Therapeutic Laughter in Higher Education

William C Andress
In 2000 a report came out of the University of California, Los Angeles, indicating that students feel more overwhelmed and stressed than just 15 years ago. The following year an American College Health Association survey suggested that 33% of students felt hopeless, with 22% suffering severe depression at least three times within the previous year.
Nor does the situation seem to be improving. Just last year, the director of campus student health services at Washington University in St Louis stated that "depression and suicide are the largest health issues facing students at this time".
In response to such dire findings, while an assistant professor at Oakland University, 64 kilometres north of Detroit, I submitted a proposal for a course in 'therapeutic laughter'. Its purpose was to use a novel approach to teach students lifelong stress management skills. Support for such a course was strengthened by the increased attention researchers were giving to the subject at such diverse universities as Indiana State, Raleigh Dickinson and Loma Linda.
Interest in laughter's therapeutic value stems from 1979 when Norman Cousins published a personal testimony, An Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient. While editor-in-chief of the Saturday Review, Cousins contracted ankylosing spondylitis, a crippling inflammation of the vertebral column. This left him virtually immobile and in extreme pain with a one in 500 chance of recovery.
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Source: University World News, Issue No: 0161, 6 March 2011