Bibliotherapy for Obsessive/Compulsive Readers

Tad Williams OTHERLAND

2012-02-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

KAABA !XABBU (Dream of a Black Stone)
devoid unchangeable yet simulated desire
warped and scrambled as an avatar (orator) to persona
anodyne filtering of the Other
complex disruption rationed claustrophobia
ritual journey framework
happy to drown but empty floats
callow yellow light infused water ecstatically
sleeping when nonexistence
goes going gone sluggish worshipers
microcosmic god a firefly's luring luminescence
an incomprehensible answer
god, not mystery, is dead.

The above is a bibliotherapeutic exercise, the words lifted from Williams' novel while reading, then combined in juxtaposition to create a kind of poem. My next step will be editing amalgamation for meaning. Or not, at any rate, the process has been started and I have creatively engaged with the text.

quotes from the the novel:

"...people believe things which can be measured are true things, and things which cannot be measured are untrue things. What I read of science makes it even more sad, for that is what people point to as a 'truth,' yet science itself seems to say that all we can hope to find are patterns in things. But if that is true, why is one way of explaining a pattern worse than others?"

"There was no discrimination between 'real' and 'unreal,' not at the most basic, instinctual levels of fear and desire and self-preservation."

Who is Ella Berthoud?

2012-02-15T16:41:00.001-08:00

http://m.thebrowser.com/interviews/ella-berthoud-on-love-literature?page=full

Some poetry books from the library

2012-02-12T13:51:00.000-08:00

from Writing Your Rhythm: Using Nature, Culture, Form and Myth by Diane Thiel
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote the following with each line depicting the meter it describes:
Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks, strong foot, yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable
Iambics march from short to long;
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.

had to return the book at page 180. Will recheck it later. Same with
The Everything Writing Poetry Book: a practical guide to style, structure, form, and expression by Tina D. Eliopulos & Todd Scott Moffett that had a nice list of schemes of repetition to look up later: anaphora, epistrophe, epanalepsis, anadiplosis, antimetabole, chiasmus, polyptoton

Louise Rosenblatt's Literature as Exploration from bibliography

2012-02-10T10:42:00.000-08:00

Clifford, John, ed. The Experience of Reading: Louise Rosenblatt and Reader-Response Theory, 1990.

Farrell, Edmund J., and James R. Squire, eds. Transactions with Literature, 1990.

Probst, Robert E. Response and Analysis, 1988.

Rosenblatt, Louise M. "The Transactional Theory of Reading and Writing." in Theoretical Models and Processes Of Reading, 1994.

Dewey, John. Art as Experience, 1934.

Dewey, John and Arthur E. Bentley. Knowing the the Known, 1949.

Polyani, Michael. Personal Knowledge, 1964.

Rosenblatt, Louise. L'idee de l'art pour l'art, 1931.

Goldschmidt, Walter. The Human Career: The Self in the Symbolic World, 1990.

Bruner, Jerome. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, 1986.

Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, 1983.

Bateson, Mary Catherine. "Composing a Life" in Atlantic Monthly, 1989.

Brooks, Cleanth and Robert Penn Warren. Understanding Poetry, 1939.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Poetical Works, 1912.

Dewey, John. Art as Experience, 1934.

Eiseley, Loren C. The Immense Journey, 1957.

Farrell, Edmund J. and James R. Squire. Transactions with Literature, 1990.

Horney, Karen. The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, 1937.

Huxley, Aldous. "Wordsworth in the Tropics" in Do What You Will, 1929.

Ogden, C.K. and I.A. Richards. The Meaning of Meaning, 1923.

Purves, Alan C. and Richard Beach. Literature and the Reader: Research in Response to Literature, Reading Interests, and the Teaching of Literature, 1972.

Rosenblatt, Louise M. "The Poem as Event" in College English, 1964.

Zaccario & Moses Bibliotherapy

2012-02-08T23:48:00.000-08:00

zaccario & moses bibliotherapy
Show Details
Gottschalk (9) for example notes the following objectives:
(a) it may help the patient understand better his own psychological and physical
reactions to frustration and conflict, (b) it may help to stimulate the
patient to talk about problems which he ordinarily finds difficult to discuss
freely because of fear, shame, or guilt, (c) if through the books chosen for
him, the patient discovers his own problems in the vicissitudes of others,
his feeling of being different from others may be dispelled. If he learns
that others have successfully attacked problems similar to his, his self-esteem
may be buoyed and his eagerness stimulated to seek an adjustment
that will lessen his conflicts, (d) it may help stimulate the patient to think
constructively between interviews and to analyze and synthesize further his
attitudes and behavior patterns . It may provide therapeutically planned
vicarious life experience to which the patient has previously adjusted only
with considerable conflict without exposing him to the real dangers of actual
experience, (e) it may reinforce, by precept and example, acceptable social
and cultural patterns and inhibit infantile patterns of behavior, (f) it may
stimulate the imagination, afford vicarious satisfaction or enlarge the
patient's sphere of interests.
Bryan (7) mentions the objective of showing the reader that he is not the
first to encounter the problem he is facing. In addition she cites the following
aims of bibliotherapy: (a) to permit the reader to see that more than one
solution to his problem is possible and that some choice may be made in the
way in which it is handled, (b) to help the reader see the basic motivations
of people involved in a particular situation, including his own, (c) to help
the reader see the values involved in experience in human rather than material
terms, (d) to provide facts needed for the solution of problems, (e)
to encourage the reader to face his situation realistically and to plan and
carry through a constructive course of action.
Twyeffort (27) regards the development of insight as the crucial factor
in successful therapy: (a) the individualized prescription of reading may
prove a valuable adjunct to treatment in helping the patient to achieve insight,
which involves an emotional as well as an intellectual appreciation of
the causes of illness and may often include a need for emotional growth away
from infantile reaction patterns, (b) it may assist toward a better understanding
of the manifold function of personality, especially the role of the
emotions, the nature of complexes, and their role in emotional conflicts,
(c) reading helps the patient to verbalize and externalize his problems, (d)
it may assist him in formulating the underlying difficulties if he has the opportunity
of viewing these same problems objectively as they occur in other
individual lives, (e) it may help to dispel in part his sense of isolation; a
measure of reassurance will come as the patient becomes desensitized to his
conviction of the uniqueness of his particular experience, (f) where the
source of emotional conflict lies not in character traits but in situational
factors, if the patient is confronted with a similar situation in his reading,
his reticence may be overcome, and objective discussion of his difficulty
facilitated, (g) when his difficulties spring from his personal liabilities,
considerable help may result from being able to see how other persons have
faced and tackled apparent failure with success, (h) planned reading may
assist in the determining and weighing of values, leading to a more satisfactory
orientation to life goals, (i) it may facilitate insight through frank stock-taking of personal assets and liabilities, (j) it maY stimulate the
patient to think between interviews and to digest and synthesize what he has
learned about himself, (k) it may result in creating 'movement' in a refractory
patient who is inclined to respond at a superficial level, (1) it may
stimulate new and creative interests or enlarge the sphere of existing or
latent interests.
Appel (2) ascribes to bibliotherapy the following uses: (a) to acquire
information and knowledge about the psychology and physiology of human
behavior, (b) to enable the individual to live up to the injunction of 'know
thyself, (c) to 'extravert' the patient and arouse interest in something outside
the self; (d) to arouse interest in and acquaintance with external reality,
(e) to effect a controlled release (abreaction) of unconscious processes,
(f) to offer opportunity for identification and compensation, (g) to help the
patient develop a clarification of his difficulties and insight into his condition,
(h) to utilize the experiences of others in effecting a cure. Reading
not only supplements the knowledge and experience of the therapist, but extends
the period of the therapeutic conference, when the patient cannot be
seeing the doctor, (i) to aid the patient to live more effectively.
Rosenblatt (20) analyzes the contributions of imaginative literature to
adjustment in terms of its social and personal values. Prolonged contact
with the personalities to be found in books leads to increased social sensitivity,
enabling the reader imaginatively to put himself into the place of
others; it may develop the habit of sensing the subtle interactions of temperament
upon temperament, so that the reader may come to understand
the needs and aspirations of others and thus make a more successful adjustment
in his daily relations with them. Literature enables one to feel intensely
the needs, sufferings, and aspirations of people whose personal interests
are distinct from his own, by nourishing the imaginative flexibility
essential to socialization.
Bibliotherapy can help the individual assimilate the culture pattern by
acquainting him with the superstructure of attitudes and expectancies which
he must erect on the basis of fundamental human impulses. At the same
time literature may release him from provincialism, by extending the
boundaries of his awareness beyond his own family, community, and national
background. From a personal point of view, literature enables one
to rehearse various possibilities of action in a given situation through an
imaginative trial and error process. In trying out various possible modes
of behavior and in envisioning the probable effects, the reader is afforded
an ideal opportunity for experiment. Through vicarious experience the
reader may be enabled to bring into consciousness various experiences, attitudes,
or impulses in his own nature or past emotional life, which, because
of feelings of guilt, he has submerged or censored. Thus he may be
released from unconscious fears and obsessions of guilt.
Moreover, one can talk of a book more readily than one can of his own
problems without the embarrassment of explicit self-revelation. A further
value lies in the means it provides for the sublimation through catharsis
of socially disapproved impulses, such as the desire for violence or
cruelty, the need to dominate others, the need for sex expression, or the wish to strike back. Literature can suggest socially approved channels of expression for such emotions and impulses; it may direct anti- social
fantasies into healthier channels. In short, literature may contribute to
one's understanding of his own emotional responses to a person or situation
by starting an inner readjustment which will modify his response to the
next person or situation encountered.
Rosenblatt further recognizes the preventive values of literature. It
may help to prevent the growth of neurotic tendencies through the vicarious
participation of the reader in other lives. The guilt-possessed or rebellious
adolescent may come to understand himself better and may learn to
perceive the value of his own temperamental bent even though it is not valued
in his own environment. Literature provides contrasts to the contemporary
American norm of the extroverted, go-getting, shrewd business man:
When the adolescent becomes aware of the fact that his present
experiences and anxieties are not unique and that others have
had the same impulses and conflicts, he may be better able to
handle them. Frequently literature is the only means by which
he can see he is 'normal' and allay guilt and fear thereby
(20:242-243).
Menninger summarizes the aim of the program in bibliotherapy at the
Menninger Clinic. Its purpose, beyond its recreational and social values,
is to encourage the individual to invest interest outside of himself and to
assist him in making contacts with external reality and gain insight into the
nature of his problems. Certain narcissistic gratifications may ensue from
the patient's reading: namely, escaping from his own conflict, making an
effort to maintain contact with reality, strengthening the ego, and desiring
to gain social approval through the therapist's interest and affection (17).
Russell submits six hypotheses about what reading may do for children
if certain conditions obtain: namely, that the children are able to read easily
and well; that a wide variety of suitable reading materials are available;
that a permissive reading environment exists; and that school and community
experiences reinforce the reading. Under these conditions reading may
increase understanding of the child's own behavior and that of others; it
may contribute to competence in activities with the accompanying positive
effects of such achievement; it may give a feeling of belonging to and understanding
one's own country; it can provide for fun and escape; and it may
contribute to ethical values.
Smith (23) affirms the power of literature to promote the development
of youth in the following ways: It can help young people to gauge themselves
accurately, to understand the motives of human conduct in general
and their own in particular, and to become aware of the many-sided influences
which play constantly upon them as they adjust to the world they
live in. It can contribute to their understanding of the widening and deepening
problems of life. It provides an inevitable substitute for direct experience
of the distant in time or place, or the inscrutable or obscure in
terms of our capacity to enter into it or understand. Finally, as a major
record of man's search for truth, it permits the reader to stand off on one
side to observe life. (pg10)
Reply to: Reply to Rory Loren
Send

Univ of Maryland Bibliotherapy Resource

2012-02-08T23:35:00.001-08:00

http://www.umaryland.edu/counseling/bibliotherapy.html

notes from The Reader, the Text, the Poem by Louise Rosenblatt

2012-02-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

p.132
Walter Pater's first step for the reader...primary goal when meeting the text is to have as full an aesthetic experience as possible, given own capacities and the sensibilities, preoccupations and memories brought to the transaction...the reader needs to slough off the old self-image as passively receiving the electric shocks of verbal stimuli. Then the quality of the work as experienced is seen as a function also of his close attention to the qualitative nuances produced by his own handling of his responses.
...the ephemeral personal evocation which is the literary work cannot be held static for later inspection. It cannot be shared directly with anyone else; it cannot be directly evaluated by others. Its ineffable and inward character undeniably present problems. Yes, in talking about the literary work we must have recourse to introspection and memory--anathema though they be to those who simplistically seek the objectivity...
p. 137
Whatever the reader may later add to that original creative activity is also rooted in his own responses during the reading event. His primary subject matter is the web of feelings, sensations, images, ideas that he weaves between himself and the text.
p.141
...the ordinary reader must refuse to abdicate his own role as a creator, or evoker, of a work from the text, per transactional reality: no one else, no matter how much more competent, more informed nearer to the ideal (whatever that might be), can read (perform) the poem or the story of the play for us.
p. 143
The reader needs to realize fully, to honor, what he is living through in his evocation of the work. This can spark a sense of engaging...in the same kind of creative enterprise as the expert, the critic. The emphasis should be on the creative transaction, a coming together of a human being (with all that implies of past experience and present preoccupations) and a text (with all that implies of potentialities for participation.)
p.145
The sense of personal identity comes largely from self-definition as against the "other," the external world of people and things. Literary texts provide us with a widely broadened "other" through which to define ourselves and our world. Reflection on our meshing with the text can foster the process of self-definition in a variety of ways... What within myself, the reader may ask, what temperamental leanings, what view of the world, what standards, made it less or more easy for me to animate the world symbolized by the text? What hitherto-untapped potentialities for feeling, thought, and perhaps action, have I discovered through this experience? the possibilities are infinite: the insights derived from contrasts with my own temperament and my own environment; the empathy with violence, the sadistic impulse, that may now be faced and perhaps controlled; the compassion for others formerly felt to be alien; the opportunity for trying out alternative modes of behavior in imagined situations...
p. 151
...psychological patterns or complexes of each reader may be revealed in characteristic responses while literary transactions free him to give utterance to underlying biases and obsessive attitudes. increasing self-understanding and consequent mis- or divergent interpretations may provide clues to the readers' preoccupations.
p. 153
In the last analysis, it is always individual readers evaluating their own personal transactions with the text; we must recognize the uniqueness that derives from the individual's particular selecting-out of elements from the cultural milieu, and the special value-demands due to the unique moment in the reader's life in which the literary transaction takes place. ...As with the evocatory and interpretive aspect of the reading process. reflection can lead to clarification and to confirmation or revision, of those primary evaluative responses.
p. 157
Literary transactions are woven into the fabric of individual lives. Personal meaningfulness should be recognized as at least one of the possible criteria to be applied by a reader assessing the reading event. of course, powerful personal reverberations and moments of intensity or illumination may be the result of the coming together of the reader and the text at an especially propitious moment. The reader, it can be said, provides at that point in his life or in that social situation, particularly receptive context, a kind of amplifier, for what he derives from the text. We should of course recognize the extent of the reader's projective contribution. Nevertheless, we should honor the intensity of fullness of consummation of the experience.
p. 173
By means of texts, the individual may share in the funded knowledge and wisdom of our culture. For the individual reader, each text is a new situation, a new challenge. The literary work of art is an important kind of transaction with the environment precisely because it permits self-aware acts of consciousness. The reader, bringing his own particular temperament and fund of past transactions to the text, lives through a process of handling new situations, new attitudes, new personalities, new conflicts in values. These he can reject, revise, or assimilate into the resources with which he engages his world.
...the essence of a work of art is precisely that a consciousness is a living through, a synthesizing evocation, from a text which involves many levels of the organism.
p. 174
With the aesthetic transaction as his fulcrum, the reader-critic can range as far as he wishes, bringing to bear ever wider and richer circles of literary, social, ethical, and philosophical contexts., achieving a certain objectivity through reflective self-awareness, through understanding that the work envisaged is a product of the reverberations between what he has brought to the text and what the text offers. He seeks to understand how his own sense of life, his own values, coincide with, or differ from , the world that he has participated in through the transaction with the text. ...The transactional concept can only reinforce interest in the dynamics of the relationship between the author, the text, the reader, and their cultural environments.
p. 175 Walt Whitman quote from "Democratic Vistas" in Prose Works 1892:
Books are to be call'd for, and supplied, on the assumption that the process of reading is not a half-sleep, but, in the highest sense, an exercise, a gymnast's struggle; that the reader is to do something for himself, must be on the alert, must himself or herself construct indeed the poem, argument, history, metaphysical essay--the text furnishing the hints, the clue, the start or frame-work. Not the book needs so much to be the complete thing, but the reader of the book does. That were to make a nation of supple and athletic minds, well-train'd, intuitive, used to depend on themselves, and not on a few coteries of writers.

Active Imagination aka "the golden thread"

2012-02-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.folkstory.com/articles/onceupon.html

Once Upon a Time
How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives

by Jonathan Young

Inside Journal magazine - Fall 1997
Rapunzel Singing in the Tower by Frank Cadogan Cowper

When the people of Hamelin refused to pay the Pied Piper what they had promised, he led the children of the village away with his magical music. This key moment in a familiar fairy tale carries many insights. It is, at once, a commentary on social values, a vivid example of family tragedy, and a bit of personal psychology. Folklore is compacted wisdom literature that yields more information with each reading.

There is much we can learn by reflecting on the stories heard in childhood. Magical characters such as the Pied Piper, the talking frog and the fairy godmother are likely to remain in the imagination for a lifetime. The adventures these stories describe often reflect challenges we face in our journeys. The tales hide a wealth of insights just below the surface. They are clearly more than mere entertainment for children.

My own first hearing of many of the old stories was in the places where they originated. Throughout my childhood, our family traveled abroad for several months every few years. There were six children. Keeping all the kids quiet took some imagination. My parents came up with an ingenious, and life-changing, idea, which was to have us study the local tales.

When we were in Denmark, we visited the home of Hans Christian Andersen, and discussed his stories, such as The Little Mermaid. In Germany, we went to the village of Hamelin, where the tale of the Pied Piper takes place. In each location, we would thoroughly examine a story and the sites associated with it. In Baghdad, it was the Arabian Nights. While visiting Greece and Egypt, we would discuss mythology. In the temples of India and Japan, the tales of Asia came to life. Seeing how the adventures reflected their settings and how the stories are still alive in those places was a powerful experience. It shaped my sense of the world.

Various people can imagine the tales quite differently. I had heard the stories before and had pictures in my mind about what the places looked like. When I saw, for example, the spot in Germany where the Pied Piper supposedly led the children away, it didn't look exactly the same as I had imagined. In a way, noticing that difference made me aware of how our creativity works. It was a glimpse into the power of imagination.

I later learned how these stories portray life issues in miniature. The story of the Pied Piper reminds us that every parent has to deal with letting go of their children and every former child has to cope with feelings about how it is to leave home. If we take the tale as a reflection of the inner landscape, we see that all the characters can represent aspects of our own personalities. The village leaders may symbolize a practical, thrifty side that does not sufficiently appreciate our magical qualities or artistic abilities. If we cheat the imagination of appropriate time and resources, things may go badly. Creativity and play engage the childlike energies that can leave us in a state of depression if they depart.

These tales are psychological mirrors and we become more complex as we mature. The storytellers intentionally loaded the adventures with heavy symbolism to reveal more meanings as we develop a deeper awareness of ourselves. Bedtime stories have enormous influence over our identities. People identify with certain characters in the stories they heard in childhood. To some degree, many live out these stories, largely unaware of how much the old tales may be shaping our lives.

It is a great treasure to know and reveal which tales from our childhood have a hold on us. Once the general pattern or storyline becomes evident, the challenge is to participate in the rewriting of our own story. We may not be able to create the rivers that carry us along but we can certainly navigate the little boats of our lives.

Mythic stories make up a kind of collective dream that we all have together. If we want to understand our dreams, in many respects, we can look at these stories and study them. If we want to understand the stories better, we can study our dreams. There is a great inter-relationship between these two forms of our imagination.

A talking animal in a story is often the voice of nature. Among other messages, we are being reminded that we are also animals. We are walking around in animal flesh. We sometimes forget this in our excessively mental, all too industrial culture. We are, first of all, animal creatures. We are not just visitors to nature, or merely caretakers of nature. We are nature. Guiding animals are crucial in mythic stories. Psychologically, this might well represent the wisdom of the body.

Sinister or wicked characters may represent aspects of ourselves that have been neglected or rejected. Carl Jung noted that the shadow energies in dreams and stories often appear as threatening witches or wolves. Jung insisted that something good can come from this darkness. Something valuable waits for us in the shadow. We are not to exclude that from how we define ourselves. Ultimately, inclusion is the goal. The challenge is to integrate these elements into identity in a constructive manner.

The darker elements in some tales often reveal shadow energies in an action, an image, or even a setting. The deep dark forest is a common representation of the feared elements within. The monsters live in the forest. The forest can reflect parts of ourselves that are never entirely tamed, that are always somewhat dangerous and chaotic. These elements sometimes come up in nightmares. They are important parts of ourselves. In some ways, they are the most creative aspects of our inner world. We need to go into the dark forest. It is difficult and mysterious. Still, fresh energies and new ideas come from that place.

Often we need the experiences in life that seem like setbacks and shadows. These can be difficult times. On the first reaction we wish we could avoid them. Ultimately, in hindsight, we realize those were enormously valuable moments. Such experiences force us to claim aspects of ourselves that we have neglected to develop. We become more than we thought was possible.

There is a tale about a farmer who plowing in his field. Suddenly, his plow catches on something. The farmer digs down to see what the plow has snagged on and he finds it has hooked a large ring. He digs farther, gets the plow unstuck, but sees that the ring emerges from a large flat stone. After more digging, the farmer lifts the ring and the stone. As the stone rises, it reveals the entrance to a deep underground cave filled with treasures.

The parable suggests that when something interrupts what we are trying to do, we should not be too sure this is a negative event. If we look into the impediment to our progress, we may open up hidden places in our souls and reveal secret riches. After discovering the buried treasure, we have the task of integrating these deep realms of beauty into our daily lives.

Learning to find the guidance in familiar adventures is not difficult but does take a little effort. The starting point is understanding symbolism. Certain significant images communicate helpful information. The key is knowing how to decode the messages. The farmer getting stuck shows how trouble can interrupt our journeys for good reasons that we may not immediately grasp. The tale is a visual experience. Any one of the symbols in a classic story is worthy of a close look. If we meditate on the flow of images, and reflect on the meanings it presents to us, the rewards can be great.

The ancient tales have their own lives, each with unique, eccentric qualities. Part of the richness is that the same story will have different lessons for each person who listens. Stories can be like the Holy Grail, which, when passed from person to person, let them drink what they alone desired. Also, when we come back to the same story after a time, it will tell us new things. Stories can speak to us in several ways at once. The practical aspects of our personalities appreciate the assistance they provide in prudent decision-making. Our playful child-like energies find the stories to be great fun. The quiet, spiritual side is grateful to have some time invested in reflection.

Poet William Stafford had a favorite image. He said that the work of creativity is to "follow the golden thread." Something catches your attention, a feeling, an image, an idea, the events of a moment. The challenge is to pay attention to that subtle urge and follow it gently. We must roll out the golden thread with care or it will break. Opening ourselves to greater significance in familiar stories requires a certain tenderness of spirit. The notions will be fragile at first. We must hold them gently for a time until they deliver their message to us. The effects of what we learn might well last for a lifetime.

Norman Holland's Thinking "in his own words"

2012-02-07T20:00:00.000-08:00

Norman N. Holland's Thinking
(Outline form)

You only know things through some human act of perception.

There is no "god's eye" view.
As a reader or critic, you only know "the text" through your own or someone else's act of construction.
You only know "the text" (or anything else) through your identity or personal style of perceiving, experiencing, etc.

You can read a person's style as an identity. Definition: a person's identity is--a person can be described as--an identity theme plus the history of variations acted out on that theme.

An identity theme is a phrasing of a distinctive style that permeates the person's actions and thoughts, a unifying theme in that human being.
Weak version: "one can read" someone that way.
Strong version: evidence from brain science says that early experience marks the brain, inscribing an identity of this kind on the brain. Hence we can count on consistency in the people around us.

One can, however, only infer an identity through one's own or someone else's act of construction. One can only know an identity through an identity. Identity, one's own or anyone else's, cannot be known absolutely.
A person--an identity--senses and acts on the world through processes of feedback.

A feedback consists of three elements: a standard or hypothesis that one applies; a physical or mental way of applying that hypothesis to a text (or the world) and sensing what happens; a comparator that compares what is fed back from a text (or the world) to the original hypothesis.
The familiar example: a thermostat. The setting for desired temperature is like a hypothesis: Is this room 68 degrees? The device compares the temperature its thermometer senses with the desired temperature. If they are not the same, the device acts on the furnace and tries the hypothesis again.
One can put feedbacks in a hierarchy. A "higher" feedback loop can act by providing the standard for a "lower" feedback loop. Thus, perception controls motor activity (a "lower" loop) that feeds back and so controls perception.
One can distinguish three levels of feedback, hierarchically arranged
The highest level, the standard or hypothesis that governs everything else, is a unique identity interpreted as a theme and variations. It sets standards for the lower-level feedbacks and emotionally reacts to feedback outcomes
that identity governs, at intermediate levels, loops internalized from one's culture:
canon-loops, rules chosen, about which different "interpretive communities" regularly differ (e.g., political and aesthetic values)
code-loops, rules dictated by culture, about which no member of the culture would disagree (e.g., a red light means stop, green means go)
a special intermediate type of these rules are the metaphors described by cultural linguists (e.g., understanding is seeing).
identity and culture govern physiological loops of perception and activity common to all humans.
Humans are always already linked to these loops. We are born cultural.
In a specifically literary or filmic context, one can distinguish four kinds of hypotheses--questions--we bring to a work (DEFT):
Expectation: what do I hope for from this work?
Defense: will this work cause me guilt, anxiety, or other unpleasure, or will I be able to manage it?
Fantasy: will I be able to get from it the kind of gratification I favor?
Transformation: can I achieve the kind of "making sense of it" that I favor?
Common misconceptions about this position.
The text has vanished? No. The text is very much there. It is what the reader is responding to.
The system is solipsistic? Not in the technical sense that the self is the only reality. There are all kinds of realities, but we only know them through a self.
The system makes everything subjective? The system rests on what seems to me a truism, that we only know things through some human act of knowing. Any person's act of knowing expresses an identity and will be in some respects different from any other person's act of knowing the same thing. All knowing is, in that sense, "subjective." But acts of knowing also share codes and canons that make them similar.
Any reading is as good as any other? No. One can make judgments of good and bad--indeed, one cannot avoid doing so. From this perspective, however, one should state the basis on which one is making them. Otherwise one asserts an absolute, and the conversation ends.
There is no point in teaching? No. A good teacher helps students discover the canons and codes by which we know things. A good teacher challenges, develops, and adds to those codes.

Access to works by Norman Holland

2012-02-07T19:33:00.000-08:00

Norman Holland is interested in literature and the brain.
http://www.normholland.com/

from The Delphi Seminar with Norman Holland & Murray Schwartz

2012-02-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

the work as a whole or parts of it (characters,
phrases, ideas) that particularly
interest you.
Whatever you write about, try to
avoid the intellectual, analytical response
of the ordinary English class. Try instead
for three things: feelings, associations,
persons.
Feelings should form the foundation of
your written response. Describe them as
best you can . . . as precisely and as fully.
Analogies will help you and lead you
toward associations, that is, ideas, memories,
or thoughts that come to mind as
you let the literary work 'float' in your
consciousness.

After five weeks of writing about
poems and stories, the group took a
crucial step in order to discover more
clearly the characteristics of our several
styles of response. We began writing
about ourselves. We treated our accumulated
responses as themselves texts to be
written about, partly in the same associative
way as poems and stories, but partly
in explicit analysis of the personal
style we thought an individual was bringing
to the literary experience.

Thinking as teachers, the two of us
believe a Delphi seminar would work
with any combination of students, graduates,
undergraduates, or even schoolchildren,
and in a variety of subject
matters-provided the group is willing to
chance the Delphi method. That is, if
both teachers and students will risk a
temporary abandonment of the shelter of
subject matter to explore the feelings of
self and others, they can come back to
subject matter in a more profound, more
vital, and more honest way. In life and
letters we use our selves as sensing instruments.
In a Delphi seminar, both teachers
and students accept and articulate that
truth as they respond to literature, persons,
or any other subject matter.

Academic full text resource for reader response theory from State University Libraries of Florida

2012-02-07T18:27:00.000-08:00

http://ufdc.ufl.edu/psa1/all?n=palmm

Norman Holland's Reader Response Criticism

2012-02-07T18:03:00.001-08:00

In 1968, Norman Holland drew on psychoanalytic psychology in The Dynamics of Literary Response to model the literary work. Each reader introjects a fantasy "in" the text, then modifies it by defense mechanisms into an interpretation. In 1973, however, having recorded responses from real readers, Holland found variations too great to fit this model in which responses are mostly alike but show minor individual variations.

Holland then developed a second model based on his case studies 5 Readers Reading. An individual has (in the brain) a core identity theme (behaviors then becoming understandable as a theme and variations as in music). This core gives that individual a certain style of being--and reading. Each reader uses the physical literary work plus invariable codes (such as the shapes of letters) plus variable canons (different "interpretive communities", for example) plus an individual style of reading to build a response both like and unlike other readers' responses. Holland worked with others at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Murray Schwartz, David Willbern, and Robert Rogers, to develop a particular teaching format, the "Delphi seminar," designed to get students to "know themselves".

Miall & Kuiken, Literary Response Questionnaire

2012-02-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.ualberta.ca/~dmiall/reading/LRQ_95.htm

A newly developed instrument, the Literary Response Questionnaire (LRQ), provides scales that measure seven different aspects of readers' orientation toward literary texts: Insight, Empathy, Imagery Vividness, Leisure Escape, Concern with Author, Story-Driven Reading, and Rejection of Literary Values. The present report presents evidence that each of these scales possesses satisfactory internal consistency, retest reliability, and factorial validity. Also, a series of five studies provided preliminary evidence that each scale may be located in a theoretically plausible network of relations with certain global personality traits (e.g., Absorption), with aspects of cognitive style (e.g., Regression in Service of the Ego), and with some of the learning skills that are relevant to effective work in the classroom (e.g., Elaborative Processing). In a variety of reaching and research settings, the LRQ may be a useful measure of individual differences in readers' orientation toward literary texts.

In the last two decades, reader response theorists have reconceptualized how readers engage literary texts, and such reconceptualizations have prompted teachers of literature to rethink classroom practices (Miall, 1993). However, persistent controversies have led at least one recent commentator to suggest that reader response theories have a past rather than a future (Freund, 1987, p. 10). What readers actually do, and what their activities imply about the status of literary texts remain very contentious topics. In fact, the principal theoretical statements in the area seem to suggest that readers of literary texts undertake only those activities that coincide with the tenets of the theorist's viewpoint. Thus, Iser's (1978) readers negotiate meaning in relation to the implied reader structured into the text; Fish's (1980) readers enact the modes of response authorized by their interpretive communities; Holland's (1968) readers search for identity themes in various narrative forms.

But studies in which readers think aloud as they read (Kintgen, 1983; Smith, 1991) have portrayed focal reader activities, such as the paraphrasing, thematizing, allegorizing, and problem-solving (Dias and Hayhoe, 1987) that do not neatly fit theoretical expectations. These studies suggest that readers are sufficiently self-aware to describe their own reading activities, perhaps not with critical or psychological precision (Hansson, 1990), but certainly with sufficient clarity to extend our understanding of their diverse approaches. If so, readers also may be sufficiently self-aware to provide valid descriptions of stable individual differences in reader response, that is, those differences among readers that persist despite variations in text (e.g., poetry versus prose) or circumstances (e.g., livingroom versus classroom). Although there is widespread appreciation of the importance of individual differences in reader response, there is currently available no sufficiently general and psychometrically satisfactory questionnaire for assessing such differences.

Therefore, it is appropriate to consider the range of beliefs, attitudes, and predilections that readers report and to develop a psychometrically sound means for assessing such variations. To this end, we have developed the Literary Response Questionnaire (LRQ). Its current version offers a set of low-inference scales that measure different aspects of readers' orientation toward literary texts. The purpose of the present report is to describe development of the LRQ, to review evidence of its reliability and validity, and to offer suggestions for its use in teaching or research settings.
Development of the Literary Response Questionnaire

Only a handful of questionnaires have been designed to examine approaches to reading literature, and several of these were intended for use with readers at the elementary or junior high school levels. In contrast, we developed the LRQ to assess variation among readers with a relatively well developed conception of literature. Among readers with at least an upper level high school background, would some of these readers typically prefer reading in order to escape awareness of their daily concerns (Nell, 1988)? Would some of them typically approach fiction in order to pursue the unfolding story-line (Hunt & Vipond, 1985)? Might some readers report that they read to gain insights into their own and others' feelings (Gold, 1990)? And would some indicate that they try to characterize the author's distinctive style and recurrent themes (Hirsch, 1967)? We thought it likely that readers would use a combination of such approaches, perhaps revealing themselves as readers through a distinctive profile of predispositions. Consequently the LRQ seeks to assess several significant aspects of readers' approaches to literary texts.

Our attempt to develop an instrument that would reflect different aspects of reader beliefs, attitudes, and predilections included attention to creating a tool that would not prejudge level of sophistication for the aspects identified. There may well be modes of literary response that are more "competent" than others (Culler, 1980), but current developments in literary theory encourage a cautious stance toward presuming the nature of a deep, a sensitive, or a competent reading. Contrasting approaches to reading, at least as measured by the LRQ, may have different but equally valued consequences (e.g., appreciation of the author's style, recognition of personal feelings), and our objective is to facilitate understanding of such variety rather than to identify what might constitute the most competent approach to literature. Thus, although the LRQ scales (and profiles ) eventually may be related to some standards of reading competence, we are not suggesting that as a primary objective.

Origins of LRQ Items

The LRQ went through several revisions. We wrote over 140 items, and we subjected these items to successive cycles of administration, evaluation, and revision. In preliminary versions the following aspects of reader activities were (at least temporarily) represented: empathizing with story characters; vividly imagining story settings, characters, or actions; perceiving correspondences with the reader's life-world; exploring the reader's personal identity; focusing on plot or story-line; attending to literary techniques (mainly diction); attempting to understand the author; perceiving cultural or social effects of literature; deriving ethical or moral viewpoints; reading for diversion or escape; making comparisons with other media; pursuing educational objectives; evaluating the "realism" of literature (or the lack thereof); creating a congenial reading environment. We identified this rather broad domain by consulting numerous studies of literary response. To the extent possible, we used the results of previous studies to frame specific items for the LRQ.

Previously developed questionnaires suggested several aspects of reader response. One frequently used instrument is Purves's Literary Transfer and Interest Measure (1973). Half of its 20 items assess Transfer (i.e., whether the reader relates literature to familiar life circumstances), and the other half assess Interest (i.e., whether the person reads frequently and is motivated to read by, for example, seeing a related movie). Purves reported correlations between Interest and reading for pleasure. Hynds (1985) found that for people high in Interest, complexity in judging people correlated with complexity in judging fictional characters. And, Miall (1987) found Transfer to be correlated with a separate measure of learning style: specifically, the self-reported tendency to elaboratively process study material (Schmeck, 1983). Due to these encouraging findings, we adapted some items from Purves' Transfer and Interest Measure when preparing items for the LRQ.

Another instrument developed by Purves (1973), the Response Preference Measure, consists of 20 items that -- demonstrated by Zaharias and Mertz (1983) -- assess 4 components of reader response: personal statements, descriptive response, interpretative response, and evaluative response. Using these scales, Zaharias (1986) observed differences in reader response across variations in text genre (fiction versus poetry) and tone (serious versus lighthearted). For example, readers were more likely to endorse personal statements about stories than about poems, and more likely to endorse descriptive responses to lighthearted literature than to serious literature. Although Zaharias's interest is in the influence of text variations on reader response, her results prompted the development of LRQ items that would assess analogous individual differences.

Questionnaires that are less familiar than those developed by Purves suggested additional LRQ items. For example, we adapted items from several short instruments devised by Tobin (1986) to assess whether students reacted to various literary techniques; whether they read for information, pleasure, or escape; and whether reading influenced their attitudes or behavior. Additionally, a number of items from a general reading questionnaire devised by Allerup (1985) suggested adaptability to reading literary texts as well (e.g., reading to avoid boredom, reading to improve reading skills). Saskia Tellegen has developed a range of questions in her work on reading with children, involving empathic reading, imaginal vividness, and reading for escape. Two items for the LRQ were suggested by her work (Tellegen & Coppejans, 1991). And we created items based upon responses to open-ended questions reported in several investigations, including: 1) Jacobsen's (1982) study of "literary space," asking about changes in sense of self during reading and feelings of creativity while reading; 2) Dickerson's (1988), study of personal reactions to literature, including questions about similarities between the reader and fictional characters and about recognizing one's own emotions in a text; and 3) Moffitt's (1987) study of readers of romance novels, with its questions about whether these readers' purpose in reading -- to escape their daily lives, to vicariously obtain cultural experiences -- might be relevant to the reading of traditional canonical texts.

Still other items were suggested by: 1) Koziol's (1982) questions concerning reading and culture, originally designed for teachers of literature; 2) Hunt and Vipond's (1985) description of story-driven approaches to literature; 3) the Denis (1982), the Sadoski, Goetz, and Kangiser (1988), and the Sadoski, Goetz, Clivarez, Lee, and Roberts (1990) studies of the role of imagery; 4) Miall's (1989; 1990) and Sadoski et al.'s (1988) studies of affective aspects of response; 5) Dias's work on readers' strategies (Dias & Hayhoe, 1987); and 6) Kuiken and his colleagues' phenomenological studies of responses to dreams and art (1989; 1993). Combined with the sources reviewed above, these ensured rather broad characterization of reader response in items devised for preliminary versions of the LRQ.

After four cycles of revision and assessment, the current version of the LRQ consists of 68 items, all positively worded. These items are rated for the extent to which "the statement is true of you" (1 = "not at all true" to 5 = "extremely true"). We used results from these items to determine the psychometric properties of the LRQ.

Subjects

The overall sample during development included 793 students at the University of Alberta who completed the current version of the LRQ. Administration at different times to rather differently constituted subsamples allowed replicated assessment of its psychometric properties. In one subsample, 407 Introductory Psychology students (239 women, mean age 20.3 years; 168 men, mean age 20.5 years) completed the LRQ during class time for course credit. In a second subsample, 275 Introductory Psychology students (171 women, mean age 22.3 years; 104 men, mean age 20.8 years) participated during class time for course credit. And 111 advanced undergraduate English students (59 women, mean age 27.8 years; 52 men, mean age 24.9 years) completed the LRQ while acting as paid participants in related experiments on reader response.

Basic Dimensions of the LRQ

To determine its dimensional structure, we analyzed responses to the LRQ using factor analysis. Factor analysis is a multivariate technique that minimizes the number of dimensions retained while simultaneously maximizing the informativeness of those dimensions. Factor analyses of the 68 items comprising the current version of the LRQ provided seven factors. (See Appendix 1 for a more detailed description of the factor analytic procedures used; Appendix 2 for the items that uniquely identify each factor, together with their primary factor loadings.) The meanings expressed by these seven factors can be summarized as follows:

1. Insight (14 items): This factor reflects an approach to reading in which the literary text guides recognition of previously unrecognized qualities, usually in the reader, but also in the reader's world. As indicated in Appendix 2, 9 items refer to shifts in self-understanding and 5 refer to changes in the reader's understanding of less personal matters.

2. Empathy (7 items): This factor indicates projective identification with fictional characters. Some items reflect the extended "presence" of these characters (e.g., in imagined dialogue), as though projective identification is regarded as a means to make the characters seem "real" to the reader.

3. Imagery Vividness (9 items): This factor expresses imaginary elaboration of a literary world that becomes vividly present not only visually, but also in feeling, sound, and smell.

4. Leisure Escape (11 items): This factor indicates an approach to reading that emphasizes reading for pleasure and as an enjoyable and absorbing departure from everyday responsibilities.

5. Concern with Author (10 items): This factor reflects interest in the author's distinctive perspective, themes, and style, as well as the author's biographical place in a literary or intellectual tradition.

6. Story-Driven Reading (8 items): This factor reflects an approach where the reader is focused on plot or story-line, with particular emphasis on interesting action and compelling conclusions.

7. Rejecting Literary Values (9 items): This factor represents the rejection of careful reading, of scholarly study, and of instructional presentation of literary texts. Reading literature is regarded as a compulsory and irrelevant task.

Table 1 summarizes evidence that 1) each of the 7 factors is replicable across subsamples; 2) there is close correspondence between each factor and a scale created by summing items that uniquely identifies that factor, and 3) each scale is internally consistent and possesses satisfactory test-retest reliability. (Appendix 1 describes the psychometric procedures used to substantiate these conclusions.)

Table 1. Psychometric properties of LRQ factors and scales
__________________________________________________________________

Factor Factor x Alpha Test/retest
Replication Scale R2 Coefficient Correlations
Correlations
__________________________________________________________________
Insight .979, .994 .89 .91 .75

Empathy .987, .990 .87 .85 .79

Imagery .989, .991 .86 .86 .78
Vividness

Leisure .996, .995 .92 .92 .90
Escape

Concern with .980, .992 .88 .86 .79
Author

Story-driven .990, .993 .95 .81 .65
Reading

Rejection of .995, .989 .90 .79 .75
Literary Values
___________________________________________________________________

Superordinate Dimensions

Because results of the factor analysis indicated significant correlations between some factors, we conducted a second order factor analysis (Principal Components, Varimax rotation), revealing 2 distinct superordinate factors. As indicated in Table 2, on one factor, there were high values for Insight, Empathy, Imagery Vividness, and Leisure Escape. On the second factor, high values appeared for Story-Driven Reading and Rejection of Literary Values. Concern with Author split between these two superordinate factors. Thus, there is evidence that one second order factor collectively captures the engaging (Leisure Escape), perceptually replete (Imagery Vividness), and self-implicating (Empathy) modifications of meaning (Insight) warranting the label Experiencing (cf., Dewey 1934). And, there is evidence that another second order factor collectively captures the search for compelling narrative coherence (Story-Driven Reading). and inattention to literary complexity (Rejection of Literary Values) warranting the label Literal Comprehension. But, it should be emphasized that the first order factors are sufficiently independent to require separate examination in studies of reader response.

Table 2. Second Order LRQ Factors and Factor Loadings (>.400)

_________________________________________________________________
Experiencing Literal Comprehension

Insight .745 --
Empathy .775 --
Imagery Vividness .869 --
Leisure Escape .677 --
Concern with Author .420 -.676
Story-Driven Reading -- .859
Rejection of Literary Values -- .706
__________________________________________________________________

Construct Validity of LRQ Scales

Observations bearing on the validity of the LRQ scales are available from a series of five studies undertaken simultaneously with development of the LRQ. Because of their interest, observations involving two early versions of the LRQ will be presented (Studies 1 and 2), but only for Insight and Leisure Escape, the two scales which remained essentially the same as their earlier counterparts in the final version of the LRQ. Likewise, the observations only obtain when comparable results occurred in both Studies 1 and 2. Primarily, observations based upon the final two (nearly identical) versions of the LRQ will be presented.
Method

The Studies

Study 1: We administered a 55-item version of the LRQ to 352 Introductory Psychology students. Of these participants, 153 also completed the Experience Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1978), a measure of openness to experience, and the Sensitivity Questionnaire, a measure of aesthetic sensitivity (Child, 1965). Also, 77 participants completed a questionnaire concerning personally significant dream experiences (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993).

Study 2: We administered a 62-item version of the LRQ to 315 Introductory Psychology students and 75 upper level English students. Of these Study 2 participants, 88 (Psychology students only) also completed the Experience Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1978) and the Sensitivity Questionnaire (Child, 1965), and 210 (Psychology students only) also completed the questionnaire concerning personally significant dream experiences (Kuiken & Sikora, 1993).

Study 3: Here, we administered. a 132-item version of the LRQ to 487 Introductory Psychology students and 61 upper level English students. (This version included 64 of the 68 items of the current LRQ, with minor working differences.) Of these participants, 470 also completed the Absorption Scale (Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974), a measure of openness to self-altering imaginal experiences, and 61 (all English students) completed the Inventory of Learning Processes (Schmeck, 1983), a measure of different learning styles.

Study 4: For this study, we administered a 96-item version of the LRQ to 407 Introductory Psychology Students. (This version included all 68 items of the current LRQ.) Of these participants, 260 also completed the Current Reading Questionnaire, a brief survey of non-curricular reading patterns developed by the authors; this questionnaire invited participants to rank order a range of leisure activities (such as seeing movies, participating in sports, and listening to popular music) and to indicate how often they read both literary and non-literary texts.

Study 5: Finally, we administered the same 96-item version of the LRQ to 275 Introductory Psychology students and 111 advanced undergraduate English students. Of these, 270 (Psychology students only) also completed the Absorption Scale, and 60 (English students only) also completed the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (Tellegen, 1982), a 300 item questionnaire that subsumes the Absorption Scale and 10 other factorially independent personality scales.
Results and Discussion

In the results reported below, * = p < .05, ** = p < .01, and *** = p < .001, all two-tailed.

Second Order Factors

Table 3. Construct Validation of LRQ scales
_______________________________________________________________________________

Absorption Elab Read English/Psych
St 3, St 4, St 5 Processes Novels Differences
_______________________________________________________________________________

Insight .44c, .49c, .33c .43c .30c 3.53/2.90c
Empathy .47c, .50c, .43c .39c .22c 2.68/2.16c
Imagery Vividness .52c, .54c, .43c .39c .32c 3.82/3.24c
Leisure Escape .37c, .30c, .15c .26c .58b 3.85/3.15c
Concern with Author .26c, .34c, .19c .40c .31c 2.81/2.12c
Story-driven Reading .05, -.05, -.07c -.17c -.20c 3.27/3.71c
Rejection of Literary Values -.09, -.20c,-.12c -.27c -.36c 1.63/2.25c
_______________________________________________________________________________

a = p < .05, b = p < .01, and c = p < .001, two-tailed

As indicated in Table 3, some variables from other scales correlated reliably with several LRQ scales in a pattern that lends credibility to the second order factors (Experiencing and Literal Comprehension) described above. First, in Studies 3, 4, and 5, the Absorption Scale consistently correlated with Insight, Empathy, and Imagery Vividness -- and more modestly with Leisure Escape and Concern with Author. Recall that these scales all had high results on the second order Experiencing factor. Because the Absorption Scale reflects readiness to be captured by imaginal events (e.g., "I can imagine things so vividly that they hold my attention as a good movie or story does") and readiness to modify them (e.g., "I can imagine that my body is so heavy that I could not move if I wanted to"), the LRQ scales on this superordinate factor may jointly reflect the absorbing elaboration of meanings that can occur while reading literary texts (e.g., recognizing previously overlooked feelings, empathically enlivening fictional characters, imaginally concretizing story scenes, comparing one of the author's themes with another).

This interpretation is substantiated by the observation that, in Study 3, each of the scales from the second order Experiencing factor positively correlated with the Elaborative Processing subscale of the Inventory of Learning Processes (e.g., "I learn new words or ideas by visualizing a situation in which they could occur"), a scale that Schmeck (1983) described as reflective of personalized elaboration of learning materials. Because these LRQ scales reflect such readiness to elaboratively respond to literary texts, it is not surprising that each of them predicted how frequently participants read novels (as reported on the Current Reading Questionnaire in Study 4) and that English students scored higher on each of these scales (Studies 3 and 5; see Table 3).

On the other hand, the two LRQ scales (Story-Driven Reading, Rejection of Literary Values) that distinguish the second order Literal Comprehension factor proved: 1) not reliably related (Story-Driven Reading) or inversely related (Rejection of Literary Values) to Absorption (Studies 3, 4, and 5); 2) inversely related to Elaborative Processing (Study 3); 3) inversely related to how frequently participants read novels (Study 4); and 4) more characteristic of Psychology students than English students (Studies 3 and 5; see Table 3). Besides confirming that the superordinate Literal Comprehension factor reflects low levels of interest in distinctly literary texts, this pattern also suggests that the modes of response expressed by the Story-Driven Reading and the Rejection of Literary Values scales lack the elaborative personalization associated with the Experiencing factor.

First Order Factors

Although validating evidence for the second order factors also contributes to the meaningfulness of the subordinate first order factors, the validity of the first order factors is more clearly indicated by correlations that are distinctive for each LRQ scale.

Insight. In Studies 1 and 2, the Insight scale (but not the Leisure Escape scale) reliably correlated with the Regression-in-the-Service-of-the-Ego subscale of the Sensitivity Questionnaire (e.g., "Unusual but unimportant aspects of a situation often intrigue me, occupying my attention and imagination"). For Study 1, the correlation is r = .30***; for Study 2, r = .30**. Following Kris, Child (1965) described this subscale as a measure of the ability to integrate regressive fantasy with mature thought. That such regressive/integrative thought is characteristic of insight-oriented reading is further suggested by the finding that the Insight scale (but again not Leisure Escape) correlated with a scale reflecting personal insights following dreaming (e.g., "After a dream I often feel sensitive to aspects of reality that I typically ignore"). Here, the correlations found are: Study 1, r = .36**; Study 2, r = .28***.

Moreover, since Child (1965) found the Regression-in-the-Service-of-the-Ego subscale predictive of esthetic judgment in visual art, it is consistent that the Insight scale correlated with the Esthetics subscale of the Experience Inventory (e.g., "I have had experiences that inspired me to write a poem or story"). For Study 1, the result is r = .26**; for Study 2, r = .34**.

In sum, the Insight scale may reflect a form of regressive/integrative thought during reading that subserves these readers' esthetic interests. Also, contrasting patterns of correlations substantiate the distinction between a form of absorbing reading that heightens awareness (Insight) and a form of absorbing reading that dulls awareness (Leisure Escape), a potentially important distinction anticipated by Nell (1988, p. 232) and (with some unnecessary psychoanalytic encumbrances) by Holland (1968, pp. 66, 92).

Empathy. In Study 5, Empathy correlated with the Stress scale of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (e.g., "I sometimes get myself into a state of tension and turmoil when I think of the day's events; r = .21*) and with the Alienation scale of that instrument (e.g., "Most people make friends because they expect friends to be useful;" r = .26*). Thus, there is some evidence that negative affect, either anxious distress or estrangement, may be associated with the impulse to project oneself into the feeling-rich aspects of literary texts.

Imagery Vividness. Also in Study 5, Imagery Vividness correlated (r = .32**) with a scale measuring response inconsistency due to socially desirable responding on the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). Although Imagery Vividness is the only LRQ scale to be correlated with any of the validity scales of the MPQ, this finding does indicate that, when reporting in a classroom setting, it may be socially desirable to report vivid imagery in response to literary texts.

Leisure Escape. In Studies 1 and 2, the Leisure Escape scale (but not the Insight scale) correlated with 1) the Feeling subscale of the Experience Inventory (e.g., "Feelings and emotions are important guides to conduct for me." For Study 1, r = .21*; for Study 2, r = .23*); 2) the Values subscale of the Experience Inventory (e.g., "The different ideas of right or wrong that people have in other societies may be right for them." Study 1, r = .28***; Study 2, r = .32**); and 3) the Tolerance for Complexity subscale of the Sensitivity Questionnaire (e.g., "Insofar as philosophy makes one doubt his basic beliefs, it should be encouraged;" for Study 1, r = .35***; for Study 2, r = .23*). On the one hand, these findings suggest that Leisure Escape is associated with openness, especially openness to complexity of feeling, but close examination of these items also suggests a somewhat assertive openness "ideology." This interpretation is supported by correlations between Leisure Escape and the Independence of Judgment subscale of the Sensitivity Questionnaire (Study 1: r = .36***; Study 2: r = .32**).

It may be noted that Leisure escape was the only LRQ scale to yield gender differences. In Study 5, women were significantly more likely to report Leisure Escape activities than were men (3.54 versus 3.11, p < .001).

Concern with Author. In general, the Concern with Author scale associated with interest in the fine arts beyond literature. On the Current Reading Questionnaire (Study 4), people who had scored high on Concern with Author reported that they more frequently read novels (r = .31**), read poetry (r = .27**), and listened to classical music (r = .22**). Also, of all the LRQ scales, Concern with Author correlated most highly with the Methodical Study subscale from the Inventory of Learning Processes (e.g., "I review course material periodically during the term." Study 3: r = .45**). Given these hints of disciplined attempts to understand the arts, it is noteworthy that people high on the Concern with Author scale also tended to be high on the Achievement scale from the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (e.g., "I often keep working on a problem even if I am very tired." Study 5: r = .19, p < .07).

Story-driven Reading. In Study 5, Story-Driven Reading correlated with the Tradition scale of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (e.g., "I very much dislike it when someone breaks accepted rules of good conduct"; r = .34***) and with the Social Potency scale of that same instrument (e.g., "When I work with others, I like to take charge"; r =.21*). Also, in Study 3, Story-Driven Reading inversely related to the Methodical Study scale of the Inventory of Learning Processes (e.g., "I maintain a regular schedule of study hours"; r = .31**). And, in Study 4, as indicated by the Current Reading Questionnaire, Story-Driven Reading associated with more frequent movie-going (r = .21**) and TV watching (r = .29**). Perhaps Story-Driven Reading is associated with a decisive (even anti-intellectual) commitment to traditional values-and particular attention to the moral implications of a story line.

Rejection of Literary Values. In Study 5, Rejection of Literary Values associated with low scores on the Achievement scale of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (r = -.23*) and high scores on the Aggression scale of that instrument (r = .26**). Also, in Study 3, Rejection of Literary Values was inversely related to the Methodical Study scale of the Inventory of Learning Processes (r = -.38**). And, as indicated by the Current Reading Questionnaire (Study 4), Rejection of Literary Values associated with frequent listening to popular music (Study 4: r = .19**), with frequent TV-watching (r = .22**), and with involvement in sports (r = .23**). Apparently Rejection of Literary Values involves aggressive resistance to careful reading of literary texts.

This interpretation is consistent with results from Studies 3 and 5 in which English students were asked to read a short story that had previously been examined for segments that were highly foregrounded and that, therefore, manifested stylistic variations at the phonetic, grammatical, and semantic levels (e.g., alliteration, ellipsis, metaphor). Rejection of Literary Values (but not Story-Driven Reading) inversely related (r = -.23**) to the tendency to spend more time on highly foregrounded passages (Miall & Kuiken, 1994). Thus, readers scoring high on this factor were relatively inattentive to the stylistic variations that are distinctly literary.
Discussion

Examination of their psychometric properties indicated that each of the LRQ scales proved to have very good internal consistency, retest reliability, and factorial validity. And, the sets of items comprising each scale are readily interpreted as a distinct aspect of readers' approach to literary texts. The series of studies described above affirmed the psychological meaningfulness of these scales by demonstrating that they may be located in a theoretically plausible network of relations with certain global personality traits (e.g., Absorption), with aspects of cognitive style (e.g., Regression in the Service of the Ego), and with some of the learning skills that are relevant to effective work in the classroom (e.g., Elaborative Processing). Because most of these measures have been independently validated by other investigators, the overall pattern of results provides promising evidence of the construct validity of the LRQ scales.

Although the LRQ is comprised of statements expressive of beliefs, attitudes, predilections, and behavior descriptions, there is no reason to take these statements simply at face value. These diverse statements do have face validity as measures of reader self-perceptions, and they do form several coherent and readily interpreted factors. But, in-depth understanding of these factors may prove complex. For example, self-reported preferences may not only reflect evaluations in actual reading situations; they may indirectly reflect the skills that enable reading in the preferred manner. And, self-reported behavior descriptions may likewise reflect not only what readers actually do while reading; they may indirectly reflect reader values or motives. Only future studies will clarify whether the LRQ simply predicts independent reader self-reports (e.g., what readers say in think-aloud studies), or whether it predicts methodologically diverse measures of reader skills and abilities (e.g., how readers perform in studies of reading comprehension).

Thus, although the LRQ was not devised as a test of literary competence, it is noteworthy that, compared with Psychology students, senior English students scored significantly higher on Insight, Empathy, Imagery Vividness, and Concern with Author, but lower on Story-Driven Reading. Assuming that advanced English students are relatively competent readers (both by virtue of self-selection and training), one interpretation is that this subset of LRQ scales indirectly reflects some of the skills by which readers make literary texts accessible, including the projective skills that enable empathic reading and the skills that make texts personally meaningful, including the elaborative skills that enable personal insights. While we have collected no independent evidence that would confirm a skill-based interpretation (e.g., performance on perspective-taking tasks), closer examination of the cognitive and affective capacities that are associated with LRQ scales is warranted.

On the other hand, some LRQ scales more plausibly reflect reader values (e.g., Rejection of Literary Values) and motives (e.g., Leisure Escape) than reader competence. Correlations between LRQ scales and certain personality dimensions (e.g., the Tradition and Achievement scales of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire) allude to socio-cultural constraints on the approaches to literary texts that are identified by the LRQ. Research relating developmental, educational, and social backgrounds to LRQ scales might give empirical credence to claims that the interpretive communities from which readers emerge constrain their approaches to reading.

Whether as skills or as values and motives, the LRQ scales suggest directions for the empirically grounded analysis of two global approaches to reading literature: Experiencing and Literal Comprehension. In the language provided by Cummins (1983), our analysis of the LRQ may be used to initiate a "functional decomposition" of these global approaches to reading. A functional decomposition begins by identifying components of a more inclusive mental construct and proceeds by determining how the functional relationships among those components contribute to the whole. Thus, functional decomposition of the Experiencing dimension might begin by acknowledging that the first order factors (e.g., Empathy, Imagery Vividness) are components of that more inclusive mental construct. As a next step, it may be useful to consider how those first order components jointly function to bring about Experiencing. For example, Imagery Vividness and Empathy may interact by providing concrete identification with literary characters; such concrete identification, in turn, may enable personal insight during reading. As another example, Empathy and Concern with Author may interact by accentuating the perspective of the author; such accentuation, in turn, may enable insights compatible with the author's perceived intentions. In brief, the functional decomposition of Experiencing and Literal Comprehension in terms of their respective first order factors suggests further directions for theory development and research.

One advantage of a decomposition based upon the LRQ is that relations between the superordinate factors and their first order components were determined using well-established psychometric procedures. The advantage of this method may be seen by comparing Experiencing and Literal Comprehension with Rosenblatt's (1978, 1986) conceptualization of Aesthetic and Efferent approaches to reading. Although Rosenblatt referred to reading events rather than individual differences, the LRQ Experiencing factor and her Aesthetic stance both involve empathic personal involvement, attention to vividly imagined narrative elements, and reflection on the life-world implications of the reading experience. And, the LRQ Literal Comprehension factor and her Efferent stance both involve focus on consensual text information such as literally paraphrasable meanings and directly designated narrative events. However, the Aesthetic and Efferent stances purportedly reflect opposite poles of a single continuum (cf. Many, 1991), whereas factor analysis of the LRQ indicated that Experiencing and Literal Comprehension are two factorially independent dimensions. Moreover, the Efferent stance purportedly involves consideration of an author's technique and socio-historical circumstances, whereas Concern with Author negatively related on the seemingly analogous Literal Comprehension factor. Such conceptual differences -- and their theoretical implications -- are difficult to resolve because, to date, the proposed components of the Aesthetic and Efferent stances have been articulated using quantitative procedures that provide "emergent" categories (cf. Hancock, 1993; Many, 1991) -- but not systematic psychometric information of the type reported here for the LRQ.

A second advantage to functional decomposition of the Experiencing and Literal Comprehension factors is that it may guide consideration of phenomena that occur at different levels of analysis. For example, a recent study by Many and Wiseman (1992) found that variations in teaching strategy did not reliably influence adoption of the Aesthetic stance in toto. Rather teaching strategy influenced adoption of particular components of that stance, for example imaging. By analogy, instructional encouragement of components of Experiencing such as Imagery Vividness may not facilitate the more complicated interactions among those components that identify Experiencing in toto. Investigators should be aware that sometimes the second order factors, and at other times the first order factors, of the LRQ may be implicated in the phenomena that they observe.

Finally, examination of discrete profiles of LRQ factors may facilitate examination of the needs of different types of readers. For example, Hunt and Vipond (1985) have suggested that it is possible to experimentally shift a reader from a story-driven to a point-driven approach to reading. But, are readers uniformly malleable? Perhaps Story-Driven Readers who also are capable of Vivid Imagery will be more readily influenced by such experimental manipulations than are readers who are Story Driven but lack the capacity for imaginatively concretizing textual meanings. Confirming this possibility would be one step toward clarification of instructional strategies that could effect long-term changes in approaches to reading.

There is, of course, no assurance that the LRQ will prove useful in research of the kind just suggested. Experience provides ample evidence that the utility of self-report measures cannot be taken for granted. Such measures have proven useful in some areas of research, but not in others, and they sometimes predict other self-report indices rather than the targeted behaviors. Moreover, they are subject to forms of bias, including socially desirable responding, that are difficult to control. Importantly, they do not necessarily capture the individual differences that truly matter in any particular area of study. Research beyond that reported here will be required to demonstrate that the LRQ will not fall victim to these limitations.

Alternatively, a prerequisite to the utility of any self-report instrument is the use of sound psychometric procedures during scale development. For example, the use of powerful multivariate techniques during revisions leading to the current form of the LRQ insures minimal inter-scale heterogeneity and inter-scale overlap. Similarly, our data indicate that the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of LRQ scales are more than adequate for research purposes. And our preliminary evidence indicates that (with the possible exception of Imagery Vividness) the promising construct validity of LRQ scales is not compromised by artifacts that commonly plague self-report measures, such as socially desirable responding. These aspects of scale development maximize the potential utility of the LRQ in a wide variety of relevant research paradigms, ranging from the observation of reading preferences and patterns in the classroom to the examination of reaction times and think-aloud protocols in laboratory studies of reader response. In the long term, knowledge of individual differences of the kind measured by the LRQ may enable teachers of literature to focus more productively on the needs of individual readers.

Authors' Notes: The central Research Fund of the University of Alberta and Program Grant No. 53-10018 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada supported the research reported in this paper.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Mathew Martin, Cam Balzer, and Mario Trono in the collection of data. We also thank Willie Van Peer for valuable comments on an earlier version of the LRQ and three anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of this paper. We also gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Saskia Tellegen, who kindly made her work available to us in translation.

Software for computer administration of the LRQ (in both DOS and Windows formats) is available from the authors. Please send $20 US or $25 Canadian (checks made payable to David S. Miall) to cover costs. [See LRQ page]

We would welcome information from other researchers who employ the LRQ in their research efforts.

References

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Child, I. (1965). Personality correlates of esthetic judgment in college students. Journal of Personality, 33, 476-511.

Costa, P T., & McCrae, R. R. (1978). Objective personality assessment. In M. Storandt, I. C. Siegler, & M. F Elias (Eds.), The clinical psychology of aging (pp. 119-143). New York: Plenum Press.

Culler, J. (1980). Prolegomena to a theory of reading. In S. R. Suleiman & 1. Crosman (Eds.), The reader in the text: Essays on audience and interpretation (pp. 46-66). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Cummins, R. (1983). The nature of psychological explanation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Denis, M. (1984). Imagery and prose: A critical review of research on adults and children. Text, 4, 381-401.

Dias, P, & Hayhoe, M. (1987). Developing response to poetry. Philadelphia, PA: Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Dickerson, M. J. (1988, May). A voice of one's own: Creating writing identities. Paper presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, St. Louis, MO.

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Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

Freund, E. (1987). The return of the reader. London: Methuen.

Gold, J. (1990). Read for your life: Literature as a life support system. Markham, Ontario, Canada: Fitzhenry & Whiteside.

Hancock, M. R. (1993). Exploring the meaning-making process through the content of literature response journals: A case study investigation. Research in the Teaching of English, 27, 335-368.

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Hunt, R. A., & Vipon, D. (1985). Crash-testing a transactional model of literary reading. Reader: Essays in Reader-Oriented Theory, 14, 23-39.

Hynds, S. (1985), Interpersonal cognitive complexity and the literary response processes of adolescent readers. Research in the Teaching of English, 19, 386-402.

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Jacobsen, M. (1982). Looking for literary space: The willing suspension of disbelief re-visited. Research in the Teaching of English, 16, 21-38.

Kintgen, E. (1983). The perception of poetry. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Koziol, S. (1982). Responding to literature. Communication skills. (PCRP Assessment Survey I). Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania State Department of Education.

Kuiken, D., Schopflocher, D., & Wild, T. C. (1989). Numerically aided methods in phenomenology: A demonstration. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 10, 373-392.

Kuiken, D., & Sikora, S. (1993). The impact of dreams on waking thoughts and feelings. In A. Moffit, R. Hoffman, & M. Kramer (Eds.), Functions of Dreams (pp. 419-476). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Many, J. E. (1991). The effects of stance and age level on children's literary responses. Journal of Reading Behavior, 23, 61-85.

Many, J. E., & Wiseman, D. L. (1992). The effect of teaching approach on third grade students' response to literature. Journal of Reading Behavior, 24, 265-287.

Miall, D. S. (1987). Learning in autonomous student groups: Learning skills as a predictor of satisfaction. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 13, 175-183.

Miall, D. S. (1989). Beyond the schema given: Affective comprehension of literary narratives. Cognition and Emotion, 3, 55-78.

Miall, D. S. (1990). Readers' responses to narrative: Evaluating, relating, anticipating. Poetics, 19, 323-339.

Miall, D. S. (1993). Constructing understanding: Emotion and literary response. In D. Bogdan & S. B. Straw (Ed.), Constructive reading: Teaching beyond communication (pp. 61-81). Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Miall, D. S., & Kuiken, D. (1994) Foregrounding, defamiliarization, and affect: Response to literary stories. Poetics, 22, 389-407.

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Appendix 1: Psychometric Properties

In the present study, a Principal Components factor analysis was followed by HYBALL (oblique) factor rotation (with SPIN) to identify optimal axis positions (Rozeboom, 1991x, 1991b). Analysis of the 68 items comprising the current version of the LRQ provided 7 factors accounting for 50.4% of the total variance in the overall sample. With the exception of one marginal case, an item was selected as expressive of a factor if 1) its loading on that factor after rotation was greater than.400; 2) all other loadings for that item were less than .400 and also less than 75% of the loading on the relevant factor; and 3) the preceding criteria were met not only in the analysis of the overall sample but also in factor analyses of each of the two subsamples. Items meeting these criteria are presented in Appendix 2, together with factor loadings derived from the overall sample.

Replicability of these 7 factors was assessed by examining correlations between the factor scores derived from factor analysis of the overall sample and the analogous factor scores derived from separate factor analyses of the two subsamples. These correlations (see Table 1) were very high for all factors, indicating close correspondence between the optimal estimate of these factor scores (the overall sample) and the factor scores derived from two somewhat divergent subsamples (Psychology students versus Psychology and English students).

Ratings for items selected as expressive of each factor (see above) were equally weighted and summed to create 7 LRQ scales. The squared correlations between these item composites and their respective factor scores (see Table 1) indicated that they captured from 83-93% of the variance in the target factors. These squared correlations were never more than .02 less than the squared multiple correlations between these items and the target factors scores. Thus, LRQ scales based on equally weighted sums reflect the original factors nearly as well as do optimally weighted sums.

As indicated in Table 1, all 7 scales show satisfactory to excellent internal consistencies, as indicated by alpha coefficients calculated on data from the overall sample. Furthermore, evidence of retest reliability was provided by 123 Introductory Psychology students who completed the LRQ a second time, ten weeks after initial administration. These reliability estimates generally substantiate the claim that the scales measure rather stable individual differences, although correlations do range from .65 for Story-Driven Reading to .90 for Leisure Escape.

Appendix 2: LRQ Items and Their Primary Factor Loadings

Insight

Reading literature makes me sensitive to aspects of my life that I usually ignore (786, personal).
In literature I sometimes recognize feelings that I have overlooked during my daily life (.775, personal).
I often find my shortcomings explored through characters in literary texts (.734, personal).
I find that literature helps me to understand the lives of people that differ from myself (.732, non-personal).
Reading literature often gives me insights into the nature of people and events in my world (.728, non-personal).
I often see similarities between events in literature and events in my own life (.723, personal).
I often find my own motives being explored through characters in literary texts (.715, personal).
I find that certain literary works help me to understand my more negative feelings (.711, personal).
Literature enables you to understand people that you'd probably disregard in normal life (.700, non-personal).
I sometimes find that reading a literary text makes me feel like changing the way I live (.625, personal).
In my reading, I learn to recognize more readily certain types of people or events, i.e., I can see these types more clearly after reading about a particular example in a literary text (.619, non-personal).
When I begin to understand a literary text, it's because I've been able to relate it to my own concerns about life (.602, personal).
Literature often gives special emphasis to those things that make a moral point (.513, non-personal).
Sometimes while reading literature my feelings draw me toward a distinctly unsettling view of life (.512, personal).

Empathy

Sometimes I feel like I've almost "become" a character I've read about in fiction (.856).
I sometimes have imaginary dialogues with people in fiction (786).
When I read fiction I often think about myself as one of the people in the story (.737).
I sometimes wonder whether I have really experienced something or whether I have read about it in a book (677).
1 actively try to project myself into the role of fictional characters, almost as if I were preparing to act in a play (.652).
Sometimes characters in novels almost become like real people in my life (.647).
After reading a novel or story that I enjoyed, I continue to wonder about the characters almost as though they were real people (.509).

Imagery Vividness

I often see the places in stories I read as clearly as if I were looking at a picture (.800).
I can readily visualize the persons and places described in a novel or short story (.723).
I sometimes think I could draw a map of the places I have read about in a work of fiction (.660).
Sometimes a scene from a story or poem is so clear that I know its smell, its touch, its "feel" (.638).
I often hear dialogue in a novel as though I were listening to an actual conversation (560).
When I read a literary text, a scene that is only partly described often becomes a whole, vividly present place in my mind (.545).
When reading a story, sometimes I can almost feel what it would be like to be there (.515).
I usually hear the tone of speech in a dialogue from a story or novel (498).
Often when I read literary texts, descriptions of smells suggest colors, descriptions of colors suggest feelings, and so on (.468).

Leisure Escape

Sometimes I like to curl up with a good book just to enjoy myself (840). When I have spare time my favorite activity is reading a novel (.817).
Very often I cannot put down a story until I have finished reading it (.796).
Reading literature is a pleasurable way to spend time when I have nothing else to do (.774).
Reading a story is a wonderful way to relax. (.763).
While reading I completely forget what time it is (.740).
I find that reading literature is a great help in taking my mind off my own problems (666).
I like to become so absorbed in the world of the literary text that I forget my everyday concerns (.608).
Once I've discovered one work by an author I like, I usually try to read all the other works by that author (.579).
I am often so involved in what I am reading that I am no longer aware of myself (.578).
I often wish I had more time for reading literature (.509).

Concern With Author

One of my primary interests in reading literature is to learn about the themes and concerns of a given author (.755).
In reading I like to focus on what is distinctive about the author's style (.742).
One of my primary interests in reading is to learn about the different genres of literature (.727).
I like to see how a particular author's work relates to other literature of the author's period (.726).
When reading I usually try to identify an author's distinctive themes (.701).
One of my primary interests in reading literature is to appreciate the author's understanding of society and culture (.686).
I think literature is especially interesting when it illuminates facts about the author's life (.610).
When I find a work of literature I like, I usually try to find out something about the author (.608).
The challenge of literature is to comprehend the author's unique view of life (.605).
I am often intrigued by an author's literary technique (.508).

Story-Driven Reading

I like to see tension building up in the plot of a story (659).
The type of literature I like best tells an interesting story (.635).
I think the most important part of fiction or drama is plot (.619).
When reading a novel, what I most want to know is how the story turns out (.609).
I like it best when a story has an unexpected ending (.600).
I prefer to read fiction in which there is plenty of action (.599).
When reading a novel my main interest is seeing what happens to the characters (.576).
1 find it difficult to read a novel in which nothing much seems to happen (.540).

Rejection of Literary Values

I think people should spend less time talking or writing about literature (.755).
Even if literature were well taught, I think high schools should not devote so much time to it (.738).
For me a work of literature is destroyed by trying to analyze it (.711).
One of the things I dislike most about being a student of literature is the teacher who tells you what a literary text means (.703).
Reading literary texts from past centuries should be left to literary scholars and historians (.623).
1 don't believe that literature is socially relevant (.616).
1 disliked English in high school because most of the texts I was asked to read I would not have chosen myself (.579).
Works of literature often seem to make the issues of life more complicated than they actually are (.491).
If I want to spend time reading, I don't choose "literary" texts (.392).

Missing Links excellent online reading list from 3AM magazine

2012-02-05T12:26:00.001-08:00

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-missing-links-231/

Easy access for obsessive/compulsive readers...

Very slick site for poetry therapy

2012-02-05T12:16:00.001-08:00

http://poeticmedicine.org/links.html#poetry_therapy

London's School of Life gets bibliotherapy review

2012-02-05T11:25:00.001-08:00

http://m.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/a-dose-of-prose-20120204-1qz3q.html

Chick Lit reading list... but how is it bibliotherapy?

2012-02-05T10:52:00.001-08:00

http://thebitterbabe.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/bibliotherapy/

Psychotherapist gives bibliotherapy cred

2012-02-03T11:46:00.001-08:00

http://www.caribarena.com/antigua/opinions/opinion-pieces/marcus-m-mottley-phd/99597-bibliotherapy-the-reading-cure.html

Self-help recovery titles

2012-02-03T11:44:00.001-08:00

http://janaburson.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/bibliotherapy-good-books-for-recovering-people/

Discovery readers advisory from Scottsdale Arizona

2012-01-28T11:11:00.001-08:00

http://gimme.scottsdalelibrary.org/
Simplistic but fun...

Goal of bibliotherapy (or my version "creative reading" is self-actualization

2012-01-24T23:07:00.001-08:00

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-actualization

Classic example of contemporary use of bibliotherapy with children

2012-01-24T22:58:00.001-08:00

http://www.emotional-intelligence-education.com/response-to-literature.html

Would be happy to review this book but am skeptical

2012-01-24T20:37:00.001-08:00

http://books.google.com/books/about/Bibliotherapy.html?id=4ahSXwAACAAJ

Anticipate this being yet another that discusses self help books

Not sure what graduate degree in community literacy means but OK

2012-01-24T20:33:00.001-08:00

http://thebibliotherapist.net/category/bibliotherapy-2/

May find something here of interest

Transactional Theory of Reading links

2012-01-22T11:32:00.001-08:00

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=474&bih=270&q=transactional+theory+of+reading&oq=transactional+th&aq=1&aqi=g5&aql=1&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=6802l11416l0l14973l19l9l0l0l0l1l576l2191l3-2.1.2l5l0

Louise Rosenblatt 2

2012-01-21T14:04:00.001-08:00

"Only if the reader turns his attention inward to his experience of 'the journey itself,' will a 'poem' happen. The reader of a text who evokes a literary work of art is, above all, a performer, in the same sense that pianist performs a sonata..." (p28)

From The Reader, the Text, the Poem

Louise Rosenblatt

2012-01-21T13:27:00.001-08:00

"The reader brings to the text his past experience and present personality. Under the magnetism of the ordered symbols of the text, he marshals his resources and crystallizes out from the stuff of memory, thought, and feeling a new part of the ongoing stream of his life experience, to be reflected on from any angle important to him as a human being?"

From The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978)

Enhanced ebooks coming soon

2012-01-20T14:06:00.001-08:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577169254175441764.html

Website with articles on writing therapy

2012-01-18T22:54:00.001-08:00

http://www.allthingshealing.com/healing-poetry-therapy.php

Dostoevsky's Last Night by Cristina Peri Rossi

2012-01-17T16:51:00.001-08:00

In light of my bibliotherapy research, I used a readers advisory database (see entry Find Books) to purview what came up on a search for addiction as a subject heading for fiction. Dostoevsky's Last Night was one of the titles that was recommended.

The addiction addressed in Rossi's novel is gambling. The gambler protagonist is in therapy, which suggested a good fit for my intended use. Did reading result in a self-awareness on gambling addiction? I can't really say, as this is not something from which I suffer. I think the premise is an application of bibliotherapy, in that having read Dostoevsky, the protagonist has been made aware and gained insight into his compulsions.

As a novel, I found the work readable but not compelling.

Multimedia poetry therapy

2012-01-16T12:19:00.001-08:00

http://www.mnartists.org/work.do?rid=305605

Bibliotherapy in Wales

2012-01-15T15:46:00.001-08:00

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0022-0418&volume=68&issue=2&articleid=17010315&show=abstract

From Diane Ackerman's ORIGAMI BRIDGES

2012-01-15T00:52:00.001-08:00

Memory's accomplice,

words carve only small shapes

in the formless clamor

of the world, yet they are shapes--

bright vessels I can arrange,

scrub, and refill.

Bibliotherapy, 1st attempt panned

2012-01-15T00:36:00.001-08:00

http://alexinleeds.com/2012/01/13/bibliotherapy-by-email-part-1-the-self-diagnosis/

What we have here is a failure to communicate...

I really need to get the book written that will describe my approach. No one else is using the term the same way that I do and expectations are obviously skewed accordingly.

My inspiration was Joseph Gold's READ for Your LIFE. It's out of print but you might be able to interlibrary loan it from your local library.

Haiku as treatment

2012-01-12T10:25:00.001-08:00

http://health.wikinut.com/Poetry-in-Therapy/2xl36r47/

Find Books

2012-01-10T17:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.allreaders.com/

http://www.overbooked.org/

http://www.readalike.org/ra/booklists.html

http://librarybooklists.org/fiction/adult/adultindex.htm

http://www.whichbook.net/default.aspx

More story structure including Derrida discourse

2012-01-10T13:16:00.001-08:00

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabula_and_sujet

Narrative structure

2012-01-10T13:13:00.001-08:00

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabula_and_sujet

Paradox of Fiction

2012-01-09T11:22:00.001-08:00

http://www.iep.utm.edu/fict-par/

Beautifulo example of true bibliotherapy

2012-01-07T20:35:00.001-08:00

http://wvartist.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/millrat-therapy/

Dublin reads wellness

2012-01-05T12:18:00.001-08:00

http://www.library.ie/2012/01/04/bibliotherapy-feature-in-irish-times/

SciFi Lovers, Women Writers

2012-01-04T18:48:00.001-08:00

Women of Wonder: The Classic Years 1940's thru 1970's'

Edited by Pamela Sargent, published in 1995

List of representatives as follows:

1944 C.L. Moore

1948 Judith Merril

1950 Katherine MacLean

1951 Leigh Brackett

1954 Margaret St. Clair

1956 Zenna Henderson

1956 Marion Zimmer Bradley

1961 Anne McCaffrey

1966 Sonya Dorman Hess

1966 Kit Reed

1967 Pamela Zoline

1971 Josephine Saxton

1972 Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

1972 Joanna Russ

1972 Kate Wilhelm

1973 Vonda N. McIntyre

1973 James Tiptree, Jr.

1974 Eleanor Arnason

1974 Ursula K. Le Guin

1977 Lisa Tuttle

1978 Joan D. Vinge

Self help nonfiction mainstream bibliotherapy

2012-01-03T09:41:00.001-08:00

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2012/0103/1224309726517.html

If they took this a step further and recommended fiction titles to read in conjunction with the self help books, a more comprehensive approach would result. The idea with bibliotherapy is to process on an emotional level, not just take in information. The most advantageous scenario would involve informational and emotional reading followed by group or one on one discussion about the characters' journey or struggle in relation to the reader's own. Expressive arts therapy in the form of poetry, music or other creative outlet as a way to help the reader access feelings that may not be rational but are integrated strongly in the psychological complex causing the feelings of distress is the true bibliotherapeutic experience and necessary in order to fully integrate change.

Propp design your own Fairie Tale

2011-12-31T15:22:00.001-08:00

http://www.brown.edu/Courses/FR0133/Fairytale_Generator/gen.html

Short version how-to

2011-12-26T17:27:00.001-08:00

http://www.behavioradvisor.com/Biblio.html

Writing prompt

2011-12-23T09:46:00.001-08:00

Wherever I was was inferior to where i might be. (From Marge Piercy poem "Down the road, down the road")

The Book Club Game

2011-12-21T03:41:00.001-08:00

http://www.readingsolutions.net/bibliotherapy/

Maybe...someone is trying to bring the idea to a mass market.

But still, focus on kids reading. Would have to see game to make fair assessment.

Litreactor meta writing

2011-12-21T01:16:00.001-08:00

http://litreactor.com/columns/thats-so-meta-writing-a-story-about-writing-a-story

Writing therapy giving feedback

2011-12-21T01:13:00.001-08:00

http://beyondthemargins.com/2011/12/on-reading-one-another/#more-16326

London Observer "I crave story" is ReadersAnonymous

2011-12-20T12:39:00.001-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2011/nov/27/school-of-life-bibliotherapy-books?newsfeed=true

Quill & Quire on bibliotherapy at School of Life

2011-12-20T12:34:00.001-08:00

http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2011/12/06/bibliotherapy-targets-the-bookish-but-bewildered/

Self help books as bibliotherapy

2011-12-20T12:20:00.001-08:00

http://www.hypnothoughts.com/forum/topics/bibliotherapy-as-an-aid-to-your-hypnosis-practice

SF Center for Cognitive Therapy endorses bibliotherapy

2011-12-20T12:18:00.001-08:00

http://www.sfbacct.com/other-disorders/71-is-bibliotherapy-helpful.html

Bibliotherapy slideshow

2011-12-20T12:11:00.001-08:00

http://www.slideserve.com/Leo/bibliotherapy

Most beautiful words list

2011-12-18T20:34:00.003-08:00

http://deshoda.com/words/100-most-beautiful-words-in-the-english-language/

1001 Books for Every Mood

2011-12-18T20:34:00.001-08:00

On request from MCLibrary

Reading as Therapy

2011-12-18T20:29:00.001-08:00

On request from MCLibrary

Perfect words for poems

2011-12-16T08:17:00.001-08:00

http://deshoda.com/words/100-most-beautiful-words-in-the-english-language/

Emily Dickinson # 613 & 593

2011-12-05T22:13:00.001-08:00

They shut me up in Prose--

As when a Little Girl

They put me in the Closet

Because the liked me "still"--

Still! Could themself have peeped--

And seen my Brain--go round--

They might as wise have lodged a Bird

For Treason--in the Pound--

Himself has but to will

And easy as a Star

Look down upon Captivity--

And laugh--No more have I--

I think I was enchanted

When first a sombre Girl--

I read that Foreign Lady--

The Dark--felt beautiful--

And whether it was noon at night--

Or only Heaven--at Noon--

For very Lunacy of Night

I had not power to tell--

...

I could not have defined the change--

Conversion of the mind

Like Sanctifying in the Soul--

Is witnessed--not explained--

'Twas a Divine Insanity--

The Danger to be Sane

Should I again experience--

'Tis Antidote to turn--

To Tomes of solid witchcraft--

Magicians be asleep--

But magic--hath an element

Like Diety--to keep--

Poem from Marge Piercy's AVAILABLE LIGHT edited

2011-11-25T12:35:00.001-08:00

For Mourning

I wear grey for mourning , never black.

I mourn in grey,

the sleeted Wind,

The color of Ash.

Death comes in as Fog.

Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith

2011-11-24T12:43:00.001-08:00

I'm new to poetry. Even with a MA in English Lit, I've somehow managed to more or less avoid poetry. Sure, I've read representative classics from the major literary traditions (in English, not much attention paid to poets who write in anything other than our mother tongue in academia unless you can read and translate from the original.) But contemporary poetry has been as foreign to me as Portuguese.

There were haikus; there were musings with rhythms suggesting lyrics for songs I did not know how to play or sing, but no poems. Poems were precious things for writers of purple prose with inflated egos, all that white spacing wasted on the page, just spit it out.

Then I started a certificate program in poetry, because that's the way bibliotherapy is legitimized these days. I wrote some poems, and felt better, more whole, more myself than after 100 hours of Jungian psychoanalysis.

And I started reading poetry. Reading in fits, armloads from the library, pulling anything that might look interesting off the shelves until the weight was maximum capacity for seeing my way down the stairs.

And I found BLOOD DAZZLER, poems by Patricia Smith, about Hurricane Katrina. And I don't have words to tell you. Just as we were struck dumb by the travesty, by both man & nature, unable to watch TV coverage without thinking, no this can't be, we woke to find the nightmare played out over weeks and we had to turn it off to get back to our own jobs, our own realities. Because what was happening down there wasn't real, it couldn't be, we couldn't be that inadequate in saving our own; we couldn't be that vulnerable here in the blah blah of blah.

Patricia Smith doesn't get political. Doesn't point fingers, lays no blame, though how can we not? Surely accountability is at hand? Mother Nature can't take all the blame.

Instead, BLOOD DAZZLER is reported. Journalism, a reporter's personal POV and interpretation of events not covered by the media. Quotes from correspondence between officials and counterpoints of the Bushs' day-to-day while the greatest crime of the century was being perpetrated provides insight covertly. We don't have to cry, we don't have to suffer humiliation, we don't have to care. But we do, because Patricia Smith has made the unimaginable accessible? In her poems, we can let our selves feel, just a little, of the horror and recognize, just a little, of the despair. Because frail humans we be, and a little is all our hearts can hold. Our minds take it all in but there's only a little our hearts can hold, providing a little help as part of the larger container needed to hold all the sadness of those who lived to survive a loss that overflows those old worn out levies still.

1044 page blockbuster

2011-11-01T11:25:00.001-07:00

Neal Stephenson's REAMDE has been occupying most of the past weekend. Fortunately, I was sick in bed and could do little but read which got me through the first 500 pages. In true Stephenson fashion the plot's intensity started early and kept climbing. A bit shoot'em up for my tastes through much of the middle, but that's what sells these days.

On page 791, with major players finally face to face. I'm wondering if it's going to get predictable at this point. I miss the old cyberpunk where new worlds were opened. Cyberthrillers are less interesting and definitely less inspiring.

The stuff about gaming is new for me since I don't play. And, since I rely on fiction for most of my news on politics, the terrorist theme seems timely. Sort of feels like that bit could have been written by any number of bestseller list authors. Reader expectations are hard to satisfy. But, I had hoped for more than a thriller. Still, Stephenson is an excellent craftsman and I intend to sail through the last few hunfred pages.

Grapes

2011-10-24T01:10:00.001-07:00

Ready Player One finished

2011-10-20T13:42:00.001-07:00

Entertaining. Not very enlightening or particularly thought provoking. Kept waiting but never happened. Basically it's a YA novel dressed up for grownups. Cyberpunk has not found its renaissance in this writer. Sounds like Warner optioned it so maybe the movie will be better.

Cyberpunk History

2011-10-10T21:34:00.001-07:00

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cyberpunk

Beta SF Encyclopedia has great list of themes. Here's the lowdown on cyberpunk.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

2011-10-09T22:22:00.001-07:00

The importance of being ernest editorials will probably flow from in regards to the latest cyberpunk novelist to make the grade. Only 34 pages in and I am well-pleased.

Writing as bibliotherapy

2011-10-07T09:36:00.001-07:00

The thing is, writing isn't about the product. As with most of living a meaningful life, it's all about process. Whether reading a book or writing a poem, what is of real interest is what's going on in an individual's consciousness. What do we learn about ourselves during the process?

Speculativism

2011-10-06T23:53:00.001-07:00

http://m.last.fm/music/Speculativism/An+Alternative+Steam+Age?fallback=1

Andre Breton

2011-10-06T22:52:00.001-07:00

http://memorious.org/?id=228

Anais Nin "The Writer and the Symbols"

2011-10-03T16:32:00.001-07:00

Quote: "The creation of a story is a quest for meaning."

In one line, Nin has written the reason for my life. Melodramatic? Maybe, but I don't think Nin would think so.

Continuing to quote: "The meaning is what illuminates the facts, coordinates them, incarnates them."

Anais Nin "On Writing"

2011-10-03T16:21:00.001-07:00

Quote: By following rigorously and exclusively the patterns made by the emotions I found that in the human unconscious itself there is an indigenous structure, and if we are able to detect and grasp it we have the plot, the form, and style of the novel of the future."

Nin's novel of the future

2011-10-03T15:25:00.001-07:00

Quote Anais Nin from essay Realism and Reality: "...the unconscious creates the most consistent patterns and plots of all."

Dorothy Allison on Dialogue

2011-10-03T14:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/podcasts

Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt

2011-10-03T13:04:00.001-07:00

Not the kind of book I normally read. Lame duck betrayed goes back to philandering husband in anticlimatic end. And yet, there is something here. Stories of women and girls within the context of the novel tell a bigger story, one of cruelty and catharsis.

Oh, and one quote: "Only the aged have access to life's brevity."

A list of "mad" poets: Torquato Tasso, John Clare, Christopher Smart, Friedrich Holderlin, Antonin Artaud,

Paul Celan, Randall Jarrell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Ezra Pound, Robert Fergusson, Velimir KhlebnikovL Georg Trakl, Gustaf Froding, Hugh MacDiarmid, Gerard de Nerval, Edgar Allan Poe, Burns Singer, Anne Sexton, Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, Laura Riding, Sara Teasdale, Vachel Lindsay, John Berryman, James SchuylerL Sylvia Plath, Delmore Schwartz

And last but not least, a bit of bibliotherapeutic support: "A book is a collaboration between the one who reads and what is read and, at its best, that coming together is a love story like any other."

Writers tips

2011-10-02T06:55:00.001-07:00

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2010/03/re-write-wednesday-oh-thats-subtle.html

Eventually, reading for therapy will require writing. It's part of the individuation aspect of the reading process. May as well make it good.

Pirating Personal Publishing

2011-09-26T12:40:00.001-07:00

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/books/paul-coelho-discusses-aleph-his-new-novel.xml

I will read him if only for his personal philosophy on publishing. Article says he posts links to sites for his books on twitter. Good place to start.

The Mind on Literature

2011-09-25T23:01:00.001-07:00

http://quarterlyconversation.com/a-man-taking-pictures-of-a-man-taking-pictures-b-s-johnson

The Bard by emotional subject matter as theme

2011-09-25T21:17:00.001-07:00

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/quotes/index.html

Free online writers workshop

2011-09-25T06:00:00.001-07:00

http://www.bibliophilia.org/

Ngrams Bibliotherapy

2011-09-24T13:34:00.001-07:00

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=bibliotherapy&year_start=1910&year_end=2010&corpus=0&smoothing=3

Height of published interest in the 1980's. Click on date range at bottom for link to listing of books.

In the Between

2011-09-21T10:37:00.001-07:00

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/buddhism04.html

London School of Life

2011-09-18T09:47:00.001-07:00

http://m.economictimes.com/PDAET/articleshow/msid-10013767,curpg-2.cms

from Carl Jung's THE SPIRIT IN MAN, ART, AND LITERATURE "Psychology and Literature"

2011-09-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

p.85
The psychologist should constantly bear in mind that his hypothesis is no more at first than the expression of his own subjective premise and can therefore never lay immediate claim to general validity.
The phenomenology of the psyche is so colourful, so variegated in form and meaning, that we cannot possibly reflect all its riches in one mirror.
p.87...the psychologist must content himself with widely ranging descriptions of psychic processes, and with portraying as vividly as he can the warp and woof of the mind in all its amazing intricacy.
p.88
...the more unconscious the author is of (psychological assumptions), the more (psychological intentions) background reveals itself in unalloyed purity.
p.94
a true symbol is an expression for something real but unknown.
...our intuitions point to things that are unknown and hidden, that by their very nature are secret.
p.95
...the psyche is a door that opens upon the human world from a world beyond, allowing unknown and mysterious powers to act upon man and carry him on the wings of the night to a more personal destiny.
...the poet now and then catches sight of the figures that people the night-world...p.96 he catches a glimpse of the psychic world that terrifies the primitive and is at the same time his greatest hope.
p.101
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him.
p.105
Participation mystique is the secret of artistic creation.
To grasp the meaning of a work of art, we must allow the work to shape us as it shaped the artist.

from Gaston Bachelard's THE POETICS OF SPACE Introduction

2011-09-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

"The poet, in the novelty of his images, is always the origin of language. To specify exactly what a phenomenology of the image can be, to specify that the image comes before thought, we should have to say that poetry, rather than being a phenomenology of the mind, is a phenomenology of the soul. We should then have to collect documentation on the subject of the dreaming consciousness...
before the interior poetic light was turned upon it, it was a mere object for the mind. But the soul comes and inaugurates the form, dwells in it, takes pleasure in it...can therefore be taken as a clear maxim of a phenomenology of the soul."

"...the poetic image is essentially variational, and not, as in the case of the concept, constitutive.

Good argument for poetry therapy:
"A consciousness associated with the soul is more relaxed, less intentionalized than a consciousness associated with the phenomena of the mind. Forces are manifested in poems that do not pass through the circuits of knowledge."

This is why the self-help book type of reading is not to be confused with bibliotherapy. And though the argument here is strongly poetry based, I propose it is comparable to reading fiction when the criteria of a relaxed mind, an open and aware consciousness, rather than the critical mind, is active. This can also be understood by reading Jungian works on "active imagination" (See Marie-Louise Von Franz.)

Georges Poulet's PHENOMENOLOGY OF READING

2011-09-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

" A book is not shut in by its contours, is not walled up as in a fortress. It asks nothing better than to exist outside itself, or to let you exist in it it."

"the book is no longer a material reality.... It has become a series of words, of images, of ideas which in their turn begin to exist. And where is this new existence? Surely not in the paper object. Nor, surely, in external space. There is only one place left for this new existence: my innermost self...dependent on my consciousness."

"Language surrounds me with its unreality."

paraphrasing:
I have thoughts which are part of a book I am reading, the thoughts of another.
"I am thinking the thoughts of another...
But I think (it) as my very own...
My consciousness behaves as though it were the consciousness of another."

The work lives its own life within me; in a certain sense, it thinks itself, and it even gives itself a meaning within me."

In this essay, Poulet argues that we cannot know the author by the work, but I disagree. We can know the author's mind at the moment in time when the work was being created and as such know as much about the author as the author is likely to know about herself. Do we know the author's biography? Of course not, but we know the author's mind, as fleetingly as thought based language will allow.

Check out Mallerme's opion in "THE BOOK: A Spiritual Instrument"

Activate Reading

2011-09-01T19:59:00.001-07:00

http://davidbarneswork.posterous.com/what-ed-emberleys-make-a-world-can-teach-ever

Zero Summer

2011-08-23T01:42:00.001-07:00

Still reading Caitlin Kiernan. Did I mention she's singlehandedly turned me into a short story reader.

Quote from above mentioned:

There should be a word for losing something that was never yours to begin with.

Hugos 2011

2011-08-23T01:15:00.001-07:00

http://www.thehugoawards.org/2011/08/2011-hugo-award-winners/

School of Life Bibliotherapy Going Strong

2011-08-21T12:26:00.001-07:00

http://bedsidetablebooks.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/heavenly-reading-retreats/

Wish something like this would fly in the States. Unfortunately, not enough of the literate have discretionary income.

Still I'm slowly building momentum to offer something similar in Portland for free. If I can work anywhere, it's Portal Land.

C Kiernan Live Journaling

2011-08-14T21:43:00.001-07:00

http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/#asset-greygirlbeast-784869

So...you aren't in control even when you're your own boss.

Maybe it's a matter of degree.

Promo Espresso Book Machine

2011-08-14T14:23:00.001-07:00

Here's a cool YouTube video

Cory on copyright

2011-08-11T10:30:00.001-07:00

http://m.boingboing.net/2011/08/11/my-siggraph-keynote.html

Publisher Writers Reader Relationship

2011-08-09T12:38:00.001-07:00

http://redlemona.de/user/register

Study on reading curative support for depression

2011-08-07T15:08:00.001-07:00

http://thereader.org.uk/get-into-reading/research/

Reading as revolutionary social act

2011-08-07T15:02:00.001-07:00

http://thereader.org.uk/about-us/

Blog query for bibliotherapy

2011-08-07T14:43:00.001-07:00

http://emeire.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/literary-blog-hop-bibliotherapy/

Brilliant! More librarians exploring bibliotherapy

2011-08-07T14:31:00.001-07:00

http://indextrious.blogspot.com/2011/08/blog-hop-bibliotherapy.html

Caitlin R. Kiernan

2011-08-05T22:41:00.001-07:00

http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/

I never knew horror could be so beautiful.

P175 from To Charles Fort, with Love

The mind exists only in a moment, always, a single flickering moment, remembered or actual, dreaming or awake or something between the two, the precious, treacherous illusion of Present floundering in the crack between Past and Future.

Art Journal Workshop by Traci Bunkers

2011-08-04T16:09:00.001-07:00

With DVD. How fun. Traci shows how fun art can be if you just Go For It. She's obviously not overthinking. It's clearly about the process. What is she thinking while she's playing with color, balance and form. It's not about a "marketable" finished product. It's about the experience. I love the new book arts movement. Books as a personal art form have entered the mainstream.

Bunkers' visual journaling is an excellent call to arms for silencing the inner critic so we can hear the soft whisper of our own creativity so often drowned out by commercial media.

Let the play begin. Even grownups need to color, cut & paste. I've been doing altered books and collage for about 12 years and am only recently beginning to understand the therapeutic benefits of art as a way to self awareness.

Good introduction to the world of art therapy.