"If I can get to a library, I’ll be okay": The Power of Bibliotherapy

Finding Healing and Happiness through Literature

Maya Angelou famously said “I always felt, if I can get to a library, I’ll be okay”. Many of us have experienced the comfort that books provide, reaching for an old favourite on dreary days or simply inhaling the solace of a library or bookshop.

Almost every January I experience a post-Christmas malaise, bemoaning the short days, social slump and smug resolution posts on social media. To climb out of it, I read something that feels like validation and tonic - think Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (whilst in a hot bath) or Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (read next to a dark 4pm window, knowing dusk was even earlier in Glasgow).

But the positive benefits of engaging with literature go deeper than simple resonance or escapism. Bibliotherapy is the use of literature as a therapeutic tool, blending psychology and psychotherapy with books. It can be performed in groups, one-to-one sessions or individually and helps people cope with various life challenges.

Maya Angelou believed in the solace of a library. Photo by  Janko Ferlič on Unsplash.

Reading for Wellbeing

Many of us have felt a full range of emotions whilst reading. We often find emotionally engaging books memorable and might re-read them. We may look to poetry for help articulating feelings we find difficult to express, to tragic dramas for a sense of cathartic relief or to works of fantasy and Sci-Fi to counter mundanity.

Fiction provides a safe space where reality and judgement are suspended. Feeling alongside characters we resonate with can help us engage with difficult themes at a reassuring distance. Conversely, characters who differ from us provide an opportunity to practise empathy and vicariously explore life events we haven’t experienced for ourselves. Talking about things we've read with others, such as by joining a book club, can combat loneliness and help us forge connections.

Reading can aid self-exploration or escapism. Photo by freestocks on Unsplash.

Writing for Wellbeing

Getting pent-up emotions down on paper can help us let go of anger or frustration and articulate how we’re feeling. Bullet journaling is a way to reflect or reframe, and freewriting offers an outlet of uncritical mindfulness. Writing may also be a way of taking action: of revising a memory we wished had occurred differently or using fiction to imagine a new way forwards. When we write a world, we may be helping to right the world. 

Julia Cameron is a famous advocate for freewriting. Poet Rupi Kaur's book Healing Through Words has prompts to help you get the ink flowing.

Ancient Precedent

The term ‘bibliotherapy’ was coined relatively recently by American essayist Samuel Crothers in 1916, but the practice is arguably as old as reading itself. The Ancient Greeks had vast libraries with texts for knowledge and entertainment. In Bibliotheca Historical, Greek historian Diodorus Siculus states that King Ramses II of Egypt had a library inscribed as the ‘House of Healing for the Soul’.

Bibliotherapy Resources

Bibliotherapy has experienced a surge in interest in recent years, encouraged by resources such as Relit, BookTherapy and Poetry Pharmacy. If you’re looking for some bookish prescriptions, Ella Berthoud’s useful guide The Novel Cure: An A to Z of Literary Remedies (2013) has reading recommendations for all manner of maladies, while William Seighart’s The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-and-True Prescriptions for the Heart, Mind and Soul (2017) contains poetry for life’s various challenges. 

L-R: The Poetry Pharmacy Returns by William Sieghart, The Novel Cure by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin, Poems to Save the World selected and illustrated by Chris Riddell.

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