Shared humour in aphasia groups: “They should be called cheer groups”

Abstract

Background: Humour is considered as an integral aspect of interpersonal communication and is said to explain success in group and social situations. Directly elicited or spontaneously occurring humour has only relatively recently been investigated in therapeutic encounters with people with aphasia (PWA), mainly in one-to-one treatment sessions. In social participation groups for PWA, the focus is on increasing communicative effectiveness in conversation and on the adjustment to living with aphasia. Therefore, solidarity and supportive relationships are of particular importance and spontaneously occurring humour may facilitate social interaction.Aims: The aim of this study was to explore spontaneously occurring, conversationally based humour during interaction in social participation aphasia groups in terms of its functions, modalities, and initiators.Method: Ten sessions of a long-standing social participation aphasia group were video-recorded over a one-year period. The group consisted of 8–10 PWA (6 females and 4 males) who varied in aphasia severity, age (range 47–82 years) and time post onset (range 18–204 months) and two student clinicians (in each block) and two experienced aphasia clinicians. In this qualitative analysis of video-recorded group sessions, instances of humour were identified and subsequently categorised according to the functions they served within the group process. The modalities used to express humour and the initiators of the humorous events were also determined.Results: Six functions of humour were identified. Humour served to reinforce solidarity and togetherness and self-depredating humour was often used to manage identity. Humour was used as a face-saving strategy to cope with the difficulties associated with aphasia and communication. If disagreements occurred or complaints were voiced, humour acted as a means of mitigating or deflecting issues. Humour could also be used to avoid or redirect offensive, inappropriate or embarrassing topics. Finally, some group members used humour to increase their likeability by emphasising appealing personal qualities. Both verbal and non-verbal modalities were used to express humour, regardless of aphasia severity. The instances of humour were more frequently initiated by the group members than by the clinicians.Discussion and conclusion: Social participation aphasia groups are often permeated by humour; it is particularly relevant to PWA regardless of severity in promoting well-being, encouraging interaction, coping with the difficulties of aphasia, and discovering new ways of communicating. This study has shown that humour has a special part to play in providing individuals with aphasia the opportunity to participate in group conversation and to establish and maintain relationships, and also in demonstrating the success of therapy groups.