Bibliotherapy: three ways reading a book can heal you

Words can help, heal, hurt or hinder. Books are made up of words so therefore, books can help, heal, hurt or hinder. Some we keep as precious treasures worth day dreaming about again and again. Some bring us to tears and pierce our sense of safety or right and wrong: they wound us as we think about the content. Some we push aside because we totally disagree with the author or character and the way they are talking about or acting in a situation - they hinder our ability to think straight because they are confrontational and adversarial.

The use of the written word can help solve a problem or create a bigger problem for you. Instead of encouraging a problem for you here's three great reasons to use books to help heal:

1. Identification of character and social situation: This identification increases the probability of learning different behaviors and receiving advice.
2. Catharsis: Through identification, an emotional connection with the character or social situation allows us to act out and discuss our emotional responses to the situation.
3. Insight: Through beneficial discussion and follow-up play, the child integrates the link between the story and their own life, with opportunities to practice how to address and solve issues of concern.

Books are like magic medicine, white and dark: their alchemy takes over our mind as we read them and they stay with us for ever more. The spell ingredients, the medicine, is in the words on the page. As we read them, we absorb the medicine that either helps, hinders or heals.

Bibliotherapy is a process of that alchemy. Bibliotherapy is the use of the written word to help solve a problem. We learn and encode as we read books. Some books we purposely choose for a specific reason and some we simply read for pleasure. Either way, we are subconsciously learning the rules of life or love or relationships or conflict or war or good vs evil, how to behave, what to do, regulating emotions, etc.

When we read, or listen to a book, we are imagining the characters navigating their issues and we naturally make judgement, good or bad, on what we may do in that situation. We practice ideas generated from the book, we may copy what characters did, we may be motivated to try a new skill or hobby that characters tried. We may also fixate upon a quote or a line that spoke to us and put it on our wall so that we are constantly reminded of the meaning behind the words to our own lives.

This is the power of healing through a book. Fiction or non fiction, the book becomes a form of psychoeducation (see this post to learn what psychoeducation is).

Dr. Elizabeth-Dale Pehrsson from Central Michigan University says that stories are how we learn our cultural coding: the rules of our culture that maintain a status quo. Social coding on the other hand comes from our family, peers and immediate community - our society. 

Some books are written by members from our society (people like us and with issues like ours) and some are written by members of the status quo (the ruling cultural class made up of the institutions of control) who want to maintain the rules of society that they are invested in having maintained because it serves their beliefs. I prefer not to read books written by an author with a vested interest in supporting an ideal that I am opposed to. Similarly, I know people who will only read books authored by people just like them with the same skin colour, faith or political focus as themselves.

There exist books considered as National Books. These are books said to represent the spirit, ethics and morals of a country - the high culture that all citizens of that country should aspire to. Many countries hold their religious scripture as their National text. This is not what I read as my view is that it marginalises people of difference: people who matter despite and because of their difference.

The Director of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, stated in 2005, that

Book publishing is a powerful agent of dialogue that transcends both national and language borders. Thanks to translation and together with the educational system and the ensemble of the cultural industry, it provides the cornerstone upon which each country builds and develops its identity and self-image, as well as its views on life and the world in general.

To use a book to heal, it may be more helpful to choose a book to read from someone in your society rather than a book that pertains to the moral culture of something vastly different to what you are trying to achieve. Of course there are classics that cross social, cultural and national boundaries - stories that can be read at any time and by any culture and still impart a lesson in navigating human relationships. 

No matter what you read, or why, here are the nine steps of bibliotherapy: using the written word to help solve a problem:

1. Identify the advice (message) you want to know.

2. Match the message with an appropriate book. Use librarians - those people are GOLD! Seek out fiction/non-fiction that deals with the particular issue (drugs, death, alcoholism, fear, bullying, sexual assault, etc.). While searching for the advice appropriate book for yourself or another, remember that:

• The book should match the reading ability level,
• The text must be at an interest level appropriate to the maturity of the reader,
• The theme of the book should match the identified needs,
• The characters should be believable so that the reader can identify with the dilemma,
• The plot of the story should be realistic and involve creativity in problem solving.

3. Decide on the setting and time for the story reading. Will you read it yourself, with/to a person, will you leave the book for the another to find, will you suggest the book to your someone as a great read and hope they buy it?

4. Knowing that you need to be active for bibliotherapy to be effective, motivate your self to become involved with an associated problem solving follow up activity by making suggestions prior to story
end (e.g. “I/We could go on a luncheon date with friends and ask them to discuss how they overcame loneliness and exclusion.”)

5. Design one or more follow-up, book-connected activities, based on your interest and ability. This may be as simple as having a discussion with someone after story end. You may want to engage with drawing a picture or creatively/blog/review writing about something from the story, or merely journaling thoughts on the book. Alternatively, actively engage in dramatic play or drama around the advice issue, or take a visit to a place somehow connected to the story.

6. Pre engage in the follow up activities by asking questions or having short discussions throughout the
reading. At the end of a chapter or every few pages, sum up so that “the message” does not get lost in the
fantasy.

7. Immediately after story end, take a break and allow yourself to do your own reflection on the material and decide what suits you best to try and integrate the healing lessons from the story.

8. Introduce the follow-up activities by briefly retelling the story, focusing on how the characters solved
their issue, and let the child know what you suggest you could both do to honour the advice/message in
the book.

9. Assist yourself to integrate the advice gained by seeking answers to any questions that may have arisen (google, talk to a friend or counsellor).

The most important thing for bibliotherapy however, is just to start reading. So many people don't read nowadays because they don't have time. Make time to heal yourself: pick a book and just read one paragraph a day as you get used to the habit of reading. One paragraph may well be a 100% increase on what you are already doing.

👵🏼 Megan Bayliss, Social Worker

👩🏼‍🎓 PhD candidate: social and cultural resistance to the status quo.

References

Bayliss, M. (2021) Bibliotherapy. Using Story Books to Help Kids (& Big Kids) Solve Problems. [White Paper] The Junk Wave. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RQElAK_9p1m2BIBqSMVOoqvfBrU4U9Fq/view?usp=sharing

Dale Pehrsson, E. Bibliotherapy Workshop. Moraine Valley Community College Library. YouTube https://youtu.be/Nd7_yP91eJA?si=XwnfS5jS5-UaShJl 

Kuo, M. 2019 July 10. The healing power of reading. TED. YouTube https://youtu.be/UCKfvxnljYY?si=ktgJ_7Q-HllAOq2F 

Matsuura, K (2005). Forward. In  Garzon, A. (2005), National book policy: a guide for users in the field (2nd edition, p.5). UNESCO Publishing https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000140530