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Posted June 13, 2025 Reviewed by Devon Frye
There’s a lot of research to support the mental health benefits of improvisation, but how can improv be the poster child for wellness when it attracts so many who aren’t—how do I put this delicately?—the most well-adjusted? And what about those who are so clearly haunted by their demons? Improv doesn’t sound like the best club to join if you’re yearning to claw your way back to good mental health.
But what if this is the best-kept secret of the improv world?
Improvisation promises a community and stage where it’s not just permissible but encouraged to ‘act out’ and lean into all sides of self, especially the ones that are most unwelcome. If that’s not a cry for a corrective emotional experience in an unconditional family, I don’t know what is!
Some see this as an indictment; I view it as a radical act of hope. It’s the psyche looking for love in all the right places, an environment that boasts of the freedom to fully trust and become yourself. Even better, it’s a space where you’re promised that you don’t have to do it alone. You’ll be supported no matter what you throw their way. Who has parents, teachers, partners, or friends who do that on the regular?
Improv has the potential to be superbly healing, but I’m not naïve about its defensive uses. It’s easily a place for escapism, especially if you suppress the ways you’re running away from yourself. It’s a matter of consciousness and relationship.
Director of Comedy Studies at The Second City, Anne Libera, puts it best: “Improv is a kind of self-medication for becoming less broken and more whole.” If you plumb down to the depths, you’ll find that the center of improv is the center of the psyche, but sometimes you need a little more consciousness and a healing relationship to break through.
Take comedian Darrell Hammond. Many know him for the spot-on impressions he’s done over the years, including Bill Clinton, Sean Connery, Chris Matthews, Al Gore, and hundreds more. Some are aware of Hammond’s struggles with addiction and depression. Most don’t realize that his impressions–and improv–saved his life, as chronicled in the documentary “Cracked Up.”
Starting as a child, Hammond conjured Popeye and Porky Pig as one of the few ways to enchant his severely abusive mother, offering himself a reprieve and helping her temporarily reclaim her own shattered innocence. As Hammond developed as a comedian, exploring varied characters enabled him to hold on to himself while performing the magic act of escaping harm.
The self-medication of improv worked to a degree. But it also stirred up the trauma that constantly needed more self-medication in the form of drugs, alcohol, and cutting.
Luckily, improv didn’t just try to sustain him on stage; the community itself found him the right psychological help as well. Although improv produces countless benefits for people psychologically, there are times when further support from psychotherapy is crucial.
It was only when a psychiatrist (Dr. Nabil Kotbi) developed a loving and supportive relationship with Hammond and made the connection that he wasn’t dealing with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or borderline personality—but was instead suffering from unrecognized trauma—that things began to come together.
Hammond’s psyche found a way to both protect him from abuse and express in indirect and complex ways what was happening inside. I can show you how much I pick up on, but you’ll never know it’s me. I’ll make contact, but I’ll always keep safe. Love me through my characters, and listen for my voice if you dare.
I wasn’t wholly surprised to learn that there were times—most poignantly when he was institutionalized—when people would ask Hammond to repeat statements in the voice of Bill Clinton. Hammond found a way to express and conceal himself with his improv, but it was also a veiled cry for help. Thankfully, the improv community was listening
Hammond’s improvisational work brought him into a surrogate family that finally witnessed the severity and seriousness of his pain, the blood of his cutting a symbol of the heartbreak he could only deal with alone. They tuned in to more than just his characters; they heard him in his own voice, the child inside screaming, “Somebody listen to me.”
I cried when I first heard Hammond’s story, not for him but with him, for that divine child in all of us that is the center of everything, holding us together despite everything thrown our way.
When improv is conscious and connected like this, it not only heals; it’s the ultimate act of hope and redemption, shared together, one spontaneous moment after another. Therein lies its magic, when we are finally free to play with anything thrown at us and just smile. Not alone, but with the group and audience too. We’re all in on this little joke called being human, and we’re grateful to be on this stage together, a tale told by a clown, signifying everything.
Michael Alcee, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker, and author who specializes in using his background in music, literature, and the arts to showcase the transformative power of psychotherapy.
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The brightest way to shine is by being fully, imperfectly yourself.
Self Tests are all about you. Are you outgoing or introverted? Are you a narcissist? Does perfectionism hold you back? Find out the answers to these questions and more with Psychology Today.
