A Commentary on Laughter Therapy

Abstract

My article “El poder terapeutico de la risa” (The therapeutic power of laughter) was published in 2015 in the journal ‘Bioethics Update’ 1(2): 130-142 and was the most read of that journal in 2015 (560 downloads). It addressed a topic that was still rather marginal in the literature at that time, and was considered by many traditional doctors more as a curiosity than a serious medical issue. During the discussions that took place at the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics of the Panmerican University of Mexico City, however, it became soon clear that this was not a form of ‘alternative medicine’, but rather a new method susceptible of controlled applications in certain clinical situations. The scientific legitimacy of this method is supported by the analysis of the objective anatomical-physiological effects that laughing produces at the bodily level, but this is not the most significant point. Of direct medical interest is the appreciation of the positive effects that laughter produces at the psychological level and have impacts on the health of the patient. This topic has been studied in its general features [1-4], and with specific attention to laughter in [5-7]. One can say that it is a particular aspect of phychosomatic medicine that, as such, has a rather long tradition.