Bibliotherapy: Articles, Books, and Videos on Bibliotherapy

In this unique and transformational guide to healing, bibliotherapist and counsellor Bijal Shah explores the restorative power of reading. Bibliotherapy traces the history of how therapeutic reading evolved - including the important role played by the best writers such as the Stoics, Montaigne, Eliot and Wordsworth. In doing so, Bijal offers first-hand stories from clients who have found solace in great works of literature when struggling with grief, relationships or illness. Full of practical advice and insights into how bibliotherapy really works, Bijal offers an A to Z reading list of books for every mood and need. A much-needed reminder of how comforting and life-changing reading can be, Bibliotherapy is a sumptuous celebration of books that will invite you to see them as more than just an escape, but a legitimate form of self-care.

Bibliotherapy can be defined as the use of guided reading for therapeutic ends. And though you might not be a licensed mental health professional, you can--and do, even without knowing it--support mental health and personal growth by connecting patrons to books that heal. Regardless of your previous experience or existing skills, this guide will empower you to make "shelf help" a part of your library's relationship with its community. Drawing on Reading for Recovery, the authors' own Carnegie-Whitney grant-funded project, this guide  begins with an overview of bibliotherapy, including its concepts and history, and sketches out how its various approaches can be adapted for library settings; explores the potential of bibliotherapy as an add-on to existing skills, services, practices, and collections; demonstrates how bibliotherapy-inspired initiatives can address the needs of diverse communities, thus advancing libraries' commitment to EDISJ; offers techniques for selecting reading material for your audience with bibliotherapy in mind; provides a range of possible programs, from group discussions and public events to book displays and reading lists, along with a step-by-step approach to planning and implementing them; shares outreach tips, tools, and branding ideas to make the most of your resources and effectively reach your audience; demonstrates how to use assessment tools to test and tweak your program at every stage to achieve the results you want; and inspires you to take your offerings into new directions, such as creative writing and visual art programs, that fit your library and community.

Bibliotherapy schemes can now be found in libraries all over the world, from public libraries, through to health/hospital libraries and academic libraries. This book draws on the latest international practical and theoretical developments in bibliotherapy to explore how libraries can best support the health and wellbeing of their communities. Bibliotherapy encompasses all aspects of bibliotherapy' in its widest sense, starting with a critical historical overview of bibliotherapy, followed by an explanation of theories or approaches to bibliotherapy. The book explains how various bibliotherapy models work by drawing on practical examples to demonstrate how the theories behind bibliotherapy can be applied in practice. Case studies include a range of settings (public library, academic library, outpatient, inpatient); populations (including young people, ESOL speakers, psychiatric patients, homeless people, people with dementia/carers); and countries (UK, North America, South America, Australia).

Bibliotherapy is a targeted use of children s literature to improve cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes. Children s books and stories act as an adjuvant, supporting and assisting teachers, counselors, therapists and parents as they work with children in therapeutic and instructional ways. The purpose of this book is to share 48 award-winning children s books across six areas of bibliotherapy and connect them with appropriate and powerful activities that increase listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. The areas of bibliotherapy presented in this book include: attachment and growth; creativity and critical thinking; bullying and building friendships; family matters (dynamics and change); poverty and social justice issues; and childhood challenges.

A novel is a story transmitted from the novelist to the reader. It offers distraction, entertainment, and an opportunity to unwind or focus. But it can also be something more powerful—a way to learn about how to live. Read at the right moment in your life, a novel can—quite literally—change it.

The Novel Cure is a reminder of that power. To create this apothecary, the authors have trawled two thousand years of literature for novels that effectively promote happiness, health, and sanity, written by brilliant minds who knew what it meant to be human and wrote their life lessons into their fiction. Structured like a reference book, readers simply look up their ailment, be it agoraphobia, boredom, or a midlife crisis, and are given a novel to read as the antidote. Bibliotherapy does not discriminate between pains of the body and pains of the head (or heart). Aware that you’ve been cowardly? Pick up To Kill a Mockingbird for an injection of courage. Experiencing a sudden, acute fear of death? Read One Hundred Years of Solitude for some perspective on the larger cycle of life. Nervous about throwing a dinner party? Ali Smith’s There but for The will convince you that yours could never go that wrong. Whatever your condition, the prescription is simple: a novel (or two), to be read at regular intervals and in nice long chunks until you finish. Some treatments will lead to a complete cure. Others will offer solace, showing that you’re not the first to experience these emotions. The Novel Cure is also peppered with useful lists and sidebars recommending the best novels to read when you’re stuck in traffic or can’t fall asleep, the most important novels to read during every decade of life, and many more.

Brilliant in concept and deeply satisfying in execution, The Novel Cure belongs on everyone’s bookshelf and in every medicine cabinet. It will make even the most well-read fiction aficionado pick up a novel he’s never heard of, and see familiar ones with new eyes. Mostly, it will reaffirm literature’s ability to distract and transport, to resonate and reassure, to change the way we see the world and our place in it.

This book covers the topic of bibliotherapy, describing a complex yet natural development of the symbolic species (i.e. humans) after its invention of printing, which is the use of reading (especially reading stories) for the reader's own mental and physical health.

Using Books in Clinical Social Work Practice: A Guide to Bibliotherapy introduces clinical social workers and other helping professionals to bibliotherapy, an innovative approach to helping individuals deal with psychological, social, and developmental problems. Literally meaning "treatment through books," bibliotherapy actively involves the client in the therapeutic process through the reading of carefully selected and evaluated books. With this guide, the therapy you give will provide information and insight, stimulate discussion, communicate new values and attitudes, create awareness that others have similar problems, and provide solutions to problems. Using Books in Clinical Social Work Practice offers a detailed approach for helping clinicians use bibliotherapy in practice. You'll discover which types of problems best respond to bibliotherapy and you'll learn how to select the most effective books to treat those problems. You'll even find the structure of the book helpful, as it: introduces you to the basics of bibliotherapy provides a detailed examination of the techniques for using books in treatment reviews and analyzes the extensive research that has been conducted on bibliotherapy focuses on the problems most effectively treated with bibliotherapy--divorce and remarriage, dysfunctional families, parenting, adoption and foster care, self-development, serious illness, substance abuse offers an authoritative guide to over 300 books found to work most effectively--including summaries and levels of interest presents conclusions and a summary for the use of books in treatment.