Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Bibliotherapy's memorable dates

from Jeffrey Kottler's list of memorable dates:
1802 Benjamin Rush, the "father of psychiatry," recommended reading as treatment for mentally ill
1846 Minson Galt developed guidelines for using books with mentally ill
1904 first professional librarian appointed to a mental hospital
1916 Samuel Crothers coined "bibliotherapy"
1923 Sadie Peterson-Delaney established bibliotherapy program in Tuskegee VA hospital
1925 Josephine Jackson published The Therapeutic Value of Books
1937 Elizabeth Pomery completed first systematic research study on bibliotherapy
1941 Bibliotherapy appears in Medical Dictionary
1945 Clara Kircher developed children's literature bibliography for bibliotherapeutic use
1961 Bibliotherapy appears in Webster's Dictionary
1962 First symposium on bibliotherapy
1970 Bibliotherapy Round Table founded