Six Degrees in Laughter Therapy with Dr. Annette Goodheart

Born in California and raised...everywhere. A well established and internationally recognized therapist, Annette Goodheart’s odyssey continues. Her first “career” was as an artist. Her first commission came at age 13, she couldn’t even be legally paid for it. Working in oil, acrylic and watercolor, Annette’s accomplished “life” as an artist spanned slightly more than two decades. The inherent loneliness of that world decided an inherently gregarious person to break back into this world. It began in 1970 with peer counseling and workshops in cathartic laughter and continues today as she guides, instructs and lectures on the positive benefits of laughter. Annette Goodheart is one of life’s rewarding “un-conventionals”. She lived on board her own sailboat in Santa Barbara harbor for thirteen years (whose construction she directed and which she christened the “TeeHee“). A motorcycle enthusiast and rider for fifteen years, she remains a first class scuba diver and gardener. While her proudest accomplishment is her own self-sufficiency, the most important thing to her is “connection”; connection with herself, with others and with the world in which she lives. The word she feels that best describes her most important quality is “empathy”. With her two felines – Pauline and cross-eyed Shirley – she looks ahead to a second book (on laughter and spirituality), seeing her first book (“Laughter Therapy: How to Laugh About Everything in Your Life That Isn’t Really Funny”) translated into Spanish and French (it‘s already out in Japanese), returning to art (with a focus on portraiture), and continuing to laugh her way around the globe. Relaxed, convivial and a barely dormant (usually active) volcano of laughter Annette reflects, and wholeheartedly embraces, the joys of laughter which she preaches. For Annette Goodheart laughter isn’t locked away in a folder marked “For Professional Use Only”…it’s always there and it’s always ready to be shared.