contains too painful a self-confrontation; and they will be drawn again and again to
those narratives which will encourage them to construct their lives much as before,
albeit, perhaps, in a more vivid, enriched way.
This leaves a heavy onus on the bibliotherapist to provide what the text itself cannot,
and while a sensitive librarian may do as well as a professional therapist with a
relatively ‘easy’ client, it is likely that clients (child or adult) with more deeply-rooted
dysfunctions will prove far beyond even a well trained teacher or librarian’s ability to
help.
If bibliotherapy is to fulfil its promise, its practitioners must learn to diagnose their
clients’ patterns of preferred reading through careful observation and questioning over
time. Personally significant texts, which are read again and again, are the most efficient
indicators of those patterns. The professional could then recommend further texts which
embody the same patterns, or seek to engage the client in discussion of one of his or her
existing ‘special books’. If bibliotherapy is understood as a way of affirming and
extending an individual personality rather than as a way of ‘curing’ or ‘changing’ a
person, then its chances of being useful will be far greater. In her Earthsea quartet,
Ursula le Guin’s Mages can call up a magical wind to fill their sails if required; but they
cannot magically compel an existing wind to blow in the opposite direction.
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