The Millions has a thought-provoking article up about bibliotherapy. Like James McWilliams, I am rather skeptical about using books as actual therapy to solve problems and cure what ails you. Not that books can’t be therapeutic, they totally are, but I find it difficult to believe a single book can fix a therapeutic issue. As McWilliams says,
novels don’t work this way. They aren’t narrative prescriptions. Even when done badly, novels are artistic expressions necessarily unmoored from reality, expressions that ultimately depend on idiosyncratic characters who act, think, and feel, thereby becoming emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, and even physically embodied — quite differently — in every reader’s mind.
I also think to read in such a way does a disservice to literature because the novel is being forced to be something it was not intended to be. It narrows the possibilities of the book and it limits the experience of the reader.
McWilliams suggests that the premise of bibliotherapy is
to take down obstacles and march us towards happiness. Proof is how easily this genre of therapy veers into self-help territory.
And it does appear this is the case, at least in a pop psychology setting where the purpose is to sell books. There is much wrong with such an approach. It plays into the books as broccoli idea that there are certain books we should read because they are good for us, because, somehow, reading The Great Gatsby will make you a better person. Then of course there is the whole problematic, very American idea, that we should all be striving for happiness to begin with.
I think McWilliams makes a great point by stressing that every reader reads a book differently and to assume the prescription of a particular book will help with a specific problem is a huge presumption. In addition, such a self-help approach to literature
seek[s] to tamp down the very human emotions that literature dines out on: fear, insecurity, vulnerability, and the willingness to take strange paths to strange places… Being moved by fiction means being willing to be led astray a little.
Nonetheless, McWilliams says, and I agree, avid readers know how much books enhance our lives. We know that a book might unsettle us but because we read so much, the effect of the accumulation of our reading does tend to be comforting and therapeutic. This kind of bibliotherapy does not seek to solve specific problems. This kind of bibliotherapy, far from making us feel better and find happiness “should be to make us feel more, to feel deeper, to feel more honestly.” That’s the kind of bibliotherapy I can agree with!
I totally agree with you – I don’t think reading a specific book will help with a specific problem, eg reading a book featuring a character with a mental illness won’t ‘cure’ yours. That seems crazy to me, I didn’t even know this is a thing! But I do think books can help you to improve – I know reading and even just having a comfort book/book by a comfort author can help my anxiety and help me to relax. 🙂 Great article!
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Hannah, it’s a thing that started a couple years ago and became more widely talked about after the publication of The Novel Cure. I agree with you, reading helps me to relax too even when the book is unsettling, just the act of focusing on something other than myself makes huge difference.
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I am certain that a lifetime of reading (I’m 68 years old) has made me a different person than the one I would be if I were a nonreader. I know that I have am more openminded and accepting of diversity because of my reading. I love books with all my heart. But I have never been able to answer the question that heavy readers are so often asked: What one book changed your life? That’s because I don’t think that any single book is really capable of doing that. It might be better to ask what 50 books taken together have changed your life…or you. But when it comes to this thing called bibliotherapy, it’s no thanks from me. I think it’s a nicely-veiled scam.
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Sam, I agree with you on a lifetime of reading making you (me) a different person. You know, I can’t name one single book that changed my life either. Maybe some people can say that and while there have been books I can point to and say they have been highly influential, I believe the effect of books has been cumulative and continues to be that way.
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Perhaps feeling dee[er and more honestly is part of the path to balance in life. Perhaps such balance is a form of happiness. I guess it depends how one looks at it.
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Brian Joseph, I agree that balance is a form of happiness, or I should say it is a big part of happiness as a while. But unfortunately, that is not exactly the approach to happiness our current culture encourages us to take.
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Huh. I guess I’m experiencing the opposite of bibliotherapy; I got angry with a novel because I’m so frustrated about not being able to walk. Part of me knows it’s not the novel’s fault, but the other part just doesn’t care.
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Jeanne, sounds like boredom is beginning to set in. I love reading but when that is pretty much my only activity option for the day after a few days of it I am bored and frustrated so I can understand a bit how you must be feeling!
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I can see using a book as a way to open the door to a difficult conversation, but eventually you have to face yourself, not just characters in your circumstances.
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Shay, nicely put!
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I’ve been reading recently how fairy stories have been used in therapy with children. The fantasy aspect enables them on discuss tough issues in a safer environment, they apparently open up more because it’s happening in a non real world.
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BookerTalk, now that is a good use of stories, to open the door to discussion in a non-threatening way. I can endorse that. But to hand anyone a book that will fix their self-esteem issues, or come to terms with an adulterous spouse, or fix their depression and anxiety that’s kind of ridiculous.
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I don’t take bibliotherapy particularly seriously but I don’t completely discount it either. I do think that, as Karen says she’s been hearing about, books can be used as part of a therapy program. BUT I would be concerned if someone was pushing it as THE way to cure a serious mental condition.
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whisperinggums, oh yes, I agree with you and Karen, books and stories can be used as part of therapy most assuredly, but as the therapy itself? I don’t think so. as you say, much concern for it as a way to cure a mental condition (even a minor one in my opinion!).
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I love the expression ‘books as broccoli’ That’s definitely one I’m going to steal!
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Vicky, use it well 🙂
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I heard an interview on “All Things Considered” in September with a bibliotherapist.
Here is a short transcript of that discussion:
http://www.npr.org/2015/09/04/437597031/to-cure-what-ails-you-bibliotherapists-prescribe-literature
It is an interesting idea. I laughed when I read your comment about reading The Great Gatsby to make you a better person. After many, many years of intending to read it, I actually did read it for the first time. I must now be a “better person” for it.
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I should refrain from posting too early in the morning! This was the one I heard recently……..MONDAY BYTES — August 22, 2016
http://www.angelabeeching.com/bibliotherapy-the-reading-cure/
At any rate, it is an interesting idea.
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Patricia, heh, yeah don’t ask me to do much early in the morning before I’ve had a cup of coffee! Both articles are interesting. They do reinforce for me the self-help aspect of it all and the read this horrible story to help you feel better about your won troubles attitude as well. Neither are truly helpful for anyone who actually needs therapy.
I am sure now you’ve read Gatsby you are feeling more fulfilled at a human being 😉
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Books can comfort me, educate me, inspire me, expand my horizons, give me another perspective, arouse my empathy, make me curious about a topic, send me to research, and more. But cure me? I’d love to know what prescription I’d be given once I was diagnosed. 🙂
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Jenclair, ha! that would be the really interesting part of it, wouldn’t it? What book you be prescribed? 🙂
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I like your stance on this issue of ‘bibliotherapy’. And your post reminds me of a very popular novel, currently still in the ‘new release’ section of our public library: The Little Paris Bookshop Here’s the link to it on Goodreads. Have you read it?
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Arti, heh, I have not read that one. I have not heard good things about it from the few bloggers I have come across who have read it. have you read it? if so, what did you think?
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You know, I hate to admit, I started it but did not finish. Not to say it’s not good as I have only read about 50 pages but that it’s because there are too many books I’m currently reading and no time for it. I’ve heard good things about it though.
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Oh Arti, that made me laugh! If/when you get back to it I hope you will post about it. Your assessment might make me change my mind about it 🙂
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And then just as every reader reads a book differently, every time you read the same book over, you are different and so is the reading experience. I definitely like it when I learn something from a book, and books are totally ‘therapy’ for me, but in the idea that they are an escapism mechanism from my troubles rather than a solution to those troubles. Interesting article!
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Danielle, exactly so! Books are therapy but more of a long-term kind rather than a short-term fix you problem sort.
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Agree and agree and agree. Reading books like we spoke so often is a very personal act. How I interpret a book and what i glean form it or react to it is very different from another. And to force a book vis-a-vis a therapy…I somehow am not sure I like the sound of that!
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cirtnecce, it’s a rather goofy thing and I wonder if some of it isn’t a way to make readers feel superior to non-readers or nothing more than a pumped up book recommendation system.
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The point about every reader approaching a book different really is a wonderful one. Diana Wynne Jones used to talk about the trend in the 1980s and 1990s where all YA was supposed to be “problem novels,” the idea being that you could give a child whose parents were getting divorced a book about a kid whose parents were getting divorced. She was quite critical of this. And I remember thinking — but maybe that would be exactly what some kids would need in that moment! The problem arises when you try to make books a one-size-fits-all cure. Just doesn’t work. Individual tastes are too utterly unpredictable.
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Jenny, oh those YA problem novels! They were the thing when I was a teen and for that reason I avoided most of them and skipped right on to adult books. It was so much more interesting to read about rabbit wars than about some girl with *fill in the blank * problems. I agree, a one-size-fits-all approach only really helps a very few.
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Like many readers I also turn to books for comfort a lot of times but I don’t expect a book to solve problems. Totally agree with your take on bibliotherapy!
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Perhaps the idea of bibliotherapy is a sort of tribute to the power of reading but I agree with you that it is a concept that tends towards seeing literature in the same way as paperback publishers do: if you loved A you will like B! I do know that reading, like listening to music or so many other things has the potential to both take you out of and get you in touch with yourself (simultaneously!) in a way that probably is quite good for us.
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Ian, oh the whole “read alike” thing! I hate that. Just because I liked one book doesn’t mean I want to keep reading other books like it over and over. How boring is that? Totally agree with you on reading and music!
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Iliana, yeah, I’m totally there on the comfort and the lift that a bit of escape can provide. No so sure it could work for anything more than that.
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I like the idea in theory but see it more as a nice thing to maybe do one day. Perhaps it can help make sense of issues but yes, far from a cure.
I’ve been a bit confused by it actually. It seemed to be what you say, a sort of cure for problems, but in the last few weeks reading about it (due to the article you’ve included in fact) it also/instead seems to just be about reading good and different books. And not that there’s anything wrong with both of those but I’ve only found either/or descriptions…
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