09/09/2018
Bibliotherapy?
An inscription above the entrance door of a library in the tomb of Ramses II in the ancient city of Thebes read: ψυχῆς ἰατρείον (psychés iatreíon) – ‘place of care for the soul’. In modern Greek, ιατρείο (iatreío) would be translated as ‘doctor’s consulting room’ and ‘ψυχῆς ἰατρείον’ (psychés iatreíon) sounds very much like how many therapists might think of their own consulting rooms.
It’s perhaps not surprising, therefore, that ‘bibliotherapy’ is steadily becoming a small but flourishing therapeutic field.
‘Bibliotherapy’ is most commonly used to mean one of two things: in its most straightforward sense, it describes medical or psychological professionals ‘prescribing’ specific self-help books to patients who consult them with concerns such as anxiety and depression. This approach is slowly growing in popularity, particularly in countries which have identified excessive or too hasty prescription of psychotropic medication as a public health concern.
As British psychotherapist and author Philippa Perry has pointed out, a good self-help book is better than a bad therapist, and some excellent self-help books do exist, along with very many bad ones. (Perry also points out that a bad self-help book is worst of all and doesn’t come with a professional code of ethics, minimum quality standards, or a complaints procedure.)
The second, deeper, approach to bibliotherapy is using the reading of fiction, especially literary fiction, as a powerful psychological intervention in its own right. Research from the University of Sussex, UK, shows that reading is a more effective way of overcoming stress than listening to music or taking a walk. Within 6 minutes of reading silently, study participants’ heart rates slowed and tension in their muscles eased by up to 68% – findings similar to those one might find in participants practicing meditation.
In 2013, a separate study published in the prestigious journal ‘Science’ found that reading literary fiction (rather than popular fiction or literary nonfiction) improved participants’ results on tests that measured social perception and empathy. Both qualities are crucial to the ability to build strong and healthy relationships with others, and to navigating all interpersonal interactions, professional and personal.
On the literary side, the eminent Yale critic Harold Bloom is author of a New York Times bestselling book, ‘Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human’, which credits Shakespeare with the invention of the modern human personality. Shakespeare’s plays, written in the Sixteenth Century, continue to be cherished across diverse cultures, despite the difficult, archaic language, and melodramatic, contrived plots. This reflects Shakespeare’s genius in accurately – and beautifully – describing the interior emotional states of his characters. We recognize something of ourselves and our experience, something human, irrespective of the distance in time and culture from Elizabethan England.
For those interested to explore literary fiction from a therapeutic perspective, The Novel Cure: an A-Z of Literary Remedies, by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin (Canongate) is a good place to start. I also warmly recommend a wonderful (and free) online resource produced by ReLit, the Bibliotherapy Foundation, an organization dedicated to the complementary treatment of stress, anxiety and other conditions through mindful reading. The course explores how poems, plays and novels can help us understand and cope with times of deep emotional strain. It focuses on six topics: stress; heartbreak; bereavement; trauma; depression and bipolar disorder; and ageing and dementia.http://www.relit.org.uk/what-we-do/online-course
Ramses II is better known – in the literary sphere, at least – as Ozymandias, subject of Shelley’s famous sonnet:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
The poem is a parable about the transience of worldly prestige and power, the existential pointlessness of narcissism. Tending our souls is far better for us, for our relationships, and for the world. The inscription on the ancient library at Thebes suggests that Ramses/Ozymandias would recommend we start with a book.
(image from commons.wikimedia.org)
