What Is Interactive Bibliotherapy?
The term, bibliotherapy comes from the words biblio, meaning books, and therapeia, meaning to serve or to help medically. Broadly defined, it is the use of literature to help people solve problems. A librarian or therapist may recommend a book, but it is the reader’s personal response to the work that results in emotional growth or insight.
Interactive bibliotherapy, on the other hand, involves the reader, the literary work and a facilitator. With an interactive approach, “growth and healing is centered not so much in the act of reading as in a guided dialogue about the material, which can lead to a whole new dimension of insight” (Hynes & Hynes-Berry, 1994). “There seems to exist something like a common ground of experience where psychology and literature meet, a ground in which both are rooted” (Van Kaam & Healy, 1967).
In bibliotherapy, reading materials may encompass both imaginative and informational literature. It can include poetry, novels, short stories, memoirs, essays and plays. “While non-fiction may appeal to the intellect, fiction allows one to experience emotions as well as thoughts and images. It helps us to rewrite our stories, “helps us to revise, review and add on stories, so that we can continue living our narrative in a creative way” (Joseph Gold, 2001).
PAGES Explorations utilizes interactive bibliotherapy as a way to help the participant integrate both feelings and cognitive responses to selected readings. We begin with a fairly structured curriculum, designed to put the reader in touch with salient life forces, inspirations or potentialities and prescribe additional readings, as needed, to enrich or expand what has been tapped.
Interactive bibliotherapy, on the other hand, involves the reader, the literary work and a facilitator. With an interactive approach, “growth and healing is centered not so much in the act of reading as in a guided dialogue about the material, which can lead to a whole new dimension of insight” (Hynes & Hynes-Berry, 1994). “There seems to exist something like a common ground of experience where psychology and literature meet, a ground in which both are rooted” (Van Kaam & Healy, 1967).
In bibliotherapy, reading materials may encompass both imaginative and informational literature. It can include poetry, novels, short stories, memoirs, essays and plays. “While non-fiction may appeal to the intellect, fiction allows one to experience emotions as well as thoughts and images. It helps us to rewrite our stories, “helps us to revise, review and add on stories, so that we can continue living our narrative in a creative way” (Joseph Gold, 2001).
PAGES Explorations utilizes interactive bibliotherapy as a way to help the participant integrate both feelings and cognitive responses to selected readings. We begin with a fairly structured curriculum, designed to put the reader in touch with salient life forces, inspirations or potentialities and prescribe additional readings, as needed, to enrich or expand what has been tapped.
