Clowns are not just the stuff of backyard children's parties anymore. These days, clown doctors see patients--especially children--to introduce humor and imagination into an anxiety-filled and painful experience. The origins of medical clowning can be traced to the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit at the Infants and Children's Hospital of New York, established about thirty years ago. Since that time, the practice has developed extensively and medical clowns now work in hospitals around the world. Over the past ten years, the number of scientific studies on medical clowning has increased, with findings showing the important contribution of medical clowns to children and adults suffering from mild to incurable illnesses. Medical Clowning is the first guide to this phenomenon, summing up decades of research, education, and practice to give readers a comprehensive look into this innovative field. Amnon Raviv analyzes the performance of medical clowns, looking at research and case studies, and goes on to propose a training and evaluation model, including hands-on exercises to train experienced clowns for work in hospitals.

Taking the recent coronavirus pandemic as a starting point, this book presents and analyzes new research around medical clowning in hospitals, from social media use to the impact on the hospitalized child in later life. This innovative book begins with an overview of the work of medical clowns. It discusses the idea of humor as a mechanism related to the revolution in language and human consciousness, and makes a connection between humor and anxiety, exploring how this can be mobilized to support hospitalized patients. There is extensive examination of medical clowning to strengthen coping skills and promote wellbeing in the time of Covid-19, where loneliness and isolation loomed large and anxieties were high. Subsequent chapters explore the role of medical clowning in wartime and at time of natural disasters, the experiences of children some time after their experience of hospitalization and clowning, and the role of social media and medical clowns in community building. This book is a fascinating contribution to the literature on medical clowning. It is of interest to researchers, practitioners, and lecturers in medical clowning, play in healthcare, nursing, medicine, and performance studies.

This book details results of a study that sought to understand the relationship of children who were provided palliative cancer care, their families and the palliative care unit team members with healthcare clowns of an organization that is part of this team. More specifically, the book explores the roles healthcare clowns play in an Oncology Unit and PINDA center in Santiago, Chile. With a qualitative approach, an emergent and cross-sectional design, and strict ethical considerations, data were collected between December 2019 and December 2020. In total, 36 participants were interviewed, while drawings and photographs were collected as documents, and discussion groups were held for each cluster (encompassing mothers, the clinical team and healthcare clowns) to deepen aspects revealed in the interview analysis. Within the book, the results of the research are arranged in emerging themes related to positive effects on well-being and quality of life, especially for validation and emotional regulation, the humane healthcare that the healthcare clown provides in this context, the healthcare clown as a mediator in this transition period, bonds of friendship with children and their inclusion as family members, and the complementarity of this technique with traditional treatments.

Albert Howard Carter III, a literary scholar, presents and analyzes humor on medical topics inside and outside of the hospital; he argues that comedy can be a form of preventive medicine and should routinely be an adjunct to medical care.

This book discusses the tradition of clowning from an educational perspective, highlighting the resonant philosophies between the two professions and asking what one can learn from the other. Modern day clowning follows an age-old tradition, with a set of principles and beliefs expounded by proponents of the profession. Throughout the principles of clowning, themes of subversion, inversion, play and challenge recur. These same ideas have a place in the classroom, not as everyday practice but perhaps as a leitmotif. The book is therefore a call for educators to consider their position within the learning environment and to embody the clown spirit. By looking outside of traditional pedagogical thinking and training, this book demonstrates ideas and techniques from which educators can borrow or learn, allowing them to enhance their own methods and practices. It offers an opportunity to revisit the dynamics of the classroom through the recognition of the important role that the clown can play in society.

The role of humour, laughter and play in healthcare and wellbeing is a hot topic. Smiles are Everywhere: Integrating clown-play into healthcare practice is a practical handbook aimed primarily at healthcare professionals and those working in healthcare settings who wish to bring play and humour into their work. Drawing together the authors’ considerable experience in practice, research and training in the use of humour in healthcare settings, this book works to bring theory into practice in a simple, user-friendly manner. Central to Smiles are Everywhere is the understanding that healthcare professionals are striving to deliver patient-centred care and that the activities suggested can be integrated into existing methods of care delivery. The book includes: A rationale for why and where laughter and play are beneficial in healthcare settings Guidelines for integrating clown-plays into your own practice Advice on strategies and approaches More than fifty clearly laid out activities and ideas developed and adapted by the authors. Ideal for healthcare professionals as well as anyone working in a healthcare setting, the ideas presented here can also be translated to educational, corporate and training environments.

Issues in Sociology and Social Work: Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application: 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Sociology and Social Work—Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application. The editors have built Issues in Sociology and Social Work: Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Sociology and Social Work—Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in Sociology and Social Work: Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

This rich collection of readings offers a wide-ranging and authoritative survey of clown practices, history and theory, from the origins of the word clown through to contemporary clowning. Covering clowns in theatre, circus, cinema, TV, street and elsewhere, the author's stimulating narrative challenges assumptions and turns orthodoxy on its head.

Few individuals have positioned their work more controversially or consequently than Richard Schechner within the pivotal debates that define Performance Studies. The Rise of Performance Studies is the first collection of essays to critically examine the profound contributions that Schechner has made to Performance Studies as a discipline.

In 2018, the profession of healthcare clowning celebrated 30 years of global expansion. Beyond the Red Nose provides a deep inside look into this professional world - first-hand poignant stories, challenges overcome, and future plans in pediatrics, dementia, research and beyond. This book is about our world, a global real world filled with big ideas anchored in creating laughter as a power to heal the whole person. This is our serious business. Within you find answers to: What is professional healthcare clowning, and why is this field considered a profession? Who are these professional healthcare clowns and what are their stories? How does someone become a professional healthcare clown? Where can you find these groups of professionals? What is the future for this profession? Every day across the world, professional healthcare clowns are impacting the lives of children, families, medical staff, adults with dementia, and others in need. In 2018, we impacted more than 250,000 lives across North America alone. Written by career clown and life-long advocate for improving lives through laughter, author Tiffany Riley's goal is to enlighten, inspire, and motivate anyone interested in learning more about the profession of healthcare clowning. This profession is truly serious business for the healing power of humor.