Bibliotherapy

Bibliotherapy, also referred to as book therapy, reading therapy, poetry therapy, or therapeutic storytelling, is a creative arts therapy that involves the careful selection of the literature and the reading of specific written materials as therapeutic interventions to promote psychological healing and personal growth. This evidence-based practice leverages the therapeutic potential of the relationship between individuals and written language, including narrative fiction, poetry, memoirs, self-help literature, and other forms of written expression, to improve psychological well-being, manage mental health issues, and provide emotional support. Bibliotherapy partially overlaps with writing therapy and is often combined with it in clinical and therapeutic practice.

As a form of supportive psychotherapy, bibliotherapy functions as a brief, structured self-help intervention that employs a standard manuals to help individuals acquire emotion regulation skills through established therapeutic frameworks, primarily behavioral therapy or cognitive therapy techniques. Two popular books used for this are The Feeling Good Handbook for cognitive therapy and Control Your Depression for behavioral therapy. The main advantage of this psychotherapy compared to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is its cost-effectiveness. However, for complex presentations, CBT tends to have more positive treatment outcomes. It has been shown to be effective in the treatment of mild to moderate depression, with cognitive bibliotherapy having a long-lasting effect. Modest evidence also exists to the symptom reduction of alcohol dependence, self-harm and panic disorder.

Unstructured and more informal bibliotherapy fits under creative arts therapies, possibly including reading or activity recommendations by a librarian or health professional based on perceived therapeutic value. More structured bibliotherapy can be described as supportive psychotherapy, where more consideration is placed on the therapist in the selection of reading material and in including other activities to facilitate skill acquisition and symptom reduction. An important difference between the two is the greater empirical support of symptom reduction in bibliotherapy as a supportive psychotherapy.