Ivanova O. Opportunities of laughter therapy application in prevention and correction of different stressful states of a personality

The objective of the research was in theoretical grounding and empiric study of the issue of laugher therapy application in prevention and correction of different stressful states of a personality. The object of study is laughter therapy as psychotherapeutic direction. The subject of study is laughter therapy as a means of prevention and correction of different stressful states of a personality. Research hypothesis is firstly an assumption that the determination of leading conditions for the emergence, types and functions of laughter and also the revelation of different stressful states and personal peculiarities of a personality can serve as a basis for the foundation of a complex program of laughter therapy system for effective influence on the decreasing of undesirable manifestations of such states in a person. Secondly, we assume that the desirable effect of such system can be achieved in case of influence on physical, intellectual and emotional centers, i.e. while the application in a certain ratio of such techniques of laughter therapy as games, video and meditations that are directed to the balancing of different signs off joy emergence dynamics.The comprehensive research of stressful states peculiarities of a person included different diagnosis methods and was held in three phases. Within the first phase the selection of reliable and valid psycho-diagnostic tools for checking its authenticity had been performing. Within the second phase the research on data determination as per the levels of personality’s stressful states had been doing. Within the third phase the therapeutic system of laughter therapy, oriented to the prevention and correction of stressful states of a personality that was approbating in a formation experiment had been establishing. Practical significance of received results lays in the development of complex optimized laughter therapy system for the prevention and correction of different stressful states of a personality. The significance of work is in the fact that issues considered during the research are actual not only for psychologists but also for specialists of caring professions, medicals, rehabilitation specialists, sociologists, educators, psychologists. The presented system can be used in the frame of leveling of stressful states and for the prevention of psycho-emotional exhaustion. The developed questionnaire for the self-assessment of emotional expression of laughter determination that gives the variations of three types of laughter – rational-emotional, expressive-emotional and balanced (harmony-emotional), can be applied in different spheres and serve as a basis for conclusions as per the expedience and emotional variability of a person’s laughter. The connection between peculiarities of emotional expression of laughter and stressful states, adaptive abilities and coping strategies of a personality is determined, it can be used while psychologists and psychotherapists training in the frame of different psychotherapeutic directions and branches of psychology. The variant of educational laughter therapy program is presented for specialists of caring professions which extends the knowledge about the method, introduces its theoretical groundings and gives an opportunity to check the effect on practical experience.