It’s all about feeling good with books and 8 Stampa titles to get you by.
When dealing with personal issues like depression, anxiety, phobia, or grief, people understand that their thoughts are irrational, but they still can’t stop them. After a while, making sense of what is happening can take a huge emotional toll, but one can find actual relief with reading – using a medical treatment process otherwise known by its scientific term: bibliotherapy.
A quick history: In 1916, American minister Samuel Crothers combined the Greek words ‘biblio’ (book) and ‘therapeia’ (healing) to describe a process in which specific literature, both fiction and non-fiction, was prescribed as medicine for a variety of ailments.
Today, over a hundred years later, bibliotherapy has become somewhat of a hit in pop culture. Since the 1970s, we’ve seen bibliotherapy move into diverse areas of community including general medical practice, psychology, criminal justice, social work, education, and occupational therapy.
Fortunately, many people enjoy reading as a hobby; that’s a good start. With this kind of therapy, however, reading is treated as more than just a pastime – a person uses literature to help deal with psychological, emotional and social problems, usually as an adjunct part of his healing process, often to support other forms of therapy.
How is this tool used exactly? Sam Gedding, Ph.D., a professor at Wake Forest University’s Online Master’s in Counselling and Human Services Program is quoted in a VeryWellMind.com article describing bibliotherapy as a dynamic three-way interaction involving the use of a book, a counselor, and a client. “The counselor and the client consider problems or stress areas in the client’s life; then the counselor ‘prescribes’ a book or story for the client to read,” he says. For example, a teenager who experiences social anxiety and unresolved trauma may be offered to read The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.
Okay, so it’s one thing to read something as intriguing and honest like The Perks…, and another thing to actually get mentally cured by it. It seems like bibliotherapy’s claim sounds a little overkill, doesn’t it? Not really. Over the years, there have been a lot of researches conducted on the effectiveness of this method, and most of them found some truth to the claim that it really is therapeutic.
For example, a 2006 study by Frieswijk et al. in the Netherlands found that elderly subjects who received bibliotherapy showed an increase in self-management ability (SMA), even six months after it was stopped. Researchers maintained that a high-scoring SMA of the older population can partly relieve the burden on the healthcare system of taking care of them because “the people will be better able to live an independent and autonomous lifestyle for a longer period of time…However, this effect on well-being ceased to exist after six months.”
In the same vein, a 2019 study by Jahanpour et al. successfully used poetry therapy to reduce anxiety and PTSD in patients recovering from a heart attack.
Truth is that most of us are not entirely clueless on the restorative affect of reading literature. To an average John and Jane Doe though, reading is therapeutic in a way that decreases muscle tension and reduces heart rate, relieving one’s overall stress level. It’s their own form of meditation, offering a transcendent escape from the stress of everyday life.
A 2009 study at the University of Sussex drove home this point by concluding that reading – for as short as six sustained minutes – can reduce stress by up to 68%. It even works better and faster in calming frazzled nerves than listening to music, going for a walk or drinking a hot cup of tea.
Stampa’s list of books for a saner, healthier you
Books for use in bibliotherapy do not necessarily have to come from one genre. They can be about anything: clinical information, stories, poems, memoirs, to name a few. Inspired by the subject of this article, Stampa sets about creating a list of its published memoirs and self- help books recommended to serve as valuable benchmarks, inspirations, ice breakers, and companions. It is our hope that this list can help teens, adults, therapists, parents, and teachers better identify other books that fit their own taste and match specific needs.
If you think bibliotherapy is for you, here’s 8 books – in no particular order – worth checking out at least once in your life:
PONDER: I Wonder What’s Out There By Pat Keogh A collection of articles committed to promoting child-centered education and inspiring parents, teachers, and especially children to think critically and develop an analytical approach to information received through social media channels.
Going Back Twenty-Five Years: With a Paranormal Twist By Julian Black Imagine being able to go back in time through a door opening up in our minds and going through a time travel warp to re-live our youth a second time around, but this time, doing things differently to the way it was first time.
From The Mountaintop By Campbell Bolwell From the Mountaintop is a story about a solitary individual who spends his lifetime searching for the deeper meaning to life and trying to understand its purpose. Not satisfies with the explanation of existing religions he embarks on a lone journey of study and experience, unwilling to accept anything of faith alone and searching for evidence to support his emerging theories about reality. Against the background of his extraordinary adventures, which influenced his search and shaped his character, a vast and radically different is revealed.
It’s OK To Tell By Marie Giles The book – a survivor memoir – started out as diaries to help the author get through a personal turmoil. It is described best as a raw honest account of the inner thoughts of the author recorded as they happened at the time.
My Story, My Life, So Far By Michael Wall A brief account of Wall’s life, from his paddock in England to his journey around Australia, as well as his time in the Army and life as a government official in New Zealand.
Read Well: Discover How To Improve Your Reading and Comprehension in 6 Easy Steps By Roz Townsend Developing reading skills is an exciting process available to everyone. Improving your reading skills is like any other skill area: It can be learnt and developed. This book will show you how easy it is to overcome some bad reading habits and to replace them with powerful reading skills. It assumes you can read, but want to be more efficient.
Defining Intelligence In An Educational Context By Pat Keogh Pat Keogh’s book offers an in-depth insight into the concept of the mind. There is a chapter on personality that gives us a real insight into how we act and behave the way we do. The author challenges the notion of psychological assessment, which often tends to label a person and even diminish him. The book asserts that such reports are not a true reflection of a person’s intellectual ability.
Wake Up and Live By Belinda Wallis Belinda’s self-help strategies take you on a five-part inward journey of transformation, providing simple, practical and proven exercises and tools, woven together with authentic stories. Part I Becoming Aware helps you to get to know yourself and identify areas that support you and areas where you may be self sabotaging. Part II Your Inward Journey looks into your belief systems and attachments. Part III provides tools to apply to make changes to the areas that do not serve you, Part IV gives you a path forward with direction and purpose, and Part V looks at the outcome – a life of joy.