Such practitioners have little acquaintance with literary history—otherwise they would
surely have recognised that their ‘therapeutic metaphor’ amounts to little more than a
re-tooling of the time-honoured genres of allegory and fable. However, what is new is their
highly individualised focus. Stories, they maintain, must be constructed specifically to
suit the emotional dynamics of individuals. Also worth noting is their insistence that ‘the
unconscious does not recognise negatives’ (‘whatever you do, please don’t smoke’
becomes ‘smoke!’); thus stories attempting to be ‘curative’ through the language of
symbol and metaphor must be positive in intent and in the specific propositions they
employ.
Not to be confused with ‘therapeutic metaphor’ is the development of so-called
‘narrative therapy’ (Epston and White 1989). A variant of strategic psychotherapy, but
employing Foucauldian notions about power, language and meaning, ‘narrative therapy’
invites clients to become aware of how they have been participants in the construction
of a ‘dominant story’ of their own life (for example, ‘my life is a total failure’) and instead
to consider alternative ways in which they might have constructed their stories. This
encourages the noticing and valuing of instances when the person subverted or resisted
the ‘dominant story’—and the construction (for example) of an alternative self-narrative
of success and heroic resistance.
Whither Bibliotherapy?The sobering truth about bibliotherapy is that such a form of healing is more likely to
occur through the reader’s own unconscious selection of texts that will ‘speak’ to her or
him than through the planned recommendations of a professional mediator. This is not
to say that bibliotherapy in its existing form cannot offer modest contributions. First,
the reading of narratives that literally or symbolically parallel one’s own condition can
provide a language in which a child or adult may begin to talk about what has
previously been inchoate. Thus the intense interest shown by many adolescent girls in
accounts of anorexia, drug addiction and sexual abuse even when they themselves do
not have such problems, suggests that these stories provide a way of articulating their
own sense of alienation, aggression or low self esteem.
Second, the reading of books can provide the comfort of knowing that one is not alone,
and thus function as a ‘safer’, more private version of a psychotherapy or self-help
group. Third, reading can provide vicarious insight into one’s problems, and even a
measure of integration of previously disowned feelings. In the sense that it is entirely
private, reading is thus far safer than seeking an interview with a therapist or
counsellor; but on the other hand, it is far easier to put a book down than to walk out of
a therapist’s office at the mention of an uncomfortable truth. Fourth, reading can, at a
metaphorical level, and sometimes even at a literal one, provide suggestions, akin to
hypnotic suggestions, for ways of resolving the reader’s problems—suggestions which
may bypass conscious resistance on the sufferer’s part.
On the other hand, reading by itself, like any other form of ‘therapeutic’ activity, from
painting to gardening or sport, is not likely to embody the element of caring
confrontation that seems fundamental to much successful psychotherapy. If the theory
of emotional ‘matching’ is correct, then readers will nearly always reject a text that
634 BIBLIOTHERAPY AND PSYCHOLOGY