ABSTRACT
Offering a social scientific look at humor's role in medical transactions, this volume is based on extensive field study in seven medical settings. It includes excerpts from dozens of actual conversations between patients and caregivers. Analysis of these episodes reveals that humor is a practical tool used to meet many medical objectives. It is used by patients to good-naturedly complain and to campaign for more personal attention, and by caregivers to get attention, make amends, insist on unpleasant routines, and establish rapport.
Examining humor from many angles, the book begins with a phenomenological analysis of the essence of funny. This section describes what makes some things funny but not others, and how to distinguish between potentially funny and unfunny episodes in medical situations. From an ethnographic perspective, joking around is shown to be a persuasive element of medical culture. Examples illustrate how patients and caregivers use humor to negotiate the dialectics between helping and hurting, and individuality and compliance. Additionally, a close-up look at three medical transactions shows how humor is used to help a physical therapy patient overcome fear and queasiness, reduce the embarrassment of a mammography, and defuse a potential conflict between a student aide and a young patient. A final section examines techniques for initiating conversational humor.
In sum, this volume provides an intimate and realistic look at medical conversations as they are conducted every day. It serves as a valuable complement to health communication texts and offers information of interest to health communication scholars, healthcare practitioners, and anyone interested in the effects and techniques of conversational humor. Richly grounded in naturally occurring data, the book can be understood and used effectively by both scholars and practitioners.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |43 pages
Background
chapter |6 pages
Introduction
chapter |10 pages
Related Literature in Health Communication
chapter |12 pages
Related Humor Literature
chapter |6 pages
Conceptual Foundations
chapter |7 pages
Overview of Humor in Health Care Settings
part |19 pages
The Nature of Funny
chapter |2 pages
About Phenomenology
chapter |12 pages
The Essence of Funny
chapter |3 pages
Funny in Relation to Health Care
part |49 pages
Tones, Functions, and Topics of Medical Setting Humor
chapter |8 pages
The Ethnographic Approach
chapter |13 pages
Torture by Hickey Machine: We're All in This Together
chapter |12 pages
Discreet Humor in a Breast Care Center
chapter |10 pages
Empathic Humor in a Doctor's Office
chapter |4 pages
Overview and Significance of Humor in Medical Settings
part |28 pages
Humor and Appropriateness
chapter |4 pages
The Rules of the Humor Game
chapter |11 pages
Humor and the Code of Dignity
chapter |9 pages
Humor and the Code of Compassion
chapter |2 pages
Overview and Significance of Humor and Appropriateness
part |37 pages
Humor Makes Sense of Problematic Situations
chapter |6 pages
Ethnomethodological Approach
chapter |6 pages
Candid Camera and Gestalt Psychology
chapter |9 pages
Playful Management of Three Dilemmas
chapter |14 pages
Laughter-Coated Complaints
part |21 pages
Conclusions