HUMOR IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM - A SOCIAL-WORK PERSPECTIVE

Social workers can learn much about the uses of humor from workers in the turbulent and fast-paced atmosphere of a large city hospital emerg ency room in which it flourishes. This article illustrates staff use o f five varieties of humor in this stressful and sometimes dangerous se tting: (1) tension-relieving nonsense, (2) play on words, (3) sense of the preposterous and incongruous, (4) gallows humor, and (5) foolish jest. Above all, this article discusses the ability to endure day afte r day the occurrence of unspeakable trauma.