ABSTRACT
Freud, like Soren Kierkegaard, was no stranger to suffering. There are many more examples when Freud's tragicomic attunement and skillfulness helped him to better "manage" his personal difficulties. Indeed, as Freud has noted, humour is "one of the highest psychical achievements", a valuable weapon against the adversity and challenges of life. Research psychologists have also affirmed that humour, which always involves "high-level" motivation, cognition, and communication, can be very useful in helping people better cope with unfavourable circumstances and tough situations. This chapter illustrates examples of the deployment of tragicomic attunement and skillfulness within the context of the "extreme situations" of cancer, the concentration camp, disaster, and war. It suggests how such humour can in fact transform a dire situation, one in which one psychologically "lives on air and subsists on dreams", into something different, an alternative that is more self-sustaining and self-affirming.
