Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Delaney & Shrodes founding bibliotherapy librarians


 Bibliotherapy and Music Therapy | Scribd 


Stages of progress


 Bibliotherapy - Rehab Info 

Readers Advisory tool


 What Should I Read Next? Book recommendations from readers like you 

This resource is now very user friendly on my smartphone. I've only added a few random titles to the list, but from there you can sign up for your own account (free) and have a go at creating your own readers advisory resource center.

BTW, I mostly use the library rather than purchase titles and use the amazon database for informational purposes only.

Alain de Botton interview Bibliotherapy and School of Life method


 Anxious? Depressed? Literate? Try Bibliotherapy | Think Tank | Big Think

Bibliotherapy
Bibliotherapy is an alternative form of therapy that utilizes books and words to help you better understand issues that you are having and identify new coping skills that may be more effective in dealing with stressors. In many cases, writing is an essential tool as well, allowing you to explore your own story and truths through the fiction and nonfiction stories of others.

Bibliotherapy can be a powerful addition to your treatment program and provide you with a unique avenue toward healing and recovery. Contact us today to speak with a counselor who can direct you to a mental health treatment program that offers bibliotherapy. *Individual Bibliotherapy vs. Group Bibliotherapy Individual bibliotherapy sessions allow you to focus on your own interpretation of the text and share your personal writing with your bibliotherapist.
Group bibliotherapy sessions give you the opportunity to hear the unique view of others who have read the same text, which could provide you with insight into your own issues that you may not otherwise hear.

Bibliotherapy Stages of Progress
As you read through a text that is meaningful to you, bibliotherapists believe that you experience: Identification. One of the characters or the primary situation in the book is familiar to you. Catharsis. You become bonded to the characters and emotionally go through their experiences with them. Awareness and understanding. You recognize your own issues, perceptions, and the effects of those choices within the context of the story and learn coping skills that are more effective.

*What Do You Read in Bibliotherapy?
The choice in literature will depend upon a number of different factors, including: Your preference in reading material
Your bibliotherapist’s area of expertise
 Your disorder
 The specific symptom with which you are struggling

 Writing and Bibliotherapy
 Though reading is the foundation of bibliotherapy, exploration of the text as it relates to your experience through writing is where the real therapeutic healing happens. You can write as much or as little as you want about passages that stand out to you or specific experiences within the book that mirror your own. The reading may trigger you to write out a memory that you feel is pertinent to the issues you’re working through, or you may choose to write out how you would have handled the situation differently than the character or what you learned from the character’s choices. Share the most meaningful sections of your writing at your bibliotherapy session.

Therapy Homework
Bibliotherapy is one of the few therapies that will practically require that you do work for your session outside of treatment. Though some therapies will ask you to practice coping mechanisms or notate specific events or details about those events, these actions are easily incorporated into your schedule. It’s possible to focus your bibliotherapy sessions on short readings done with the therapist with time set aside for you to write your response and then share it. However, it is far more time- and cost-effective for you to do your reading and writing for each session at home.

Is Bibliotherapy Right for You or Someone You Love? Most often used with children, bibliotherapy can be effective because it offers a vehicle of exploration in situations where it may be difficult or awkward to verbalize problems. For young children, the text may be read to them and they may draw pictures instead of write about their thoughts.

Alain de Botton interview Literature's power to reorient & rewire thought patterns


 Anxious? Depressed? Literate? Try Bibliotherapy | Think Tank | Big Think
Bibliotherapy Bibliotherapy is an alternative form of therapy that utilizes books and words to help you better understand issues that you are having and identify new coping skills that may be more effective in dealing with stressors. In many cases, writing is an essential tool as well, allowing you to explore your own story and truths through the fiction and nonfiction stories of others. Bibliotherapy can be a powerful addition to your treatment program and provide you with a unique avenue toward healing and recovery. Contact us today to speak with a counselor who can direct you to a mental health treatment program that offers bibliotherapy. *Individual Bibliotherapy vs. Group Bibliotherapy Individual bibliotherapy sessions allow you to focus on your own interpretation of the text and share your personal writing with your bibliotherapist. Group bibliotherapy sessions give you the opportunity to hear the unique view of others who have read the same text, which could provide you with insight into your own issues that you may not otherwise hear. Bibliotherapy Stages of Progress As you read through a text that is meaningful to you, bibliotherapists believe that you experience: Identification. One of the characters or the primary situation in the book is familiar to you. Catharsis. You become bonded to the characters and emotionally go through their experiences with them. Awareness and understanding. You recognize your own issues, perceptions, and the effects of those choices within the context of the story and learn coping skills that are more effective. *What Do You Read in Bibliotherapy? The choice in literature will depend upon a number of different factors, including: Your preference in reading material Your bibliotherapist’s area of expertise Your disorder The specific symptom with which you are struggling Writing and Bibliotherapy Though reading is the foundation of bibliotherapy, exploration of the text as it relates to your experience through writing is where the real therapeutic healing happens. You can write as much or as little as you want about passages that stand out to you or specific experiences within the book that mirror your own. The reading may trigger you to write out a memory that you feel is pertinent to the issues you’re working through, or you may choose to write out how you would have handled the situation differently than the character or what you learned from the character’s choices. Share the most meaningful sections of your writing at your bibliotherapy session. Therapy Homework Bibliotherapy is one of the few therapies that will practically require that you do work for your session outside of treatment. Though some therapies will ask you to practice coping mechanisms or notate specific events or details about those events, these actions are easily incorporated into your schedule. It’s possible to focus your bibliotherapy sessions on short readings done with the therapist with time set aside for you to write your response and then share it. However, it is far more time- and cost-effective for you to do your reading and writing for each session at home. Is Bibliotherapy Right for You or Someone You Love? Most often used with children, bibliotherapy can be effective because it offers a vehicle of exploration in situations where it may be difficult or awkward to verbalize problems. For young children, the text may be read to them and they may draw pictures instead of write about their thoughts.

Quality of thought defines bibliotherapy


 Bibliotherapy: How Books Can Treat Anxiety, Depression - The Huffington Post 

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Reader's Block by David Markson


A novel, hmmm, definitely novel but not narrative. Rather an accumulation of trivia, flotsam and jetsom, from a lifetime of reading and study. One reads as if reading one's personal notes, discontinuous and disjointed, all the while aware of a unifying consciousness.

I don't think I could have read the book without my smartphone handy. I looked up most of the entries in foreign languages and some of the people whose names were linked to topics or other people of interest. But lots was just ignored, reminding me of the way I would skip over words I didn't know the meaning of when I was learning to read. Sometimes in order to get through a text you just have to accept that you may not get it all.

Reading READER'S BLOCK suggests following a thread, somewhere in the warp meaning is loosely woven. Nonlinear narrative? Are we experiencing a new literary genre? I felt a cross-link between memoir and journalism (think tweets rather than editorials.)

For bibliotherapeutic purposes, I can see the benefits of collecting random bits from reading in a journal for purposes of cross-referencing themes in the same manner as in dream journaling. "Know thyself" by themes revealed while reading.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Bellwether by Connie Willis (1996)


"Poincare had believed creative thought was a process of inducing inner chaos to achieve a higher level of equilibrium" or self-organized criticality, as we learned earlier in the novel.

Diagram-Map-Story color coded for date vector and incidence is the solution our heroine stumbles upon while interacting with a recalcitrant child to find patterns in massive amounts of data.

The storyline reminds me of many of the themes W. Gibson has explored in his more recent novels. Willis has written a light novel (bit of romance, bit of humor) built on examining scientific theory, just the way my science illiterate brain likes to learn it. And I may try a diagram-map-story myself sometime.

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Fiction as simulation


 OnFiction: Fourth Anniversary, and Experience-taking

A rose by any other name: bibliotherapy. . .

Lisa Rivero Is that all there is?


 What Does It All Mean? | Psychology Today

Rivero mainstreams bibliotherapy in a nutshell. Only complaint is, once again, references are to how this works to help children with no mention that same methodology applies to adults. Suggests adults have answers whereas existential questions tend to be lifelong explorations in multiplicity and evolving points of view. We can all benefit from "creative reading" regardless of age or level of maturity (since reading level seems to be more indicative of the latter than the former.)

One writer on bibliotherapy


 Lisa Rivero | Tag Archive | bibliotherapy