Laughter Therapy

Laughter is one of the greatest therapies in combating adversity; and whole communities and nations have frequently relied on humour to get them through their bleakest times. On august 13,1961, the barbed wire was rolled out of Berlin to create the Berlin wall. For nearly 30 years, until it was dismantled, wall jokes proliferated -especially among those living in the east. Laughing was all that was left. Jokes about those who rule you - and sometimes those who tyrannise you - are a form of folklore that has existed in societies as seemingly different as communist eastern Europe, Czarist Russia, modern Egypt, 12-century Persia, and modern day Iran. Humour can also be wonderfully subversive. It can protect self-respect and identity.