Bibliotherapy

I thought you might enjoy this article in the New Yorker about bibliotherapy: "Bibliotherapy is a very broad term for the ancient practice of encouraging reading for therapeutic effect."

Can Reading Make You Happier?

by Ceridwen Dovey

Quote: So even if you don’t agree that reading fiction makes us treat others better, it is a way of treating ourselves better. Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers. “Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines,” the author Jeanette Winterson has written. “What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination.”