title: The function of humor in a four-year-old.
abstract: A child's attempt at humor in the midst of a psychoanalytic session is examined. A joke is told that began as a dream which the 4-year-old analysand attempted to modify. The joke is not entirely successful from a formal standpoint. This "failure" is examined from the point of view of the anxiety that may have derailed the joke and the developmental immaturity that may have compromised it. A developmental line of the symbolic process is suggested, double meanings and multiple meanings becoming more complex as development proceeds.
authors.affiliation: Columbia University Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research, New York.
authors.forename: E J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Mahon
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010553:Personality Development; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D014925:Wit and Humor as Topic