The L.A.U.G.H.T.E.R. Framework
A Structured Path From Survival to Resilience
An eight-pillar wellness model using humor, community, and purpose to guide veterans through emotional healing and post-traumatic growth.
What Is the L.A.U.G.H.T.E.R. Framework?
The L.A.U.G.H.T.E.R. Framework is the evidence-informed methodology at the heart of every Laugh Therapy program. Developed by Kiana S. Dancie, certified Emotional Intelligence coach, mental wellness professional, and founder of Laugh Therapy, the framework moves participants through eight sequential pillars across eight weeks. It begins with emotional access and ends with sustainable resilience.
This is not a comedy class. It is a structured healing model that uses laughter as the entry point, not the destination. Each pillar builds on the one before it, creating a complete arc from inward healing to outward growth. Veterans do not graduate from this program. They are commissioned into the next chapter of their lives.
The Eight Pillars
The Arc of Transformation
The L.A.U.G.H.T.E.R. Framework is designed in two movements. The first five pillars are inward facing. The veteran is doing personal work, processing pain, rebuilding identity, and reconnecting to hope. The final three pillars flip the direction entirely. The veteran stops being the person receiving healing and becomes the person carrying it forward.
That shift from receiver to carrier is not incidental. It is the transformation this program is built to produce. Because a veteran who has moved through all eight pillars is not just someone who survived. They are someone equipped to help others do the same.
What We Measure
Laugh Therapy uses validated wellness instruments at intake, at program completion, and at 90 days post-graduation to track measurable changes in resilience, hope, social connection, and emotional regulation. Our approach is structured, documented, and clinically co-signed. Outcome data from our inaugural cohorts will be published on this page as it becomes available.
The Steady Six
Every Laugh Therapy participant is required to identify a Steady Six, a personally chosen, trusted accountability partner who walks alongside them through the program and beyond. The name comes from a phrase every veteran already knows: I have got your six. The Steady Six is not a therapist and not a sponsor. They are a committed witness to your healing, trained by the program to show up the right way when it matters most.
Enrollment is limited. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Laugh Therapy is a program of Becoming A Guiltless Survivor, Inc. (B.A.G.S.), a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. EIN: 88-4176457.
Laugh Therapy does not replace licensed mental health treatment. All programs include licensed clinical co-facilitation.