ABSTRACT
Humour, in particular what the author calls a "tragicomic vision", is one of the best ways of taking some of the sting out of life, including what psychoanalyst's call the "ego chill" that is so often associated with old age, illness, and death. In order to appreciate the difficulties of cultivating a tragicomic vision in one's everyday life, it is important that we say something about the art of self-fashioning, for it is this tradition that views philosophy and, in psychoanalysis, as a "way of life". Psychoanalysis is more than a body of thought and type of psychotherapy. Sociologist Peter L. Berger has offered perhaps the clearest and most usable definition of tragicomedy, including how it differs from—though it may also include—black or gallows humour and benign humour, humour that is meant simply to elicit "pleasure, relaxation and good will". The chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
