Born in California and raised...everywhere. With a father in construction “everywhere” really meant “everywhere” – throughout the US. Even today, as a well established and internationally recognized therapist, Annette Goodheart’s odyssey continues. She has never stopped exploring the world around her or her co-inhabitants.
Her first “career” was as an artist. Her first commission came at such a young 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 personal 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.
"Your work over the years has brought us to this point in our understanding laughter...and its therapeutic applications [and] now its physiology or should we say psyconeuroimmunology. You’re a pioneer.”
Lee Berk, M.D., Ph.D. Loma Linda University School of Medicine,
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
"Tee Hee”, “Ha Ha”, “Ho Ho”
Comments from attendees at workshop presented by the SHANTI PROJECT,
Support Services for People with AIDS and Their Loved Ones, San Francisco
"The lessons about life that I learned...from Annette...are remarkable and important...and laughter [has] allowed me to communicate more deeply with more people than I thought possible.”
Allen H. Neims, M.D., Ph.D., Dean, College of Medicine, University of Florida"After our meeting, I realized that, although he had had a profound experience with laughter’s healing properties, Cousins lacked a theoretical frame of reference about how laughter worked. Since I had been working with laughter as catharsis for eight years, I had already developed that frame of reference. I also knew that, because of his well-known name, Cousins would put laughter on the map. I made a conscious decision to go public with laughter."
Laughter Therapy: How to Laugh About Everything in Your Life That Isn’t Really Funny
Annette Goodheart, Ph.D.
"This book is a must for those who want to learn more about the effects of laughter on our well-being.”
From a review by: Kathie McWilliams, Executive Director of Joyful ChildThank you so very much for an outstanding presentation...Everything you said was so appropriate, needed, and welcomed by the group. We heard...how much participants learned, relearned and enjoyed it !"
Judy Deyle, Director, Health Programs, Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Office
There is a very basic misunderstanding that exists today about any conference given anywhere in the world: that they are relaxed, essentially easy-going gatherings of like-minded professionals. They may be productive, they may be innovative, intellectually stimulating, informative or rewarding but they are rarely, if ever, relaxed or easy-going.
From conception and planning to realization conference organizers and participants are subject to enormous pressure and tension; stress that isn’t relieved once the conference is underway but is ongoing and spans the gathering from beginning to end. However it may appear on the surface this underlying tension reduces the effectiveness of any conference to get across its basic message and this, by its very nature, reduces the overall value of the conference to participants.
From a purely physiological standpoint it has been shown that individuals are more receptive to information and retain that information longer the less tension and stress they feel. The need and ability to reduce this stress and tension, in other words, becomes absolutely critical to achieving a truly successful conference. There is no better way of reaching that goal than through the use of laughter at the outset of the conference.
It reduces the stress and tension, increases receptivity among participants (and organizers) and, by establishing a lighter tone for the conference early on, helps insure that the message of the conference itself and the information presented is more thoroughly grasped and retained. As such, laughter actually becomes a tool for dealing with the conference. Simply put it’s a tool used by everyone involved to get more out of the conference.As a laughter therapist, who has helped launch conferences around the globe, I have seen the techniques I employ create a conference atmosphere which has resulted in more productive, informative and successful gatherings of professionals in every field imaginable. In the space of one to one-and-a half hours the underlying tone for the rest of the conference is established: a tone which carries through the conference and greatly improves it’s chances of success and achieving its goals. At the same time the presentation of laughter is a learning experience for conference participants; an experience whose message can be carried beyond the conference and applied to other professional settings and one’s own life.
Healthy, non-ridiculing and connecting laughter is a gift for all to be shared: individuals, small groups and large conferences. And it is a vital, dynamic tool; a tool to increase productivity, information retention and relieve stress and tension.
To schedule a presentation at the conference which you are organizing or have planned, please contact me directly to discuss your particular needs and learn how each presentation is tailored to the specific conference you’re hosting.
If you need a formal "presentation" copy of this Press Kit - rather than just printing out this page - please don't hesitate to contact me directly (click on "Connecting..." below) and I will be glad to send you a copy. Due to printing and mailing costs I can only send out one press kit per request. Thanks for understanding.
Home
Books, Bears,
Noses and Tapes...O'My.Reasons to Laugh
Press Kit
Connecting...
with Dr. GoodheartThe Latest
in Laughter
Coaching Services
