Bibliotherapy

Bibliotherapy (also referred to as book therapy, reading therapy, poetry therapy or therapeutic storytelling) is a creative arts therapy that involves storytelling or the reading of specific texts. It uses an individual's relationship to the content of books and poetry and other written words as therapy. Bibliotherapy partially overlaps with, and is often combined with, writing therapy. Distinct from the creative arts therapy is bibliotherapy as a supportive psychotherapy, a brief self-help intervention where through the reading of a chosen standard manual, emotion regulation skills are acquired through either behavioral therapy or cognitive therapy techniques. Two popular books used for this are The Feeling Good Handbook for cognitive therapy and Control Your Depression for behavioral therapy. The main advantage of this psychotherapy compared to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is its cost-effectiveness, although, especially for complex presentations, CBT tends to have more positive treatment outcomes. It has been shown to be effective in the treatment of mild to moderate depression, with cognitive bibliotherapy having a long-lasting effect. Modest evidence also exists to the symptom reduction of alcohol dependence, self-harm and panic disorder. Unstructured and more informal bibliotherapy fits under creative arts therapies, possibly including reading or activity recommendations by a librarian or health professional based on perceived therapeutic value. More structured bibliotherapy can be described as supportive psychotherapy, where more consideration is placed on the therapist in the selection of reading material and in including other activities to facilitate skill acquisition and symptom reduction. An important difference between the two is the greater empirical support of symptom reduction in bibliotherapy as a supportive psychotherapy. Bibliotherapy is an old concept in library science. According to the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, in his monumental work Bibliotheca historica, there was a phrase above the entrance to the royal chamber where books were stored by King Ramses II of Egypt.