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Bibliotherapy and Psychology
Hugh Crago
Bibliotherapy is one of an enormous range of methods for helping human beings in
distress. The word itself suggests a specific therapeutic modality (as in ‘art therapy’
‘occupational therapy’ or ‘dance therapy’—all of which were developed specifically to
meet the needs of patients perceived to be wholly or partly beyond the reach of
mainstream psychotherapeutic methods). In fact, bibliotherapy has not remotely
established its claim to such status, and may never do so, but it still has a direct,
though peripheral, relationship to the whole field of psychotherapy.
However, because the printed text (biblio-) is the medium through which the helping/
healing is considered to occur (whereas, the concept should really cover non-printed
‘texts’ such as oral story-telling and the viewing of visual narratives like films and
picture books), bibliotherapy must also be considered in relation to the study of
literature as received by its audience, a field now categorised as reception theory
(Tabbert 1979) and reader response. With these bibliotherapy once again enjoys a
presently tenuous but potentially significant connection.
Indeed, we may as well say clearly at the outset that both the theory and the practice
of bibliotherapy have suffered from a failure fully to explore (or even in many cases to
recognise) these connections. Few advocates of bibliotherapy have had much knowledge
of reader-response theory—much of which postdates the pioneering work in
bibliotherapy. Even fewer have had much personal acquaintance with the wider fields of
psychology and psychotherapy. For their part, most psychologists have simply avoided
dealing with a subject as complex and difficult to quantify as the potential effects of
narrative on human lives. Much of what purports to be received wisdom on the subject
of bibliotherapy is thus of dubious value, and perhaps it is not surprising that
bibliotherapy has not been taken seriously by many people.
In so far as bibliotherapy has been seen as particularly relevant to children and
adolescents, its proponents have been influenced by misleading assumptions about the
nature of childhood, in particular, the Rousseau-derived belief that children are
especially susceptible to suggestion through print in comparison with adults, and
ignorance of the real similarities and differences between child readers and adult
readers (outlined briefly in Crago 1979) In fact, as we shall see, there is little difference
between children and adults at the level of reading where lasting ‘influence’ is most
likely to occur.