too nice and too polite. We might even better the American record in this respect.) There were Negro servants waiting at table….A solemnity brooded over the meal for which I could see no reason, … At all events nobody laughed. (There are very conservative and highly respectable folk in Switzerland, too. I was once the guest of a pretty stiff and solemn New England family of a rather terrifying respectability. The opinions expressed in these essays are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of other Jungian Center faculty or Board members.Ī monk once asked the Master: “Has a dog a Buddha nature too?” Whereupon the Master replied, “Woof!” Sue Mehrtens is the author of this and all the other blog essays on this site.
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