The Healing Power of Humor: Connecting Through Laughter in Recovery

Session Description: While humor is a powerful tool in everyday life—reducing stress, improving health, and building connections—it is often overlooked or discouraged in behavioral health treatment settings. In this engaging and interactive session, attendees will explore how humor can be effectively used to support recovery from substance use and mental health challenges. Drawing on both research and lived experience, this session will challenge the assumption that recovery must always be serious. Instead, it offers an evidence-based argument for why laughter and lightness can be critical elements of healing.

Participants will examine how humor is sometimes viewed as a sign of denial or avoidance and why these perceptions can hinder engagement. Attendees will learn how to recognize appropriate uses of humor, adapt to individual client needs, and responsibly use humor to build rapport and promote emotional safety. This session includes demonstrations of humor techniques, discussions on boundary-setting, and strategies for cultivating connection in group and individual therapy.

Takeaways include: practical ways to use humor therapeutically, awareness of cultural and clinical considerations, and renewed permission to bring humanity and joy into the recovery process.