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The article presents a narrative qualitative study that included analysis of 54 texts written and published online by 22 women aged 20–40 who had been sexually abused in childhood. The study found ...

In this article, I employ illness narrative theory to analyze Emma Woolf’s recovery from anorexia through autobiographical writing. This is a novel approach, insomuch as anorexia memoirs focusing o...

The Ethical Standards of the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) make it clear that school counselor site supervisors of interns should seek out ongoing education in the area of supervisio...

Many African Americans students face numerous challenges on today’s college campuses. As such, non-traditional therapeutic interventions and group work have emerged in counseling literature to assi...

This study examined the assumption that children’s stories conclude with a happy End and found five different types of Ends in Hebrew children’s literature: the happy End, the happy-enough End, the...

Concern about student wellbeing and related mental health is a global issue, and schools are increasingly expected to support student wellbeing. While the focus on libraries and wellbeing in resear...

Different forms of reading and writing can have therapeutic effects and therefore beneficially are incorporated into mental health care. In Swedish mental health care such incorporation is not esta...

Bibliotherapy is a therapeutic intervention that could potentially be utilized by pediatric palliative care social workers to aid in providing individualized support and adaptive coping techniques through end-of-life and bereavement. Multiple modalities of implementing bibliotherapy are considered, including applications in individual and group counseling. An institutionally supported bibliotherapy program that aims to provide therapeutic and recreational texts for patients, families and clinicians is described. Suggested guidelines and book titles for use in practice with bereaved siblings and families are provided alongside targeted description for use in clinical practice.

The current study examined whether reading the chapter titled “Cliteracy for Him” from the book Becoming Cliterate is an effective intervention for increasing young heterosexual men’s sexual functi...

Grieving work as a professional is one thing; it is another when the loss is personal. This essay interweaves a personal writing-in-grief process with reflections by a grief educator who uses liter...

This handbook of bibliotherapy from Poland is a valuable, comprehensive survey of the current state of poetry therapy/bibliotherapy in central and Eastern Europe. It is scholarly as well as practic...

The study aims at investigating the prevalence of bibliotherapy programs among practicing helping professionals in health and educational institutions in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. The research obje...

The authors describe interactive read-alouds as an effective counseling strategy to improve empathy levels in school aged children. The importance of reading development and empathy development wer...

Health professions education programs have the ability to educate future healthcare professionals on the technical aspects of medicine and physical function, yet it is difficult to provide students with the skills to effectively communicate with patients. Communication is a critical competency for all healthcare professionals, and it is well-documented that patient-provider communication is an important factor in affecting patient views and care outcomes. In this essay, a program of bibliotherapy, or reading therapy, is explored as a means to teach health professions students to effectively and compassionately communicate with patients. The experience of serving as a bibliotherapist enables students to create bonds that increase empathy and understanding of patient perspectives.

This study examined the effectiveness of a bibliotherapy intervention (i.e., the reading of a book) among 50 women randomized to read the book (intervention group) or wait to receive the book (wait...

Bibliotherapy, the use of storytelling as part of the healing process, has been successfully incorporated into clinical practice for a variety of indications including psychological trauma. This therapeutic modality, which incorporates mindful meditation, non-threatening use of metaphor, and autonomic regulation, can help children and adults alike, who are willing to engage in a story. Yet, bibliotherapy has not been widely adapted as a routine part of the therapeutic toolbox in the context of sufferers of childhood sexual abuse. Here, we review current practices regarding the adjunctive use of bibliotherapy for victims of child sexual abuse, touch upon the theoretical basis of bibliotherapy, and lay out a number of readily-useable strategies for implementing bibliotherapy in one's practice.

Bibliotherapy has developed from prescribed self-help books from a clinician to groups where a selection of poetry is read aloud. There is little research on the benefit of a reading group ...

Formal and non-formal settings of education are called for action in matter of creating hopeful places for children, since hope is one of the most powerful psychological predictors of succe...

Children who have a sibling with a disability face unique challenges and experiences throughout their lives. Because of the varied situations that are due to their sibling’s condition, these children may face emotions they are not able to articulate or which may lead to confusion. Bibliotherapy is an intervention that has been shown to help children identify and express their feelings, as well as identify ways to cope with these feelings. This study provides support for these identified benefits of bibliotherapy, and further demonstrates the needs that these children have to interact with peers in similar situations and to be given opportunities to safely and openly express their feelings to caring adults.

This qualitative phenomenological study was designed to gain insight into the unique experiences of six Black women students who were writing creative non-fiction toward the goal of self-definition in a Black feminist learning environment at a Historically Black College/University (HBCU). Interviews were triangulated against participants’ personal writing, revealing obstacles of racism, sexism, internalized oppressions, and an initial difficulty with sharing personal experiences. Participants wrote about overcoming these obstacles through survival and success strategies like practicing mutual vulnerability with their classmates and teacher, and practicing healing transformation through intergenerational healing (re-gifting their new awareness to the next generation). Findings revealed underexplored reciprocities in Black feminist pedagogical delivery and engagement, which may advance culturally specific expressive writing and research methods, and offer culturally specific methods to advance the h...

Anthropomorphic animal characters have a symbolic role in stories, toys, and in children’s literature. These non-human animals may serve as a symbolic role model for a child. When books confront is...

BackgroundThis study investigates Polish perspective, theory, and practice of bibliotherapy.The major purpose of the study is to analyse the deep therapeutic impact of literature on the pat...

The high number of parents in need of psychotherapy and the high costs of psychological help have led scholars to look for alternative avenues that would provide mental health services to this popu...

Parental variables likely have important and bidirectional influences on the etiology of child anxiety. Although some child-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (CCBT) anxiety trials have found vicarious improvements among parents who participated in their children's treatment, this is an understudied area. We hypothesized that parental variables (psychopathology, stress, and burden) will significantly decrease from pre-to post-CCBT and will be associated with child treatment response. We explored whether intervention delivery method-in-person CCBT versus parent-mediated bibliotherapy-influenced vicarious parental improvements. Parental variables decreased from pre- to post-CCBT and were associated with child treatment response. Effects did not interact with delivery method. Parent participation in anxiety CCBT may result in vicarious improvements for parents.

Bibliotherapy is an educational approach that attempts to engage learners in meaningful discussions about relevant, compelling, and complex issues that they confront in their lives. Bibliotherapy begins with reading and reflecting on stories that can draw participants into a process of reflection, in ways that are user friendly and non-threatening. This study examines the unique educational features of bibliotherapy, and then proposes a model for implementing this approach in teaching Jewish texts. In the study's final section, we describe a teaching unit that demonstrates how to introduce bibliotherapy into the teaching about death and mourning in Jewish schools.

The authors of this paper review the efficacy of poetry therapy and introduce a curriculum to be used in the provision of a co-facilitative poetry therapy group process which involves a professiona...

The current study examined the efficacy of creative storytelling on enhancing the creativity of preschool students. Using a randomized waitlist control design, 34 students were randomly all...

The focus of this article is a triad of creative writing (CW), equine, and poetry therapy (PT) on a five-month course titled “Writing with horses.” The researcher and writer (W2) has experience in ...

BACKGROUND: The present study was aimed at developing a grounded theory on how bibliotherapy influences children with intellectual disabilities. METHOD: Participants were selected among the students of four primary schools in Tehran. They received, for 3 years, a special bibliotherapy intervention provided by the public library in cooperation with a team of experts; The bibliotherapy sessions were held once a week during the academic year. 10 teachers, 4 mothers, and 4 agents (librarians) were selected using a purposeful sampling method, and were interviewed using in-depth interviews. RESULT: Data analysis was performed using the grounded theory. ‘Improvement of skills necessary for adjustment to disability’ was identified at the core of grounded theory. CONCLUSION: Bibliotherapy, as a guided learning method and an add-on therapy, based on an accurate identification of intellectually disabled children’s needs and behaviors, providing them with supplemental education materials, empathy, and cooperation among experts from different fields.

This article in the field of bibliotherapy investigates how participation in a reading circle can contribute to psychological well-being in people with mental illness such as long-term depression a...

A dream may offer a unique pathway to a person’s inner world. This article begins by examining the combination of dreams, creative writing, and poetry therapy. The case study gives an idea of a creative writing process combined with the thought of Jungian self-analysis and poetry therapy experienced in Finland in 2011. With the perspective of poetry therapy, this study has its focus in dreams, depicted by words and by metaphors in the images of dreams. The research outlines the possibilities to study one’s inner world and gain insight, by having a dream diary. Dreams are commonly used in the contexts of bibliotherapy, and creative writing, but the topic of this three-dimensional combination has been studied relatively little considering what a popular everyday phenomenon a dream is. This qualitative study provides an example of a fascinating area of research in the field of fine arts activities and therapies. Writing dreams creatively in the context of poetry therapy, can be described as a possibi...

In this study, the authors examined the book selection process regarding therapeutic reading for twenty-two graduate counseling students in which students self-selected and read a book for therapeutic purposes. The authors applied a phenomenological data analysis approach. Research findings indicate: (a) therapeutic benefits of reading begin with book selection, (b) finding the right book fit leads to the most impact, and (c) book selection often empowers readers. The authors conclude with implications for counselor practice, and suggestions for future research.

Self-treatments have previously shown some efficacy in treating premature ejaculation (PE). It has been hypothesized that adding professional support to cognitive-behaviour bibliotherapy could improve self-treatment outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare treatment outcomes for participants with PE who used bibliotherapy alone (pure self-treatment) versus those who used the bibliotherapy with brief support from a health professional (guided self-treatment). Health professionals were not experienced sex therapists, but had attended a short training session in order to equip them to support the self-help process. In total, 135 men reporting difficulties with PE were recruited between February and June 2013. Seventy-one (52.59%) completed the protocol: 37 in the pure self-treatment condition, 34 in the guided self-treatment condition. Thirty-five participants (50%) met criteria for ISSM definition of lifelong PE, 14 (20%) for acquired PE, and 22 (30%) presented other forms of PE com...

Creative bibliotherapy – or the guided reading of fiction or poetry – is used widely in mental healthcare settings. In the UK, partnerships between private organizations, libraries, and the NHS support reading groups for better mental health and social cohesion. In the USA, veterans’ reading support groups are common and private lifestyle consultancies offer services that match clients to books for general well-being. Considering the widespread employment of creative bibliotherapy, this systematic review was conducted to explore its effectiveness in reducing symptoms in adults with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Both randomized and non-randomized trials were included in the extensive search but no high-quality controlled trials were found. Importantly, there is no evidence to suggest harms from the trial designs related to creative bibliotherapy and some low-quality and qualitative studies indicated this intervention may help PTSD symptoms. High quality randomized controlled trials should ...

In July 2015, an interdisciplinary team of librarians, information professionals, and education specialists began development of a therapeutic library for the women residents of the Drug Abuse Comprehensive Coordinating Office, Inc. (DACCO) in Tampa, Florida. This 88-bed alcohol and other drug (AOD) addiction treatment center’s mission is to provide counseling for substance abuse and co-occurring mental health conditions. Treatment lasts from 6 to 8 months. The residential population is racially, ethnically, and socio-economically diverse, with many residents referred through the criminal justice system with the stipulation that they cannot leave the treatment center without prior court approval. Prior to the establishment of this library, residents did not have access to the Internet or reading materials. With funding from a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), the team began to design a therapeutic library for the women residents. The DACCO library now offers services to the center and its residents that focus on providing therapeutic outcomes consistent with their treatment goals. Service promises include circulation, reference services, and health literacy instruction. This article discusses the creation of a model therapeutic library and the future of providing services to special populations who reside in a restricted environment with little or no access to Web-based resources.

Child Anxiety Tales, an online web-based cognitive-behavioral parent-training program for parents of youth with anxiety, was developed and evaluated. Parents (N = 73; 59 females; 52.1% Caucasian, 42.5% African American, 4.1% Hispanic) who reported concerns about anxiety in their child (aged 7–14 yrs; Mean=10.1 ±1.6) were randomly assigned to (a) parent-training provided through Child Anxiety Tales (CAT), (b) parent-training provided via bibliotherapy (BIB), or (c) a waitlist control (WLC). Measures of parent knowledge, the acceptability of training, and child symptomatology were completed at pre- and post-parent-training and at 3-month follow-up. Findings support the feasibility, acceptability, and beneficial effects on knowledge of Child Anxiety Tales for parents of youth with impairment from anxiety.

Patient information and education is an important task in medicine in general and psychotherapy in particular. This can be done verbally but also by written materials (bibliotherapy). Cognitive behaviour therapists from an inpatient department of behavioural medicine were provided with specially developed brochures on phobia, general anxiety, hypochondriasis, cognition and emotion, coping, and chronic illness, which they could use to their discretion in the treatment of their patients, who had been randomized either to a bibliotherapy group (n = 196) or a control group (n = 181). At the end of the treatment, patients in the bibliotherapy group showed significantly better health knowledge than control group patients. Patients with less education showed the biggest increase. Indicators of the treatment process showed for the bibliotherapy group less understanding of the illness and treatment process, less mutual understanding, less well-being during the session, and sympathy. At the end of the treatment patients and therapists alike rated the outcome in the bibliotherapy group less favourable than in the control group. The conclusion is that patient information can have side effects, which should get proper attention in research and clinical practice.

Aggression in the school is one of the most disturbing behaviors that teachers and students face. It is usually addressed through preventive treatments, leaving the highly aggressive students unaffected. Group psychotherapy is a viable method to treat aggressive youth, despite reservations raised in the professional literature, when therapy is adjusted to this unique population. Aggressive children and youth are quite resistant to change, thus, creative methods are needed to engage them in therapy. This article suggests an innovative intervention, using bibliotherapy as an adjunct to an integrative theory of treatment, adjusted to the specific characteristics of aggressive children. The article describes the intervention, its theoretical foundation, and provides wide evidence for its effectiveness with aggressive children and youth.

This article reflects on the findings of the interdisciplinary ‘TransForm’ project, which ran between 2012 and 2014 and aimed to explore how reading and writing digital fictions (DFs) might support young women in developing frameworks for more positive thinking regarding their body image. The project comprised the following stages: (1) a review and compilation of DFs thematising and/or problematising female corporeality; (2) a series of cooperative inquiries with 3 groups of young women (aged 16–19 years) over a period of 5 weeks, examining participants’ responses to a selection of the previously compiled DFs, as well as the challenges these young women face in relation to body image and (3) an interventionist summer school in which participants aged 16–19 explored body image issues via writing DFs. This article reports on the main observations and findings of each stage, and draws conclusions for future research needs in this area.

Adjustment disorders (AjD) are among the most frequent mental disorders yet often remain untreated. The high prevalence, comparatively mild symptom impairment, and transient nature make AjD a promising target for low-threshold self-help interventions. Bibliotherapy represents a potential treatment for AjD problems. This study investigates the effectiveness of a cognitive behavioral self-help manual specifically directed at alleviating AjD symptoms in a homogenous sample of burglary victims. Participants with clinical or subclinical AjD symptoms following experience of burglary were randomized to an intervention group (n = 30) or waiting-list control group (n = 24). The new explicit stress response syndrome model for diagnosing AjD was applied. Participants received no therapist support and assessments took place at baseline, after the one-month intervention, and at three-month follow-up. Based on completer analyses, group by time interactions indicated that the intervention group showed more improvement in AjD symptoms of preoccupation and in post-traumatic stress symptoms. Post-intervention between-group effect sizes ranged from Cohen's d = .17 to .67 and the proportion of participants showing reliable change was consistently higher in the intervention group than in the control group. Engagement with the self-help manual was high: 87% of participants had worked through at least half the manual. This is the first published RCT of a bibliotherapeutic self-help intervention for AjD problems. The findings provide evidence that a low-threshold self-help intervention without therapist contact is a feasible and effective treatment for symptoms of AjD.

This article examines themes of horror and aggression in five stories written in two children’s creative writing courses in Finland. A case study method was used. The data for studying children’s creative writing were collected at the Paatalo Institute and a hospital school at Oulu in spring 2000. Children’s stories provide material externalized from the subconscious, and can be interpreted from a depth-psychological point of view. Sigmund Freud’s understanding of dreams as manifestations of subconscious fears and hopes acquires a new form in the horror stories children write. The child works his or her activated energy charge through manipulating the dream-like and violent elements in stories in a controlled manner: by writing. On the basis of my study, literature, creative writing and bibliotherapy offer a child or a young person a means for working out, at both conscious and subconscious levels, matters relating to the present stage of his or her development and current life condition.

Twenty-five percent of Americans live in rural areas, almost all of which are designated as mental health service shortage areas. This designation represents serious problems for adolescents needing help with predictable developmental problems. The project described serves communities without mental health professionals; uses telemental health technology, co-located in rural primary care clinics; and emphasizes communication and coordination among professionals and clients. An example of addressing identity formation in an adolescent experiencing significant family and relational stress is explored, including the resolution of an ongoing friendship problem by using a school assignment, an analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 48. Discussion includes safety, immediacy, and using bibliotherapy in telemental health with adolescents, as well as the appropriateness of telemental health for individual and parent-child sessions.

Low sexual desire is the number one complaint that women bring to their health care practitioners. Limited research demonstrates that written materials (or bibliotherapy) increase sexual desire in women. The aim of this study was to further the literature by conducting a comparative study on the efficacy of two types of written materials when read by women struggling with low sexual desire: self-help versus erotic fiction. Thirty-five women across the two conditions completed sexual functioning measures at two time points (pre-intervention and post-intervention), with 27 women completing a six-week follow-up. Participants reading both types of books made statistically significant gains on the two measures of desire, arousal, lubrication, satisfaction, orgasm, pain reduction, and overall sexual functioning. In both conditions, those participating in a six-week follow-up maintained their gains in desire, satisfaction, pain reduction, and overall sexual functioning. Findings are discussed within the ...

Adolescence can be a time when youth describe feeling misunderstood by those around them, particularly adults. Family counselors and therapists working with adolescents are challenged with the task...

“Healing Traditions” identifies 54 Black women writers whose memoirs, poetry, and song lyrics provide resources for mental health practice in general and bibliotherapy in particular. Evans locates issues relevant to Black women’s perspectives, highlights themes found in leading artists’ work, and offers an in-depth poetry curriculum for creative approaches to empowerment. In this article, readers find three extensive lists of culturally relevant resources and learn keywords in memoirs, poems, and songs. Writers presented—named “Revolutionary Petunias” after Alice Walker’s poem—are a diverse group, including Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (President of Liberia), Jan Willis (Buddhist religion professor), Stacy Ann Chin (Chinese-Jamaican poet), Nina Simone (legendary songstress), and Mary J. Blige (songwriter of complex emotion). After an overview of resources, Evans then provides case studies of five Southern Black women poets and recommends 25 poems that address “hurt, healing, and hope.” She suggests how close rea...

Play is one of the essential components in proper development of first-grade students. Since the adoption by various states of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), two outcomes have developed: (a) increased instructional time and (b) decreased public school recess periods across school districts. Given the complex nature of daily instructional practices and the lack of opportunity to engage in play (i.e. which in turn decrease the chances for first graders to interact and improve their pro-social skills), classroom teachers need to begin to model and incorporate bibliotherapy as a means to enhance pro-social interactions during daily language art lessons. The purpose of this article is to introduce first-grade teachers to a four-step guide for incorporating bibliotherapy with the ‘Key Ideas and Details' strand of the CCSS on reading informational text while teaching the needed pro-social skills for first-grade students.

In bibliotherapy, the therapeutic gains of reading fiction are ascribed to the literature. Viewing reading fiction as an occupation may give other explanations of its therapeutic function.The aim of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of reading fiction among women during a period of sick leave.A qualitative approach was applied. Eight women who had been reading fiction during sick leave were interviewed.An overarching theme: Supporting one's active self, comprised five categories of experiences: a prospect of ordinary life, a place of refuge, a life together with others, a source of power, and as supporting an active life.Based on the categories, reading fiction is seen to comprise intentional, functional, mental, relational, and personal dimensions. A tentative model of supporting one's active self is proposed, which may be helpful in clarifying the mechanisms of the process of change. The health-related dimensions of reading fiction suggest that reading fiction should be regarded as a significant occupation comparable with other, more highlighted ones. Understood in this way, it is argued that the results add to the knowledge base in occupational therapy focusing on how meaningful occupations connect to occupational life trajectories.

Counselor supervision is fundamental to the development of ethical and competent counselors. As with any approach to working with students, a “1-size-fits-all model” is not always the most effective approach to supervision with developing counselors. Creative approaches to counselor supervision involve the use of nonlinear and nontraditional methods. In this article, the authors apply 3 creative approaches to a single case. Through this case application, they demonstrate the effectiveness of bibliotherapy, psychodrama, and sandtray in the supervisory process.

Quality communication in the delivery of health care is critical. When providers communicate well with patients, fears are relieved and mental well-being is improved. Encounters that leave a patient feeling validated and comforted may improve emotional health and provide a more fulfilling health-care experience. Unfortunately, deficiencies in communication exist in health care and can result in poor health outcomes. Numerous studies have identified risks associated with poor communication. Bibliotherapy, the use of reading as a therapeutic tool, is an age-old practice with marginal risk and potential real benefits. It may be a way for health-care organizations to enhance communication between patients and care givers. This literature review details the clinical and psychological benefits of strong communication and highlights how bibliotherapy may be used to improve patient well-being.