Samenvatting

Humour adds to a successful mediation process. Humour creates energy. Intuitively it feels as the right thing to do because it tones down the positions in the conflict. Applying humour as a communication skill can smooth out the rough edges in the difficult phases of the dialogue.
The paper starts out with a brief description of the communicative skills that can be used in the domain of humour. In the main body of the paper the author explains his view on the productive relationship between humour and mediation. The effectiveness of humour as communication skill depends on the degree to which the mediator is aware of her or his mediation style.
The process and the result of the mediation as a whole depend upon a number of conditions: the quality of the communication, the symmetry in the context, a flexible goal orientation and putting issues into perspective. As a mediator one needs to be sure about one’s humour skills before applying them in a real life mediation.