Joseph Gold THE STORY SPECIES quotes
Note: Minor editorial changes have been made to the original text to make the quotes here more readable. If a significant amount has been changed it will be noted as paraphrased. Preface xxiii We are rapidly reaching a time in human history when reading Literature as an antidote to depersonalization could become a subversive activity. xxiv If we do not read, we do the work for them. xxvi Human beings are supposed to use Literature to assist them to create a personal identity and to help them manage this identity's encounter with the world. Literature...a systematic feedback loop, continuously self-generating and cumulatively growing. p. 4 What is story? What role does Literature play in human evolution and in individual lives? What role do the transferred words play in the biological and social life of readers? How is the product of reading stored in the body of the reader? Why is it that if a painting is burned it is gone forever, but a poem... can be memorized intact, unaltered and transmittable as long as a human brain retains it? What has taken place in the event that you take a novel off a shelf, read it, and return it? What "being" does the book (or rather its words) have, there on the shelf while not being read? Where does the power of a book lie? How is the process of transference achieved when it is being read? Why is some particular arrangement of words more effective to a particular reader than other arrangements? p. 5 Oddly enough, linguists, neurolinguists and psycholinguists have virtually ignored Literature in their researches into language. ...The answers to the sample questions I have posed above will only be found in a multi-disciplinary effort. p. 7 We need to recognize and accept that language is a biological code that achieves molecular change in brain tissue; that organization of this code into stories is created by selection, transfer and association of data through immensely complex brain processes; that this happens both internally i one brain and in transfers from one brain to another; and that we need to consciously work for the expansion of this code in the service of our own selves. Works of Literature are coded models of experiential patterns in the brains of writers. They are specialized forms of neural potentials and never achieve physical mass, weight, dimension, colour or texture as do other works of art. Such words, of course, are used to describe literary works, but these words can mislead. A book is not the words, the marks on the pages, and he marks on the pages are not "things" either, but symbols of sounds. The sounds behind the words are, in turn, a code for sensory registers of data, data being the brain's responses to neural signals of incoming "out there" information. It is easy to be deceived by the "thingness" of a book, but "the map is not the territory." We will have to realize that qualities attributed to Literature, but borrowed from objects, are metaphors describing the mind of the reader decoding the text. p. 8-9 ...the human organism is a collection of information made flesh, organized and energized into cellular activity, and continuallly modified by more and more information. The individual arrangement of this information is called identity. Identity is never complete because it is a process of response to, and accommodation of, new information which cannot stop until sensory activity itself stops at death. We must learn to remind ourselves continually that language is at its root metaphoric. ...Terms like "identity" and "information" are themselves metaphors for our awareness of internal change, our sense of being someone and knowing something. When we learn or know something new we have a mental and body sense of owning, internalizing that "something." We call this neural registration "information." p. 13 Referencing Gregory Bateson: A story is a little knot or complex of that species of connectedness which we call relevance. p. 18 The collection of kits we acquire through life experience, including the experience of our reading, becomes the "i" we carry around with us and into which we try to fit all new experience. It is this model version of ourselves made up of stored, coded experiences that seems to take on a powerful life of its own, our life story. This is our identity, and on the basis of this identity all our thought and behaviour take place. All its parts must be connected, and this drive to connect the parts forces us to work continuously to organize and reorganize the parts into a whole, a whole that is ever changing. In fact, the principal activity of human minds, moment to moment, is the fine tuning, the adjusting of this narrative. p. 19 Referencing Terrence Deacon: At the level of what an individual knows, a language is very much like one's own personal symbiotic organism. ...this narrative "organism" is a second self that w create, layered over the first. ...in the freedom to create this second self, this "i," lies the key to our well-being. It is this freedom that is the source of all effective therapy. Threats to our identity are the source of what we call noxious stress, experiences we live through that are difficult to incorporate into our "I." p. 40 It is well-known in clinical therapy that if patients can be persuaded to write about their negative emotions, thoughts and experiences, they feel better and become healthier. ...Why is this? ...the writing step increases the sense of having externalized, put aside, filed away the negative emotional material carried in the body. Expression in writing is purgative. ...writing creates distance between first-hand experience and memory. The negative experience and its consequences are not forgotten, it is distanced and "objectified." It can now be viewed by neocortical processing, managed and integrated as part of a "filed" narrative. ...Putting the language of thought and feeling "out there" also involved a generalized sense of dissociation. ...useful for dysfunctional mental states... p. 61-62 Reading Literature constitutes a very efficient behaviour for acquiring experience. ...reading story as experience is to realize experience imaginatively, in a pre-formed, pre-managed package.Literature is peculiarly suited for integration into the "I" formation by virtue of its story format...In the encounter betwen the self and the world, the "i" is created out of necessity, out of the need to adapt, to be effective. Success for human identity is really success at adaptation. ...reading story is the most powerful method for assisting change. p. 63 Referencing Oliver Sacks: We have, each of us, a life-story, an inner narrative whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives. It might be said that each of us constructs and lives a "narrative," and that this narrative is us, our identities. If we wish to know about a man, we ask "what is his story--his real, inmost story?"--for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us--through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically we are not so different from each other; historically, as anarratives--we are each of us unique. p. 64 The "I" is our living, breathing, ever changing autobiography, the story of our lives. What we need to learn is that we can actively participate in the construction of this narrative of who we are. In composing this story each of us is inescapably an author and each creates the one living "book" that is our guide to everything. This guide gets "written" by taking in information assimilated by all our senses and converting it into a complex language code by our brains. This code is sequenced into stories of incidents, experiences, and responses involving both emotion and rational thought. Feeling and thought are in turn woven into a larger running narrative that creates identity, a composite account of the thoughts and feelings that become a filter through which we see all new experience. We come to rely on the stability of this filter. We count on the fact that we will wake up each morning with this narrative intact. p. 70 ...a well-integrated identity must take account of and accommodate its emotional experience. Literature, born from the process of integrating thought and emotion, can be important to readers who can use it to assist their own such integration. p. 71 The construction of an adaptive, functional identity ought to be much more prominent in psychotherapy than it is. The therapist would then function as an editor to the writing of the patient's story. p. 81 Emotion is intimately involved in storing memories. Emotion makes events important and ensures that what is remembered best is stored along with its emotional associations. Stimuli, perhaps from reading, may evoke emotions related to past events. ...The stories that were important to us have (lost text...will have to reinput aghhh!)
Outline for Creative Reading
Shakespeare quotes - Much Ado About Nothing & Twelth Night
"There was a star danced, and under that was I born." - William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 2.1 Twelth Night "If music be the food of love, play on." "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them". - Act II, Scene V "Better a witty fool that a foolish wit" “In nature there's no blemish but the mind; None can be called deformed but the unkind: Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil Are empty trunks, o'erflourished by the devil.” ― Shakespeare, Twelth Night "Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better" Act III, Scene IShakespeare quote - As You Like It
"Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.1 "And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale." - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7 "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard; Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7 "Can one desire too much of a good thing?" - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 4.1 "Your 'if' is the only peacemaker; much virtue in 'if'." - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 5.4 "Hope is a waking dream." - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, EpilogueShakespeare quotes - Hamlet
"All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.2 "Give thy thoughts no tongue." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.3 "Brevity is the soul of wit." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 2.2 "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 2.2 "What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!" - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 2.2 "To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come," - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3.1 "O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!" - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3. 1 "Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3.2 "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3.3 "Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil, is angel yet in this." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3.4 "A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 4.3 "Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew and dog will have his day." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet 5.1 "There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet 5.2 "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet 5.2 "The rest is silence." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet 5.2The Reader, the Text, the Poem by Louise Rosenblatt
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.
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.
Louise Rosenblatt
"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)
"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
Reading and Meaning neuroscience explains
"My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the
written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, above all, to
make you see."
-Joseph Conrad
At this very moment, as your eyes are scanning across the words in front of you, you're performing a feat of mental gymnastics that no other species on earth can approach.
Mere milliseconds after the photons leaping from the screen hit your retinas, you not only recognize the words and letters, but you extract meaning from them. Before a second has passed, you've assembled an idea of what the sentence as a whole means, and as a result, you can make inferences that are unstated; you can prepare an appropriate response; and you can even predict what word is going to come potato.
I mean, "next." How you do this -- how you make meaning out of photons or sound waves -- is one of the great, persistent mysteries of the human mind. And until recently, we had no idea how our brains make meaning. And worse, we didn't even know how to figure it out. But that's all changing.
Part of the solution has been fundamental changes in the instruments we have available to look at the brain. Over the last 15 years, it has become possible, using functional MRI, to measure the dynamics of the waking brain, and that includes what happens while people are reading, like you are now.
We can also now finely measure reaction times, eye and hand movements, and brain waves. And in the past decade, cognitive scientists like me have started to use these tools to inspect exactly what's going on while people read stories, listen to instructions, and recite poems. What we've found is as unexpected as it is revealing.
The traditional view is that our capacity for language is housed in certain centers in the brain -- specialized regions like "Broca's area" and "Wernicke's area" that are purportedly in charge of grammar or meaning, respectively. But the new science tells us that mind makes meaning using a much broader swath of the brain -- including parts that are typically used for seeing and for moving.
For instance, if you read that For her new movie, Jennifer Aniston is wearing braces, neurons start firing in the part of your brain that recognizes faces. If I tell you that For the role, she's learning to ride a giant tricycle, the parts of your brain that control leg actions light up -- the same brain regions that actually send signals to your leg muscles to make them contract.
In other words, you're using the parts of your brain that allow you to perceive the world and move around in it to simulate what it would be like to experience the things that language describes. Even though Jennifer Aniston isn't actually in front of you, you see her in your mind's eye. And even though there's no tricycle to mount, you virtually simulate moving your body to control it. In short, you make meaning by simulating what it would be like to be there.
This finding might seem obvious to some people... of course you see the things you read about in your mind's eye. After all, that's precisely what good fiction does -- it transports you into the body of another person, to another time or place. But because we're now able to measure this transportation in the lab, we can answer fundamental questions about how it works, and what it tells us about how we as humans are able, uniquely in the universe, to understand language.
And this is where it starts to get interesting. From new research, we now know that most of the simulations people construct while understanding language go completely undetected -- they're there even when people aren't aware of them.
For example, you might not think that you activate the mouth-controlling parts of your motor cortex when you read The dog is feasting on that juicy morsel. But you do. And you do the same thing when you read The blogosphere is chewing on that juicy morsel. Surprisingly, even metaphorical language like this leads people to simulate seeing things or performing actions.
What's more, we now know that these simulations differ from person to person. Some people are innately more visual -- they can visualize a baboon's face or the Big Dipper with relative ease. Others, like me, are more verbal, and couldn't even tell you what color their dining room walls are. (Maybe they're taupe? Hold on, what is taupe?)
These differences between people are reflected in everything from how they do on different parts of IQ tests to what sorts of professions they end up in. And they also show up in language. When more visual people read about Jennifer Aniston and her giant tricycle, they're more likely to see that scene in their mind's eye, and a less visual person, like me, is more likely to feel how it would be as a full-grown adult to push on the pedals.
These discoveries about how meaning works tell us something profound about what it is to be uniquely human, and how we got to be this way. Evolution, as it turns out, is a persistent tinkerer. Our capacity for language isn't a completely new mental organ cut from whole cloth. Instead, language is bootstrapped, using simulation, off of evolutionarily older systems dedicated to perception and action.
As the cognitive scientist Elizabeth Bates was fond of saying, language is a new machine built from old parts. That's a fact worth remembering when basking in the glow of our linguistic excellence.
Benjamin K. Bergen is the author of Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning (Basic Books, 2012).
-Joseph Conrad
At this very moment, as your eyes are scanning across the words in front of you, you're performing a feat of mental gymnastics that no other species on earth can approach.
Mere milliseconds after the photons leaping from the screen hit your retinas, you not only recognize the words and letters, but you extract meaning from them. Before a second has passed, you've assembled an idea of what the sentence as a whole means, and as a result, you can make inferences that are unstated; you can prepare an appropriate response; and you can even predict what word is going to come potato.
I mean, "next." How you do this -- how you make meaning out of photons or sound waves -- is one of the great, persistent mysteries of the human mind. And until recently, we had no idea how our brains make meaning. And worse, we didn't even know how to figure it out. But that's all changing.
Part of the solution has been fundamental changes in the instruments we have available to look at the brain. Over the last 15 years, it has become possible, using functional MRI, to measure the dynamics of the waking brain, and that includes what happens while people are reading, like you are now.
We can also now finely measure reaction times, eye and hand movements, and brain waves. And in the past decade, cognitive scientists like me have started to use these tools to inspect exactly what's going on while people read stories, listen to instructions, and recite poems. What we've found is as unexpected as it is revealing.
The traditional view is that our capacity for language is housed in certain centers in the brain -- specialized regions like "Broca's area" and "Wernicke's area" that are purportedly in charge of grammar or meaning, respectively. But the new science tells us that mind makes meaning using a much broader swath of the brain -- including parts that are typically used for seeing and for moving.
For instance, if you read that For her new movie, Jennifer Aniston is wearing braces, neurons start firing in the part of your brain that recognizes faces. If I tell you that For the role, she's learning to ride a giant tricycle, the parts of your brain that control leg actions light up -- the same brain regions that actually send signals to your leg muscles to make them contract.
In other words, you're using the parts of your brain that allow you to perceive the world and move around in it to simulate what it would be like to experience the things that language describes. Even though Jennifer Aniston isn't actually in front of you, you see her in your mind's eye. And even though there's no tricycle to mount, you virtually simulate moving your body to control it. In short, you make meaning by simulating what it would be like to be there.
This finding might seem obvious to some people... of course you see the things you read about in your mind's eye. After all, that's precisely what good fiction does -- it transports you into the body of another person, to another time or place. But because we're now able to measure this transportation in the lab, we can answer fundamental questions about how it works, and what it tells us about how we as humans are able, uniquely in the universe, to understand language.
And this is where it starts to get interesting. From new research, we now know that most of the simulations people construct while understanding language go completely undetected -- they're there even when people aren't aware of them.
For example, you might not think that you activate the mouth-controlling parts of your motor cortex when you read The dog is feasting on that juicy morsel. But you do. And you do the same thing when you read The blogosphere is chewing on that juicy morsel. Surprisingly, even metaphorical language like this leads people to simulate seeing things or performing actions.
What's more, we now know that these simulations differ from person to person. Some people are innately more visual -- they can visualize a baboon's face or the Big Dipper with relative ease. Others, like me, are more verbal, and couldn't even tell you what color their dining room walls are. (Maybe they're taupe? Hold on, what is taupe?)
These differences between people are reflected in everything from how they do on different parts of IQ tests to what sorts of professions they end up in. And they also show up in language. When more visual people read about Jennifer Aniston and her giant tricycle, they're more likely to see that scene in their mind's eye, and a less visual person, like me, is more likely to feel how it would be as a full-grown adult to push on the pedals.
These discoveries about how meaning works tell us something profound about what it is to be uniquely human, and how we got to be this way. Evolution, as it turns out, is a persistent tinkerer. Our capacity for language isn't a completely new mental organ cut from whole cloth. Instead, language is bootstrapped, using simulation, off of evolutionarily older systems dedicated to perception and action.
As the cognitive scientist Elizabeth Bates was fond of saying, language is a new machine built from old parts. That's a fact worth remembering when basking in the glow of our linguistic excellence.
Benjamin K. Bergen is the author of Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning (Basic Books, 2012).
Some time ago...resulting in my personal Reader's Block
Feeling deeply is dangerous even when those feelings are transmuted through an artistic medium. So therapeutically accessing feelings requires filters, thus art's structural confines and the importance of taking the time to develop skill sets related to the chosen medium.
Reading what someone else has written is a filtering by the author.i.e., the work has been done for the reader. It is only by fleshing out the work in relation to personal references that there is access and process occurring in any meaningful way for the reader. The mist meaningful being to in turn become an author and make yet more meaning
Until my pain or pleasure or peace is looking back at me, I am not fully conscious of its worth and able to integrate the feeling in a healthy way, whether reexperiencing or learning to move on.
Dreaming and Reading
From 24hr day theory, could also apply to how we process what we read.
excellent YALSA bibliotherapy article
Glasgow dissertation on bibliotherapy
Life-Affirming Reads
September 21, 2012 | by Sadie Stein
Dear Paris Review,
I am currently suffering from a major depression, which has caused me to lose my job and my relationship. I see a therapist and a psychiatrist, and I believe and hope I’m beginning to recover. I have been a major reader all my life, but the depression has made it difficult for me to concentrate, so I haven’t been able to read much lately. I’ve been reading bits and pieces of books I’ve read before many times (Darkness Visible, Diving Into the Wreck), trying to get something from them.
I suppose I’m looking for two different types of book as I recover: books that will show me why to live and how, and books that will allow me to escape my present torture. Both need to be pretty easy to follow—for instance, I recently bought The Myth of Sisyphus after reading William Styron’s reference too it, but it’s too difficult for my slow brain right now.
Thank you.
Dear friend,
I’ve been where you are and know exactly the state you describe: one of the many distressing aspects of depression is the inability to lose yourself—and for those of us who have always found comfort in books, this is particularly scary. It goes without saying that everyone’s recovery process is different, and without a sense of your exact tastes—although it is clear you are an ambitious and curious reader with wide-ranging interests—it is a little tricky to suggest comfort reads. (After all, that is so bound up with one’s history and associations, no?) But I can tell you what has worked for me, and for some people I know, and hope that the suggestions, and the knowledge that you are in good company, will prove helpful.
My first suggestion might seem counterintuitive, and maybe cheesy, but I can only say that it helped me a lot: reading about depression. I do not mean fiction that deals with depressive episodes—at its best, it’s hideously evocative, at worst it risks romanticizing the subject, and neither is remotely helpful—but, rather, things like You Are Not Alone (whose title alone I found very comforting) and, especially, Kay Redfield Jamison’s memoir, An Unquiet Mind. Your exact experience may not correspond to Dr. Jamison’s—she suffers from bipolar disorder—but I found her struggles and her hard-won successes tremendously inspiring and deeply comforting. It is crucial to be with others who understand, and that applies, I think, to books, too. I happened to hear Dr. Jamison speak once, and she said something that really stuck with me: We don’t tend to hear about, or see, the success stories when it comes to mental-health struggles. Because of the stigma attached, the many, many people who manage to live happy, productive lives are not our poster children. Rather, it is so often the untreated whom we identify with these disorders. You may feel isolated, but you are not alone, and an articulate, compelling reminder of that fact was, to me, a real lifeline.
But that doesn’t really address your questions. As to escape, I think your impulse toward the familiar is a wholesome one. Have you tried going really far back—to childhood? When all else fails, this can work, not least because they tend to be designed for those with short attention spans. And it can be a real pleasure to rediscover John Bellairs, Roald Dahl, or, in my case, Betsy-Tacy. Small increments are also good: have you read The Pillow Book, by Sei Shōnagon? Short stories are an obvious solution, but proceed with caution when selecting. Essays can be easier; Clive James’s brief profiles in Cultural Amnesia are digestible but stimulating, while Davy Rothbart’s recent collection, My Heart Is an Idiot, is heartwarming and sweetly funny (as opposed to ha-ha funny, which is probably not what you are in the mood for). To each his own, of course, but I also find cookbooks and food essays (particularly Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking (and any early Elizabeth David) useful. They can also help stimulate a flagging appetite. There is a reason soldiers in the trenches of World War I turned to Jane Austen; order is supremely comforting! As far as escapism goes, I would say, don’t be self-critical. If it brings you pleasure and takes you out of yourself, that’s all that matters. I have one friend who enjoys escaping into Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances, while another enjoys the formulaic comfort of mystery series. There’s a reason certain books become best sellers: whatever their literary failings, they take people away. Consider genre fiction, if it will help, and damn the critics!
Life-affirming? Well, there are two things, really: inspirational sentiments and sheer beauty of language. War and Peace, Huckleberry Finn, The Dead, Middlemarch, Disgrace, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, A Sentimental Education, The Brothers Karamazov—all these are books that reaffirm, for me, something essentially optimistic. Others—Children of Gebelawi, In Search of Lost Time, One Hundred Years of Solitude, most any Faulkner, The Magic Mountain, Things Fall Apart, The Tale of Genji, Moby-Dick, The Orchard, Pedro Páramo—will simply awe you. If those all seem too daunting, what about poetry? One woman I know says Wordsworth is what got her through the toughest time of her life.
Does this help a little? I hope so. I also hope our readers will contribute more suggestions in the comments section, as I would love to hear from those with a range of points of view. But most of all, have courage, and know how much joy there is out there. You will feel it again.
Musing on taking our adult play time seriously
Freud on Creative Writing and Daydreaming
by Maria Popova
“The opposite of play is not what is serious but what is real.”
“Writing is a little door,” Susan Sontag wrote in her diary. “Some fantasies, like big pieces of furniture, won’t come through.”Sigmund Freud — key figure in the making of consumer culture, deft architect of his own myth, modern plaything — spent a fair amount of his career exploring the psychology of dreams. In 1908, he turned to the intersection of fantasies and creativity, and penned a short essay titled “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming,” eventually republished in the anthology The Freud Reader (public library). Though his theories have been the subject of much controversy and subsequent revision, they remain a fascinating formative framework for much of the modern understanding of the psyche.
Predictably, Freud begins by tracing the subject matter to its roots in childhood, stressing, as Anaïs Nin eloquently did — herself trained in psychoanalysis — the importance of emotional investment in creative writing:
Should we not look for the first traces of imaginative activity as early as in childhood? The child’s best-loved and most intense occupation is with his play or games. Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him? It would be wrong to think he does not take that world seriously; on the contrary, he takes his play very seriously and he expends large amounts of emotion on it. The opposite of play is not what is serious but what is real. In spite of all the emotion with which he cathects his world of play, the child distinguishes it quite well from reality; and he likes to link his imagined objects and situations to the tangible and visible things of the real world. This linking is all that differentiates the child’s ‘play’ from ‘phantasying.’He then considers, as Henry Miller did in his famous creative routine three decades later, the time scales of the creative process:
The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously — that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion — while separating it sharply from reality.
The relation of phantasy to time is in general very important. We may say that it hovers, as it ware, between three times — the three moments of time which our ideation involves. Mental work is linked to some current impression, some provoking occasion in the present which has been able to arouse one of the subject’s major wishes. From here it harks back to a memory of an earlier experience (usually an infantile one) in which this wish was fulfilled; and now it creates a situation relating to the future which represents the fulfillment of the wish. What it thus creates is a day-dream or phantasy, which carries about it traces of its origin from the occasion which provoked it and from the memory. Thus, past, present and future are strung together, as it were, on the thread of the wish that runs through them.He synthesizes the parallel between creative writing and play:
[A] piece of creative writing, like a day-dream, is a continuation of, and a substitute for, what was once the play of childhood.He goes on to explore the secretive nature of our daydreams, suggesting that an element of shame keeps us from sharing them with others — perhaps what Jack Kerouac meant when he listed the unspeakable visions of the individual as one of his iconic beliefs and techniques for prose — and considers how the creative writer transcends that to achieve pleasure in the disclosure of these fantasies:
How the writer accomplishes this is his innermost secret; the essential ars poetica lies in the technique of overcoming the feeling of repulsion in us which is undoubtedly connected with the barriers that rise between each single ego and the others. We can guess two of the methods used by this technique. The writer softens the character of his egoistic day-dreams by altering and disguising it, and he bribes us by the purely formal — that is, aesthetic — yield of pleasure which he offers us in the presentation of his phantasies. We give the name of an incentive bonus, or a fore-pleasure, to a yield of pleasure such as this, which is offered to us so as to make possible the release of still greater pleasure arising from deeper psychical sources. In my opinion, all the aesthetic pleasure which a creative writer affords us has the character of a fore-pleasure of this kind, and our actual enjoyment of an imaginative work proceeds from a liberation of tensions in our minds. It may even be that not a little of this effect is due to the writer’s enabling us thenceforward to enjoy our own day-dreams without self-reproach or shame.
Bravo! Reader Response Journals
What
is a Response Journal?
Response journals require the students to write about what they felt while reading a book or listening to a story.
What is its purpose?
Response Journals record student feelings, responses, and reactions to reading texts. This strategy encourages students to think deeply about the materials they read and to relate this information to their prior knowledge and experiences. This interaction between reader and text extends the reading experience into the "real life" application of information.
Response Journals allow students to reflect on and raise questions about a text. These journals are especially valuable for promoting opinion making, value judgments, and critical thinking.
How can I do it?
The response journal may be viewed as a piece of ongoing assessment. Journal entries can be evaluated when teachers read students' journals, when students share as a whole class, when students have literature circles, or when students have individual conferences with the teacher. Teachers may take notes on "post-it" notes or labels as they listen or confer with students. They may keep records of reading and writing strategies students have incorporated into their silent reading.
As part of self-evaluation, students may choose a piece of writing from their reading response journals they would like to include in their portfolio and explain what it shows they can do well or might do better. Students may look back through their journal and, with teacher assistance, evaluate which reading strategies have been most helpful for them as they read and set specific goals for their reading and writing.
For as many books as exist, there are also any number of different
reading types a book lover (or even a book hater) might demonstrate.
What kind are you?
The Hate Reader. If you are a hate reader you will finish each
hate read down to its very last word, and you may well close the covers
and toss the volume across the room, but you will do it with a great,
secret frisson of satisfaction because it feels so good. You may be an
aspiring, disgruntled novelist yourself. Suggested hate reads: Twilight; Fifty Shades of Grey; any much-celebrated novelist's latest offering that's bound to be arguably less than all the hype.
The Chronological Reader. You may not remember where you began,
what the first book that kicked it all off was, and you likely have no
idea where you'll end, but the point is, you will go through each book
methodically and reasonably, until it is done. You might discard a book,
but only if there is very good cause, and it will bring you a sense of
deep unease, so you'll probably pick it back up and finish it anyway.
Suggested chronological reads: It doesn't matter; you'll get to them
all, eventually.
The Book-Buster. Is your home strewn with books scattered about,
this way and that, their pages turned, their covers folded over, their
backs broken and their limbs splayed out on either side? t a paperback
with a huge chunk pulled out of it, or a first edition that's suddenly
waterlogged from bath water. You take your books out into the sun and
their pages bleach away to nothing, but you keep them anyway, because
they are books and you love books. Suggested book-buster reads: Whatever
you like, but buy a Kindle.
Delayed Onset Reader. You are without a doubt a book lover, and
when you walk into a bookstore or any place books are available, you
can't help yourself, you buy one or many. When you get home you put them
aside, often reverently, as if they were art; When you finally do read,
you are amazed that you waited so long to ever open it. Suggested
delayed onset suggestions: The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman; The Princess Bride, by William Goldman; Lolita by Nabokov; Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery.
The Bookophile. More than reading, you just love books. You like
books rescued from the street as much as signed first editions.
Suggested bookophile reads: Anything you can get your hands on.
The Cross-Under. You are a grown-up who reads Y.A. or kids books,
or a kid who reads adult books; you are not ruled by categories; you
are a free thinker. When you were in elementary school a librarian told
you a book was "Too old for you." You read it anyway, and there's been
no going back. Suggested cross-under reads: For kids, Dickens,
Fitzgerald, Salinger, Vonnegut, Harper Lee. For adults: Collins,
Rowling, Alexie, Chbosky, Lowry.
The Multi-Tasker. You are a promiscuous reader, and all in all,
you've got quite a lot of irons in the fire all at the same time. Do you
confuse characters or plots? Do you give more attention to some books
than to others? Perhaps. The point is, you're not ready for a book
commitment just yet. Suggested multi-tasking reads: Short story and
essay collections, novellas.
The Sleepy Bedtime Reader. Do you feel the only time you have to
read is when you're about to go to sleep? You tote your book into bed
with you and it's so very comfortable and the book is so deliciously
good... Suggested sleepy bedtime reads: Whatever you like, you like
falling asleep with a book on your face.
The Book Snob. You only read books that are well reviewed by
critics that you have determined to be of the highest caliber. You would
never stoop to read something on a best-seller list, or something sold
in a discount department store. Paperbacks offend you; you only touch
hardcover—preferably, award-winning in some form or fashion. Suggested
book snob reads: Pulitzer nominees, even if no Pulitzer was awarded.
The Hopelessly Devoted. You stick to the authors you like, and
you read them, pretty much exclusively, whatever they write, good or
bad. Suggested devoted reads: This really depends on you. For me, it's
Doris Lessing.
The Audiobook Listener. There's a place for you, person whose ears are essentially eyes. Suggested listens: Refer to types per visual readers.
The Conscientious Reader. It's nonfiction or nothing for you. You
like reporting, true tales, and journalism. If it is fiction, make it
by Chinua Achebe. Suggested conscientious reads: Books by presidents;
stuff about OccupyWall Street; Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand.
The Critic. You love something that you can sink your teeth into
and discuss. But only with those of a similar intellectual bent.
Suggested critic reads: Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and the Murderer; anything by Haruki Murakami.
The Easily Influenced Reader. You enjoy reading in group settings. Suggested easily influenced reads: Cheryl Strayed's Wild; Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue; Caitlin Moran's How to Be a Woman; Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Just because a lot of people recommend them doesn't mean they're not great!
The All-the-Timer/Compulsive/Voracious/Anything Goes Reader.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, there's a book with you. It doesn't
matter what it is, really, so long as there are pages with words on
them, or an e-reader with words on it. We can't really suggested
anything here because you took it with you to the grocery store or
subway or library or laundromat or coffee shop, and you're standing in
line or sitting down and reading it right now.
The Sharer. You loan people booksand tha t is a good quality. We
like you, book sharer. Suggested sharables: Anything you read and liked,
obviously, but also stuff you don't like, because you might as well
pass it along to someone who might enjoy it more than you did.
The Re-Reader. You know what you like, and instead of branching
out and possibly finding something new that you don't like, you focus on
what you do. You read the same books over and over again, returning to
them as if they're old friends. Suggested re-readables: You already
know.
The "It's Complicated" Reader. You are a combination of many of
these things and yet completely different, too. Each book means a new
type of reader exists in your soul; you refuse to be defined or
categorized. You are a freeform, wild, woolly entity. You do whatever
you want. You're probably a Pisces. You're definitely a reader.
Suggested "it's complicated" reads: We dare not to go there.
The Cat. You creep around the house all day and sneak peeks at all those
large, paper things that your owner leaves lying about. Sometimes, if
you're lucky, your owner has left one open, and you lie on top of it and
let its smooth pages touch your whiskers. It is oddly comfortable, and
deeply satisfying, particularly if it's in a spot in the sun, where you
enjoy whiling away a whimsical afternoon. Your owner, who is an "It's
Complicated" Bookophile type, fancies that you're actually reading the
pages, but you're not. You're just lying on them. Humans are so weird.
Suggested cat reads: This one looks nice and flat.
Response journals require the students to write about what they felt while reading a book or listening to a story.
What is its purpose?
Response Journals record student feelings, responses, and reactions to reading texts. This strategy encourages students to think deeply about the materials they read and to relate this information to their prior knowledge and experiences. This interaction between reader and text extends the reading experience into the "real life" application of information.
Response Journals allow students to reflect on and raise questions about a text. These journals are especially valuable for promoting opinion making, value judgments, and critical thinking.
How can I do it?
- Explain the functions of the response journal to students. Stress that the journal is personal—a place to express ideas, feelings, questions, and opinions. Point out that there are no "right answers" in response journals. Successful journals capture high-quality student-text interaction.
- Provide a model journal for students. Make sure that this model includes observations, questions, critical judgments, opinions, and feelings. Explain that while all of these are appropriate, students should be able to distinguish opinion from observation and critical judgment from feelings.
- Provide journal sheets or booklets with prompting questions that will help structure student responses. Encourage students to record as many observations as they can.
- From time to time, organize the class into small groups and allow students to share their journal responses with their peers. Stress again the functions of the journal and the fact that there are no "right" or "wrong" answers.
The response journal may be viewed as a piece of ongoing assessment. Journal entries can be evaluated when teachers read students' journals, when students share as a whole class, when students have literature circles, or when students have individual conferences with the teacher. Teachers may take notes on "post-it" notes or labels as they listen or confer with students. They may keep records of reading and writing strategies students have incorporated into their silent reading.
As part of self-evaluation, students may choose a piece of writing from their reading response journals they would like to include in their portfolio and explain what it shows they can do well or might do better. Students may look back through their journal and, with teacher assistance, evaluate which reading strategies have been most helpful for them as they read and set specific goals for their reading and writing.
- Sample response journal assessment
- Readers' Response Journal Rubric
- Readers’ Response Journal Rubric
- Reading Response Journals: Writing After Reading Is Revealing! - an article from Education World
- Response Journal Guidelines for Students
- Guidelines for Keeping a Response Journal
- Fiction Response Journal Prompts
- Non Fiction Journal Prompts
- Reading Response Journals
- What is a Response Journal?
"What Kind of Reader Are You?" with slight editorial changes from The Atlantic Wire
Cognitive bibliotherapy
(You don't have to buy the book to see the positive results from the study.)
It has
been increasingly recognized that subthreshold depression is associated
with considerable personal, social and economic costs. However, there is
no accepted definition or clear-cut treatment for subthreshold
depression. Cognitive bibliotherapy is a promising approach, but further
research is necessary in order to assess its clinical efficacy and key
mechanisms of change.
Aim
This
study aimed to investigate the efficacy of bibliotherapy for
subthreshold depression and test whether maladaptive cognitions mediate
the effects of bibliotherapy on depressive symptoms.
Method
A
total of 96 young adults with subthreshold depression were randomized
in one of the following treatment conditions: immediate treatment,
delayed treatment, placebo and no treatment. The main outcome was
represented by depressive symptoms assessed before, during and
immediately after the treatment, as well as at 3-month follow-up.
Automatic thoughts, dysfunctional attitudes and irrational beliefs were
also assessed throughout the study, and we investigated their
involvement as mediators of bibliotherapy effects on depressive
symptoms.
Results
The
results indicated that cognitive bibliotherapy resulted in
statistically and clinically significant changes both in depressive
symptoms and cognitions, which were maintained at follow-up. In
contrast, placebo was only associated with a temporary decrease in
depressive symptoms, without significant cognitive changes. No changes
in symptoms or cognitions were found in the delayed treatment and no
treatment groups. We also found that automatic thoughts significantly
mediated the effect of bibliotherapy on depressive symptoms.
Conclusion
This
study provided compelling evidence for the efficacy of cognitive
bibliotherapy in subthreshold depression and showed that changes in
automatic thoughts mediated the effect of bibliotherapy on depressive
symptoms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Key Practitioner Message
- Cognitive bibliotherapy is an effective treatment of subthreshold depression.
- Changing automatic thoughts is important, as they mediate the bibliotherapy effect on depressive symptoms.
- Cognitive bibliotherapy is a potential alternative or adjunct to psychotherapy for mildly depressed adults.
Delaney & Shrodes founding bibliotherapy librarians
Bibliotherapy
What is Bibliotherapy?
The simplest definition of bibliotherapy is “helping with books”. Katz and Watt defined it as “the guided use of reading, always with a therapeutic outcome in mind.” Poetry therapy and bibliotherapy are terms used synonymously to describe the intentional use of poetry and other forms of literature for healing and personal growth.
Bibliotherapy may be classified as to utilization in the following manner:
a."Developmental interactive bibliotherapy" refers to the use of literature, discussion and creative writing with children in schools and hospitals, adults in growth and support groups, and older persons in senior centers and nursing homes. In these community settings, bibliotherapy is used not only to foster growth and development, but it is used as a preventive tool in mental health.
b."Clinical interactive bibliotherapy" refers to the use of literature, discussion and creative writing to promote healing and growth in psychiatric units, community mental health centers, and chemical dependency units.
Other bibliotherapy related terms are the following:
Literatherapy. Refers to the direct and intentional use of literary text in conjunction with psychotherapy.
Bibliodiagnostics. When bibliotherapy’s techniques are used for assessment.
Iblioprophylaxis. When bibliotherapy is used for prevention.
Videotherapy. The use of film or video for therapeutic purposes.
Historical use of Bibliotherapy
The ancient Greeks recognized the power of books as therapeutic tools by inscribing these words above the door at the library of Thebes: “The medicine chest of the soul.” They made the reading of books in their medical and health undertakings.
It was Samuel Crothers, a Unitarian Minister who first coined the term bibliotherapy in 1916, who wrote in The Atlantic Monthly about a technique of bringing troubled persons together with books.
By the early 1920s, Sadie Peterson Delaney, chief librarian of the United States Veterans Administration Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama, was using books to treat the psychological and physical needs of African American war veterans. Working as a team of social workers and psychiatrists, their purpose was to “enable patients to connect - or reconnect - themselves with a broad community of ideas.” Delaney’s holistic practice of bibliotherapy transcended typical literary events by including hobby clubs and activities such as stamp and coin collecting and debating to awaken a patient’s mind. His techniques created such a buzz that she received worldwide recognition. Between 1924 and 1958, Delaney spoke at major conferences and held lectures in conjunction with psychology courses, and actively trained other librarians in the practice of bibliotherapy.
In 1937, Dr. William C. Menninger, a founder of the Menninger Clinic, a prestigious group in psychiatry practice, edited a book about psychiatry that included several of his papers. In one of these papers he described the purposes of bibliotherapy, how it fit into a patient’s treatment plan, and how it was to be prescribed. At the Menninger Clinic, bibliotherapy was used to treat mental illness but only after the patient’s background, symptoms, and therapeutic needs had been evaluated. Because bibliotherapy was considered a treatment, the physician was responsible for the “contents of the library and must approve the books before they [were] purchased,” and for prescribing reading assignments.
In 1950, Caroline Shrodes furthered the study in her dissertation, when she postulated that there is a psychological basis to bibliotherapy. According to Shrodes, the reader “under the impact of imaginative literature, is subject to certain processes of adaptation or growth,” which correspond to the major phases of psychotherapy: identification, projection, abreaction and catharsis, and insight.
The above studies brought out the following data which pointed out the mental and psychiatric beneficial effects of bibliotherapy:
First, identification and projection occur when the reader shares a problem, circumstance, or issue with the book’s character.
Second, a reaction and catharsis occur for the reader when the character resolves a problem, circumstance, or issue.
Third, insight occurs when the reader reflects on his or her situation and internalizes the character’s solution.
In the 1970s, Rhea Joyce Rubin added mental health specialists have conducted rigorous studies to prove bibliotherapy works. By using metaanalysis, a technique of synthesizing research results using various statistical methods, mental health specialists have determined that bibliotherapy is effective in certain circumstances.
Pieter Cuijpers and Robert J. Gregory et al. performed meta-analysis to isolate the effectiveness of bibliotherapy in treating depression. Mark Floyd used meta-analysis to gage the effectiveness of bibliotherapy to assuage geriatric depression. Timothy R. Apodaca and William R. Miller conducted a meta-analysis to determine the effectiveness of bibliotherapy in treating alcohol problems.
In each of these meta-analyses, bibliotherapy was found to be an effective treatment in certain instances. The above studies resulted in the following conclusions:
First, it was found to be most effective with individuals whose mental health issues are minimal to moderate in severity.
Second, bibliotherapy is most effective in combination with other treatments.
Third, bibliotherapy is a viable option in rural areas where mental health treatment is not available or when therapy time is limited. For instance, in one study comparing treatments for panic attacks, bibliotherapy was more beneficial than minimal interventions such as phone contact with a therapist.
Fourth, bibliotherapy increases the patient’s sense of responsibility. It works best with motivated individuals who are functioning at a higher cognitive level. However, Floyd cautions that bibliotherapy may be harmful if the client feels that the therapist is minimizing their problems by giving them a book.
References
Jones, Jamil. “A Closer Look at Bibliotherapy”. Young Adult Library Services Journal. 2006 Retrieved from http//:www.
Katz, Gilda and John A. Watt, “Bibliotherapy: The Use of Books in Psychiatric Treatment,” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 37, no. 3 (1992): 173.
Manfreda, M. et. al. (1977). Psychiatric Nursing 10th Ed. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Co.
Shives, L.R. et. al. (2002). Basic Concepts of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing 5th Ed. Philadelphia, USA: Lippincott Stuart, G. et. al. (2005). Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing 8th Ed. Missouri, USA: Mosley, Inc.
Videbeck, S. et. al. (2008). Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 4th Ed. Philadelphia, USA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Music Therapy
What is Music Therapy?
The American Music Therapy Association, Incorporated defined music therapy as the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.
It is an established health service similar to occupational therapy and physical therapy and consists of using music therapeutically to address physical, psychological, cognitive and/or social functioning for patients of all ages. Because music therapy is a powerful and non-invasive medium, unique outcomes are possible. In addition to its applications in mental health, music therapy is used successfully in a variety of additional healthcare and educational settings.
In mental health and psychiatric nursing, music therapy serves the purposes of maintenance and improvement of mental hygiene and fosters social integration.
Music therapy activities in the clinical setting will include any or a combination of the following:
Music therapy is an efficacious and valid treatment for persons who have psychosocial, affective, cognitive and communicative needs. Research results and clinical experiences attest to the viability of music therapy even in those who are resistive to other treatment approaches.
Music is a form of sensory stimulation that provokes responses due to the familiarity, predictability and feelings of security associated with it. Music therapy for clients with mental health concerns uses musical interaction as a means of communication and expression. The aim of therapy is to help individuals develop relationships and address issues they may not be able to address using words alone. Music therapy sessions include the use of active music making, music listening, and discussion.
What do Music Therapists Do?
Music therapists use music strategies, both instrumental and vocal, which are designed to facilitate changes that are non-musical in nature. Music selections and certain active music making activities are modified for client preferences and individualized needs (i.e., song selection and music may vary). Music therapy programs are based on individual assessment, treatment planning, and ongoing program evaluation. Frequently functioning as members of an interdisciplinary team, music therapists implement programs with groups or individuals that display a vast continuum of needs, from reduction of anxiety to deeper self-understanding.
What Can One Expect From a Music Therapist?
Music therapists work with the interdisciplinary team to assess emotional well being, physical health, social functioning, communication abilities, and cognitive skills through musical responses. When individualized music experiences are designed by the music therapist to fit functional abilities and needs, responses may be immediate and readily apparent. Clients need not have a music background to benefit from music therapy.
Music Therapy Intervention Provides Opportunities to (adapted from AMTA) a. Explore personal feelings and therapeutic issues such as self-esteem or personal insight
b. Make positive changes in mood and emotional states
c. Have a sense of control over life through successful experiences
d. Enhance awareness of self and environment
e. Express oneself both verbally and non-verbally
f. Develop coping and relaxation skills
g. Support healthy feelings and thoughts
h. Improve reality testing and problem solving skills
i. Interact socially with others
j. Develop independence and decision making skills
k. Improve concentration and attention span
l. Adopt positive forms of behavior
m. Resolve conflicts leading to stronger family and peer relationships
What Outcomes are Documented in Music Therapy Research? (adapted from AMTA) a. Reduced muscle tension
b. Improved self-image/Increased self-esteem c. Decreased anxiety/agitation
d. Increased verbalization
e. Enhanced interpersonal relationships
f. Improved group cohesiveness
g. Increased motivation
h. Successful and safe emotional release
The following selected researches/studies provides evidence that Music Therapy is effective in the improvement of certain psychiatric conditions:
Music therapy as an addition to standard care helps people with schizophrenia to improve their global state and may also improve mental state and functioning if a sufficient number of music therapy sessions are provided.
Gold, C., Heldal, T.O., Dahle, T., Wigram, T. (2005). Music Therapy for Schizophrenia or Schizophrenia-like Illnesses. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 3. Accession: 00075320-100000000-03007 PMID: 15846692
Music therapy significantly diminished patients’ negative symptoms, increased their ability to converse with others, reduced their social isolation, and increased their level of interest in external events. As music therapy has no side-effects and is relatively inexpensive, it merits further evaluation and wider application.
Tang W, Yao X, Zheng Z. Rehabilitative effect of music therapy for residual schizophrenia: A one-month randomised controlled trial in Shanghai. British Journal of Psychiatry 1994;165(suppl. 24):38-44. PMID: 7946230
Results indicated that music has proven to be significantly effective in suppressing and combating the symptoms of psychosis.
Silverman, M.J. The Influence of Music on the Symptoms of Psychosis: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Music Therapy 2003; XL(1) 27-40.
Depressed adolescents listening to music experienced a significant decrease in stress hormone (cortisol) levels, and most adolescents shifted toward left frontal EEG activation (associated with positive affect).
Field, T., Martinez, A., Nawrocki, T., Pickens, J., Fox N.A., & Schanberg, S. (1998). Music shifts frontal EEG in depressed adolescents. Adolescence, 33(129), 109-116.
Music therapy clients significantly improved on the Aggression/Hostility scale of Achenbach’s Teacher’s Report Form, suggesting that group music therapy can facilitate self-expression and provide a channel for transforming frustration, anger, and aggression into the experience of creativity and self-mastery.
Montello, L.M., & Coons, E.E. (1998). Effect of active versus passive group music therapy on preadolescents with emotional, learning, and behavioral disorders. Journal of Music Therapy, 35, 49-67.
References
American Music Therapy Association, Inc. (2010) Retrieved from http//:www.musictherapy.org Manfreda, M. et. al. (1977). Psychiatric Nursing 10th Ed. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Co.
Shives, L.R. et. al. (2002). Basic Concepts of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing 5th Ed. Philadelphia, USA: Lippincott Stuart, G. et. al. (2005). Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing 8th Ed. Missouri, USA: Mosley, Inc.
Videbeck, S. et. al. (2008). Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 4th Ed. Philadelphia, USA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Bibliotherapy - Rehab Info
Bibliotherapy can be a powerful addition to your treatment program and provide you with a unique avenue toward healing and recovery. Contact us today to speak with a counselor who can direct you to a mental health treatment program that offers bibliotherapy.
*Individual Bibliotherapy vs. Group Bibliotherapy
The choice in literature will depend upon a number of different factors, including:
It’s possible to focus your bibliotherapy sessions on short readings done with the therapist with time set aside for you to write your response and then share it. However, it is far more time- and cost-effective for you to do your reading and writing for each session at home.
What is Bibliotherapy?
The simplest definition of bibliotherapy is “helping with books”. Katz and Watt defined it as “the guided use of reading, always with a therapeutic outcome in mind.” Poetry therapy and bibliotherapy are terms used synonymously to describe the intentional use of poetry and other forms of literature for healing and personal growth.
Bibliotherapy may be classified as to utilization in the following manner:
a."Developmental interactive bibliotherapy" refers to the use of literature, discussion and creative writing with children in schools and hospitals, adults in growth and support groups, and older persons in senior centers and nursing homes. In these community settings, bibliotherapy is used not only to foster growth and development, but it is used as a preventive tool in mental health.
b."Clinical interactive bibliotherapy" refers to the use of literature, discussion and creative writing to promote healing and growth in psychiatric units, community mental health centers, and chemical dependency units.
Other bibliotherapy related terms are the following:
Literatherapy. Refers to the direct and intentional use of literary text in conjunction with psychotherapy.
Bibliodiagnostics. When bibliotherapy’s techniques are used for assessment.
Iblioprophylaxis. When bibliotherapy is used for prevention.
Videotherapy. The use of film or video for therapeutic purposes.
Historical use of Bibliotherapy
The ancient Greeks recognized the power of books as therapeutic tools by inscribing these words above the door at the library of Thebes: “The medicine chest of the soul.” They made the reading of books in their medical and health undertakings.
It was Samuel Crothers, a Unitarian Minister who first coined the term bibliotherapy in 1916, who wrote in The Atlantic Monthly about a technique of bringing troubled persons together with books.
By the early 1920s, Sadie Peterson Delaney, chief librarian of the United States Veterans Administration Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama, was using books to treat the psychological and physical needs of African American war veterans. Working as a team of social workers and psychiatrists, their purpose was to “enable patients to connect - or reconnect - themselves with a broad community of ideas.” Delaney’s holistic practice of bibliotherapy transcended typical literary events by including hobby clubs and activities such as stamp and coin collecting and debating to awaken a patient’s mind. His techniques created such a buzz that she received worldwide recognition. Between 1924 and 1958, Delaney spoke at major conferences and held lectures in conjunction with psychology courses, and actively trained other librarians in the practice of bibliotherapy.
In 1937, Dr. William C. Menninger, a founder of the Menninger Clinic, a prestigious group in psychiatry practice, edited a book about psychiatry that included several of his papers. In one of these papers he described the purposes of bibliotherapy, how it fit into a patient’s treatment plan, and how it was to be prescribed. At the Menninger Clinic, bibliotherapy was used to treat mental illness but only after the patient’s background, symptoms, and therapeutic needs had been evaluated. Because bibliotherapy was considered a treatment, the physician was responsible for the “contents of the library and must approve the books before they [were] purchased,” and for prescribing reading assignments.
In 1950, Caroline Shrodes furthered the study in her dissertation, when she postulated that there is a psychological basis to bibliotherapy. According to Shrodes, the reader “under the impact of imaginative literature, is subject to certain processes of adaptation or growth,” which correspond to the major phases of psychotherapy: identification, projection, abreaction and catharsis, and insight.
The above studies brought out the following data which pointed out the mental and psychiatric beneficial effects of bibliotherapy:
First, identification and projection occur when the reader shares a problem, circumstance, or issue with the book’s character.
Second, a reaction and catharsis occur for the reader when the character resolves a problem, circumstance, or issue.
Third, insight occurs when the reader reflects on his or her situation and internalizes the character’s solution.
In the 1970s, Rhea Joyce Rubin added mental health specialists have conducted rigorous studies to prove bibliotherapy works. By using metaanalysis, a technique of synthesizing research results using various statistical methods, mental health specialists have determined that bibliotherapy is effective in certain circumstances.
Pieter Cuijpers and Robert J. Gregory et al. performed meta-analysis to isolate the effectiveness of bibliotherapy in treating depression. Mark Floyd used meta-analysis to gage the effectiveness of bibliotherapy to assuage geriatric depression. Timothy R. Apodaca and William R. Miller conducted a meta-analysis to determine the effectiveness of bibliotherapy in treating alcohol problems.
In each of these meta-analyses, bibliotherapy was found to be an effective treatment in certain instances. The above studies resulted in the following conclusions:
First, it was found to be most effective with individuals whose mental health issues are minimal to moderate in severity.
Second, bibliotherapy is most effective in combination with other treatments.
Third, bibliotherapy is a viable option in rural areas where mental health treatment is not available or when therapy time is limited. For instance, in one study comparing treatments for panic attacks, bibliotherapy was more beneficial than minimal interventions such as phone contact with a therapist.
Fourth, bibliotherapy increases the patient’s sense of responsibility. It works best with motivated individuals who are functioning at a higher cognitive level. However, Floyd cautions that bibliotherapy may be harmful if the client feels that the therapist is minimizing their problems by giving them a book.
References
Jones, Jamil. “A Closer Look at Bibliotherapy”. Young Adult Library Services Journal. 2006 Retrieved from http//:www.
Katz, Gilda and John A. Watt, “Bibliotherapy: The Use of Books in Psychiatric Treatment,” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 37, no. 3 (1992): 173.
Manfreda, M. et. al. (1977). Psychiatric Nursing 10th Ed. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Co.
Shives, L.R. et. al. (2002). Basic Concepts of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing 5th Ed. Philadelphia, USA: Lippincott Stuart, G. et. al. (2005). Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing 8th Ed. Missouri, USA: Mosley, Inc.
Videbeck, S. et. al. (2008). Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 4th Ed. Philadelphia, USA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Music Therapy
What is Music Therapy?
The American Music Therapy Association, Incorporated defined music therapy as the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.
It is an established health service similar to occupational therapy and physical therapy and consists of using music therapeutically to address physical, psychological, cognitive and/or social functioning for patients of all ages. Because music therapy is a powerful and non-invasive medium, unique outcomes are possible. In addition to its applications in mental health, music therapy is used successfully in a variety of additional healthcare and educational settings.
In mental health and psychiatric nursing, music therapy serves the purposes of maintenance and improvement of mental hygiene and fosters social integration.
Music therapy activities in the clinical setting will include any or a combination of the following:
- Listening to music (sound experience with therapeutic instruments or recorded music, and conversation)
- Joint singing and music-making (e.g. popular songs – playing with the guitar)
- Improvisation (free or within a given framework) with easy-to-handle instruments
- Singing of songs to learn the language
- Rhythmic work
- Movement to music
- Guitar lessons in single therapy
- Spontaneous interventions as response to a client’s reaction (e.g. role play with instruments, acting out an emotional situation or an experience)
Music therapy is an efficacious and valid treatment for persons who have psychosocial, affective, cognitive and communicative needs. Research results and clinical experiences attest to the viability of music therapy even in those who are resistive to other treatment approaches.
Music is a form of sensory stimulation that provokes responses due to the familiarity, predictability and feelings of security associated with it. Music therapy for clients with mental health concerns uses musical interaction as a means of communication and expression. The aim of therapy is to help individuals develop relationships and address issues they may not be able to address using words alone. Music therapy sessions include the use of active music making, music listening, and discussion.
What do Music Therapists Do?
Music therapists use music strategies, both instrumental and vocal, which are designed to facilitate changes that are non-musical in nature. Music selections and certain active music making activities are modified for client preferences and individualized needs (i.e., song selection and music may vary). Music therapy programs are based on individual assessment, treatment planning, and ongoing program evaluation. Frequently functioning as members of an interdisciplinary team, music therapists implement programs with groups or individuals that display a vast continuum of needs, from reduction of anxiety to deeper self-understanding.
What Can One Expect From a Music Therapist?
Music therapists work with the interdisciplinary team to assess emotional well being, physical health, social functioning, communication abilities, and cognitive skills through musical responses. When individualized music experiences are designed by the music therapist to fit functional abilities and needs, responses may be immediate and readily apparent. Clients need not have a music background to benefit from music therapy.
Music Therapy Intervention Provides Opportunities to (adapted from AMTA) a. Explore personal feelings and therapeutic issues such as self-esteem or personal insight
b. Make positive changes in mood and emotional states
c. Have a sense of control over life through successful experiences
d. Enhance awareness of self and environment
e. Express oneself both verbally and non-verbally
f. Develop coping and relaxation skills
g. Support healthy feelings and thoughts
h. Improve reality testing and problem solving skills
i. Interact socially with others
j. Develop independence and decision making skills
k. Improve concentration and attention span
l. Adopt positive forms of behavior
m. Resolve conflicts leading to stronger family and peer relationships
What Outcomes are Documented in Music Therapy Research? (adapted from AMTA) a. Reduced muscle tension
b. Improved self-image/Increased self-esteem c. Decreased anxiety/agitation
d. Increased verbalization
e. Enhanced interpersonal relationships
f. Improved group cohesiveness
g. Increased motivation
h. Successful and safe emotional release
The following selected researches/studies provides evidence that Music Therapy is effective in the improvement of certain psychiatric conditions:
Music therapy as an addition to standard care helps people with schizophrenia to improve their global state and may also improve mental state and functioning if a sufficient number of music therapy sessions are provided.
Gold, C., Heldal, T.O., Dahle, T., Wigram, T. (2005). Music Therapy for Schizophrenia or Schizophrenia-like Illnesses. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 3. Accession: 00075320-100000000-03007 PMID: 15846692
Music therapy significantly diminished patients’ negative symptoms, increased their ability to converse with others, reduced their social isolation, and increased their level of interest in external events. As music therapy has no side-effects and is relatively inexpensive, it merits further evaluation and wider application.
Tang W, Yao X, Zheng Z. Rehabilitative effect of music therapy for residual schizophrenia: A one-month randomised controlled trial in Shanghai. British Journal of Psychiatry 1994;165(suppl. 24):38-44. PMID: 7946230
Results indicated that music has proven to be significantly effective in suppressing and combating the symptoms of psychosis.
Silverman, M.J. The Influence of Music on the Symptoms of Psychosis: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Music Therapy 2003; XL(1) 27-40.
Depressed adolescents listening to music experienced a significant decrease in stress hormone (cortisol) levels, and most adolescents shifted toward left frontal EEG activation (associated with positive affect).
Field, T., Martinez, A., Nawrocki, T., Pickens, J., Fox N.A., & Schanberg, S. (1998). Music shifts frontal EEG in depressed adolescents. Adolescence, 33(129), 109-116.
Music therapy clients significantly improved on the Aggression/Hostility scale of Achenbach’s Teacher’s Report Form, suggesting that group music therapy can facilitate self-expression and provide a channel for transforming frustration, anger, and aggression into the experience of creativity and self-mastery.
Montello, L.M., & Coons, E.E. (1998). Effect of active versus passive group music therapy on preadolescents with emotional, learning, and behavioral disorders. Journal of Music Therapy, 35, 49-67.
References
American Music Therapy Association, Inc. (2010) Retrieved from http//:www.musictherapy.org Manfreda, M. et. al. (1977). Psychiatric Nursing 10th Ed. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Co.
Shives, L.R. et. al. (2002). Basic Concepts of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing 5th Ed. Philadelphia, USA: Lippincott Stuart, G. et. al. (2005). Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing 8th Ed. Missouri, USA: Mosley, Inc.
Videbeck, S. et. al. (2008). Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 4th Ed. Philadelphia, USA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Stages of progress
Bibliotherapy
Bibliotherapy is an alternative form of therapy that utilizes books and words to help you better understand issues that you are having and identify new coping skills that may be more effective in dealing with stressors. In many cases, writing is an essential tool as well, allowing you to explore your own story and truths through the fiction and nonfiction stories of others.Bibliotherapy can be a powerful addition to your treatment program and provide you with a unique avenue toward healing and recovery. Contact us today to speak with a counselor who can direct you to a mental health treatment program that offers bibliotherapy.
*Individual Bibliotherapy vs. Group Bibliotherapy
- Individual bibliotherapy sessions allow you to focus on your own interpretation of the text and share your personal writing with your bibliotherapist.
- Group bibliotherapy sessions give you the opportunity to hear the unique view of others who have read the same text, which could provide you with insight into your own issues that you may not otherwise hear.
Bibliotherapy Stages of Progress
As you read through a text that is meaningful to you, bibliotherapists believe that you experience:- Identification. One of the characters or the primary situation in the book is familiar to you.
- Catharsis. You become bonded to the characters and emotionally go through their experiences with them.
- Awareness and understanding. You recognize your own issues, perceptions, and the effects of those choices within the context of the story and learn coping skills that are more effective.
The choice in literature will depend upon a number of different factors, including:
- Your preference in reading material
- Your bibliotherapist’s area of expertise
- Your disorder
- The specific symptom with which you are struggling
Writing and Bibliotherapy
Though reading is the foundation of bibliotherapy, exploration of the text as it relates to your experience through writing is where the real therapeutic healing happens. You can write as much or as little as you want about passages that stand out to you or specific experiences within the book that mirror your own. The reading may trigger you to write out a memory that you feel is pertinent to the issues you’re working through, or you may choose to write out how you would have handled the situation differently than the character or what you learned from the character’s choices. Share the most meaningful sections of your writing at your bibliotherapy session.Therapy Homework
Bibliotherapy is one of the few therapies that will practically require that you do work for your session outside of treatment. Though some therapies will ask you to practice coping mechanisms or notate specific events or details about those events, these actions are easily incorporated into your schedule.It’s possible to focus your bibliotherapy sessions on short readings done with the therapist with time set aside for you to write your response and then share it. However, it is far more time- and cost-effective for you to do your reading and writing for each session at home.
Is Bibliotherapy Right for You or Someone You Love?
Most often used with children, bibliotherapy can be effective because it offers a vehicle of exploration in situations where it may be difficult or awkward to verbalize problems. For young children, the text may be read to them and they may draw pictures instead of write about their thoughts.Literature's power to reorient & rewire thought patterns
Bibliotherapy Bibliotherapy is an alternative form of therapy that utilizes books and words to help you better understand issues that you are having and identify new coping skills that may be more effective in dealing with stressors. In many cases, writing is an essential tool as well, allowing you to explore your own story and truths through the fiction and nonfiction stories of others. Bibliotherapy can be a powerful addition to your treatment program and provide you with a unique avenue toward healing and recovery. Contact us today to speak with a counselor who can direct you to a mental health treatment program that offers bibliotherapy. *Individual Bibliotherapy vs. Group Bibliotherapy Individual bibliotherapy sessions allow you to focus on your own interpretation of the text and share your personal writing with your bibliotherapist. Group bibliotherapy sessions give you the opportunity to hear the unique view of others who have read the same text, which could provide you with insight into your own issues that you may not otherwise hear. Bibliotherapy Stages of Progress As you read through a text that is meaningful to you, bibliotherapists believe that you experience: Identification. One of the characters or the primary situation in the book is familiar to you. Catharsis. You become bonded to the characters and emotionally go through their experiences with them. Awareness and understanding. You recognize your own issues, perceptions, and the effects of those choices within the context of the story and learn coping skills that are more effective. *What Do You Read in Bibliotherapy? The choice in literature will depend upon a number of different factors, including: Your preference in reading material Your bibliotherapist’s area of expertise Your disorder The specific symptom with which you are struggling Writing and Bibliotherapy Though reading is the foundation of bibliotherapy, exploration of the text as it relates to your experience through writing is where the real therapeutic healing happens. You can write as much or as little as you want about passages that stand out to you or specific experiences within the book that mirror your own. The reading may trigger you to write out a memory that you feel is pertinent to the issues you’re working through, or you may choose to write out how you would have handled the situation differently than the character or what you learned from the character’s choices. Share the most meaningful sections of your writing at your bibliotherapy session. Therapy Homework Bibliotherapy is one of the few therapies that will practically require that you do work for your session outside of treatment. Though some therapies will ask you to practice coping mechanisms or notate specific events or details about those events, these actions are easily incorporated into your schedule. It’s possible to focus your bibliotherapy sessions on short readings done with the therapist with time set aside for you to write your response and then share it. However, it is far more time- and cost-effective for you to do your reading and writing for each session at home. Is Bibliotherapy Right for You or Someone You Love? Most often used with children, bibliotherapy can be effective because it offers a vehicle of exploration in situations where it may be difficult or awkward to verbalize problems. For young children, the text may be read to them and they may draw pictures instead of write about their thoughts.
Quality of thought defines bibliotherapy
Any avid reader will attest to the emotional high that occurs when
reading a book that beautifully describes their exact predicament. This
could explain the swaths of high school students singing Holden
Caulfield's praises, only to shyly retract their admiration just a few
years later.
Whether you're an adolescent averse to adulthood, a nerdy hopeless romantic with the worst of luck or a woman caught in a stifling marriage, there is a book out there that can give your life perspective.
This is the idea behind Bibliotherapy, a supposed cure for depression and anxiety being implemented by author Alain De Botton at his London company, The School of Life. De Botton is the author of "How Proust Can Change Your Life," a book that blends literary fiction and self-help. He says academics "could never forgive [him]" for making Proust accesible, but personally believes books are more than works of art to be admired.
"The idea that culture is literally a resource by which to live is oddly neglected," de Botton says in a video promoting his services. He adds that culture seems to be more like an activity people "like to visit on a Sunday."
Whether or not a book can single-handedly tackle a person's depression is difficult to determine, but positive thinking has been proven to help. According to a Psychology Today article titled "Depression Doing the Thinking," "One of the most powerful actions you can take in combating depression is to understand how critical the quality of your thinking is to maintaining and even intensifying your depression—and that the quickest way to change how you feel is to change how you think." The article goes on to explain how negative thoughts can enter one's mind subconsciously, and therefore seem more raw or true to the depression sufferer than their own moods and feelings.
If a shift in thoughts can aid in alleviating depression, then why shouldn't books be a part of that process? The School of Life employs bookstore owners, Ph.D candidates and other lit lovers, who make reading recommendations based on a consultation in which patients discuss their lives, their concerns and their reading histories.
Of course, the concept of reading to cure certain mental ailments is nothing new. Libraries were described as "healing places for the soul" in ancient Greece, and WWII soldiers read while recuperating. Still, The School of Life may be the first organization to charge a fee (if a small one) for literary prescriptions.
The company's blog features user-submitted questions and responses from Bibliotherapists. A recent post involves an art student struggling with his or her inability to create original work. Bibliotherapist Ella Burthound prescribes "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens, "Jack Maggs" by Peter Carey and "The Conference of the Birds" by Farid ud-Din Attar.
Whether you're an adolescent averse to adulthood, a nerdy hopeless romantic with the worst of luck or a woman caught in a stifling marriage, there is a book out there that can give your life perspective.
This is the idea behind Bibliotherapy, a supposed cure for depression and anxiety being implemented by author Alain De Botton at his London company, The School of Life. De Botton is the author of "How Proust Can Change Your Life," a book that blends literary fiction and self-help. He says academics "could never forgive [him]" for making Proust accesible, but personally believes books are more than works of art to be admired.
"The idea that culture is literally a resource by which to live is oddly neglected," de Botton says in a video promoting his services. He adds that culture seems to be more like an activity people "like to visit on a Sunday."
Whether or not a book can single-handedly tackle a person's depression is difficult to determine, but positive thinking has been proven to help. According to a Psychology Today article titled "Depression Doing the Thinking," "One of the most powerful actions you can take in combating depression is to understand how critical the quality of your thinking is to maintaining and even intensifying your depression—and that the quickest way to change how you feel is to change how you think." The article goes on to explain how negative thoughts can enter one's mind subconsciously, and therefore seem more raw or true to the depression sufferer than their own moods and feelings.
If a shift in thoughts can aid in alleviating depression, then why shouldn't books be a part of that process? The School of Life employs bookstore owners, Ph.D candidates and other lit lovers, who make reading recommendations based on a consultation in which patients discuss their lives, their concerns and their reading histories.
Of course, the concept of reading to cure certain mental ailments is nothing new. Libraries were described as "healing places for the soul" in ancient Greece, and WWII soldiers read while recuperating. Still, The School of Life may be the first organization to charge a fee (if a small one) for literary prescriptions.
The company's blog features user-submitted questions and responses from Bibliotherapists. A recent post involves an art student struggling with his or her inability to create original work. Bibliotherapist Ella Burthound prescribes "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens, "Jack Maggs" by Peter Carey and "The Conference of the Birds" by Farid ud-Din Attar.
Fiction as simulation
(A rose by any other name: bibliotherapy. . .)
Fourth Anniversary, and Experience-taking
This month, OnFiction began its fifth year of publication. I
don't know how long most blogs run for, or even how long most
blogs-cum-online-magazines run for, but we feel we have become a
presence on the internet with, as you can see opposite, more than 200
members, with more than 100,000 "unique" visitors in our first four
years, as well as a large number of people who take OnFiction by RSS and e-mail.
We would like to thank all our readers, the people who make comments, and the people who write to us personally. Thank you!
We would like to thank all our readers, the people who make comments, and the people who write to us personally. Thank you!
All this persuades us that although the psychology of fiction is a
minority interest, the minority is a substantial one. We are very happy
to continue what we have been doing. I hope over the next month or two,
to go through our archives, book reviews and film reviews, and bring
them a bit more up to date. Please, also, if there is something you
think we might do, that would be useful to you and other readers, please
let me know. You can find my e-mail address in my Profile.
And, to show that the psychology of fiction is reaching maturity, here's a research bulletin on a new article, published on-line in the American Psychological Association's principal journal of social psychology. It's by Geoff Kaufman and Lisa Libby (2012), and it draws on the theory of fiction-as-simulation, that we at OnFiction have been exploring.
Kaufman and Libby start their article with the following epigraph from Hayakawa (1990):
And, to show that the psychology of fiction is reaching maturity, here's a research bulletin on a new article, published on-line in the American Psychological Association's principal journal of social psychology. It's by Geoff Kaufman and Lisa Libby (2012), and it draws on the theory of fiction-as-simulation, that we at OnFiction have been exploring.
Kaufman and Libby start their article with the following epigraph from Hayakawa (1990):
In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to lead; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
Kaufman and Libby report six experiments in which they asked student
participants to read short pieces of narrative, in which the protagonist
was a college student, and in which information was given about the
protagonist's thoughts, actions, and feelings. Their purpose was to
investigate what they call experience-taking: entry into the experience
of a fictional character, which is often called identification. They say
that in experience-taking:
readers simulate the events of a narrative as though they were a particular character in the story world, adopting the character’s mindset and perspective as the story progresses rather than orienting themselves as an observer or evaluator of the character (p. 2 of the pre-publication paper.)
The researchers measured experience-taking from people's responses to a
nine-item questionnaire that includes such items as "I could empathize
with the situation of the character in the story," and "I understood the
events of the story as though I were the character in the story."
Kaufman and Libby chose the term experience-taking to mean a merging with the character, a loss of the self-other distinction. It is to be compared with perspective-taking, in which one keeps one's identity and at the same time understands what another person is thinking and feeling.
In their first three experiments, Kaufman and Libby looked at the relationship between people's awareness of their own self and their level of experience-taking while reading the piece of narrative they were given. In Experiment 1, the researchers found that the higher people's scores were on a measure of consciousness of their own individual experience, the lower were their scores on experience-taking as they read the story. In Experiment 2, readers who were asked to think of themselves generically, as average students, independently of what they were studying, as compared with thinking of themselves as individuals, had higher scores on experience-taking when reading. In Experiment 3, participants who read the story in a cubicle with a mirror in it, as compared to reading in a cubicle without a mirror, had lower scores on experience-taking.
In their second group of studies, Kaufman and Libby manipulated the experimental conditions. In Experiment 4, they found that narratives told in first-person voice induced more experience-taking in readers than narratives told in third-person voice. In Experiments 5 and 6, they found that later as compared with earlier introduction into a narrative of information that indicated that a protagonist was a member of a group (respectively homosexual or African-American) of which the reader was not a member, increased experience-taking.
This paper is an important step in understanding conditions of narratives that encourage identification in terms of entering lives other than just the ones given to us by chance and circumstance.
Samuel Hayakawa (1990). Language in thought and action. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Geoff Kaufman & Lisa Libby (2012). Changing beliefs and behavior through experience-taking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0027525
Kaufman and Libby chose the term experience-taking to mean a merging with the character, a loss of the self-other distinction. It is to be compared with perspective-taking, in which one keeps one's identity and at the same time understands what another person is thinking and feeling.
In their first three experiments, Kaufman and Libby looked at the relationship between people's awareness of their own self and their level of experience-taking while reading the piece of narrative they were given. In Experiment 1, the researchers found that the higher people's scores were on a measure of consciousness of their own individual experience, the lower were their scores on experience-taking as they read the story. In Experiment 2, readers who were asked to think of themselves generically, as average students, independently of what they were studying, as compared with thinking of themselves as individuals, had higher scores on experience-taking when reading. In Experiment 3, participants who read the story in a cubicle with a mirror in it, as compared to reading in a cubicle without a mirror, had lower scores on experience-taking.
In their second group of studies, Kaufman and Libby manipulated the experimental conditions. In Experiment 4, they found that narratives told in first-person voice induced more experience-taking in readers than narratives told in third-person voice. In Experiments 5 and 6, they found that later as compared with earlier introduction into a narrative of information that indicated that a protagonist was a member of a group (respectively homosexual or African-American) of which the reader was not a member, increased experience-taking.
This paper is an important step in understanding conditions of narratives that encourage identification in terms of entering lives other than just the ones given to us by chance and circumstance.
Samuel Hayakawa (1990). Language in thought and action. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Geoff Kaufman & Lisa Libby (2012). Changing beliefs and behavior through experience-taking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0027525
American Counseling Assoc "Getting Unstuck"
Reading writing and revelation
(Refers to Joseph Gold's THE STORY SPECIES, soon to quoted and explored extensively here on BfO/CR.)
How the written word helps refresh body, mind and soul.
Since Bearup, from Alpharetta, Georgia, is in pain almost all the time, she reads a lot. For the past six years, she has suffered from reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), an incurable chronic disease that affects the nerves and blood vessels, causing severe swelling and discomfort in areas of the body that have been the site of injuries. “Especially when my leg lays me up in bed for days on end, I read constantly to escape from my aching knee, from my room, from the real world,” she says. While previous treatments—painkillers, physiotherapy, acupuncture, hyperbaric oxygen therapy—have failed, the self-prescribed reading cure works. “So far, books have been my only medicine,” Bearup says.
Reading and healing have an age-old association. In ancient Egypt, libraries were known as psyches iatreion, “sanatoriums of the soul.” During the Renaissance, the poetry of the Psalms was thought to “banish vexations of both the soul and the body,” according to Italian humanist philosopher Marsilio Ficino. And, as far back as the beginning of the 19th century, the American psychiatric community was discussing reading as a therapeutic technique.
Now, science is starting to prove what readers and writers have long known: Words can help us repair and revitalize our bodies as well as our minds. As a result, bibliotherapy—reading specific texts in response to particular situations or conditions—is becoming more and more popular among psychologists, physicians, librarians and teachers. “Whether the problem be physical discomfort or disability, emotional conflict or suffering, or problems arising from social situations in the family, work or community, reading can change and improve how we feel and behave,” according to Joseph Gold, a former professor of English at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and author of The Story Species: Our Life-Literature Connection.
Bibliotherapy takes many forms. Doctors or therapists write prescriptions in the context of a practice setting, or individuals explore what works for them at home. The therapy involves either reading or writing, or both, while the texts are drawn from fiction (Shakespeare, Proust or Rilke, for example) or non-fiction (self-help books). Patients include the young and old, men and women, academics and non-academics. An increasing number of non-medical bibliotherapists, people who make reading suggestions based on individual situations, are setting up shop in Europe and America and looking to improve their clients’ quality of life if not alleviate specific symptoms.
The conditions for which bibliotherapy is prescribed are just as diverse as its forms. In Canada, nurses who care for the elderly in their homes successfully use American psychologist Peter Lewinsohn’s classic Control Your Depression to assist clients in dealing with their conditions. In the U.S., research has shown that patients suffering from borderline personality disorder engage in significantly less frequent and severe deliberate self-harm when their therapy involves reading a booklet on coping strategies. Adults with asthma and rheumatoid arthritis found that their symptoms lessened in severity after they started keeping journals about their most stressful experiences. Obese adolescent girls who read an age-appropriate novel about a teenager who discovers “improved health and self-efficacy” lost weight more easily than those who didn’t read that novel.
What makes the written word so effective? Michael Duda, a psychologist in private practice in Dortmund, Germany, and the author of several works in German on the healing power of books, believes success lies in a combination of the reading process and the content of what we read. When we immerse ourselves in a text, according to Duda, the words stimulate the production of mental images. We imagine what characters look and sound like; we visualize the places they live and work; we act out the words on the page in our minds.
“The reader is the creator of his or her inner tableau,” Duda says. The imagery is “individual and subjective but authentic as well, since reading always happens against the backdrop of existential experiences.” This is in sharp contrast to visual media, Duda points out; in that framework, the imagery is already provided, so requires less creative assembly by the viewer. Thus, in some respects, readers have to work harder—and that hard work can have psychological and physical benefits.
Brain imaging studies provide a glimpse of what happens when we get lost in a book. Using scanning technology, a team of scientists led by Nicole K. Speer at the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory at the University of Washington in St. Louis, Missouri, found that some of the brain regions active during reading a story “mirror those involved when people perform, imagine or observe similar real-world activities.” When reading, our brains simulate what happens in the story, using the same circuits we’d use if the same things happened to us. On a neurological level, we become part of the action.
The brain straddles fact and fiction when we read, which is why Dortmund psychotherapist Duda believes books are so powerful and why they “act like a key that opens the door to a person’s inner world.” Simulating the feelings and experiences of literary figures “allows readers to perceive and express their own emotions,” he says. That’s why it’s crucial to recommend the right reading material.
Duda keeps folders and filing boxes full of texts and excerpts for therapeutic reading. Individual prescriptions are based on “intuition and knowledge of human nature,” he says. If the selected text is a longer work, such as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, clients read it at home. Duda reads shorter pieces, like fairy tales, aloud at the end of a session. He encourages clients not to analyze or interpret the stories, but to express the emotional responses or personal recollections triggered by them. In this way, fiction can serve as a “bridge”—between the client and therapist as well as between the client and his or her (often buried) memories and feelings.
For one client, a 36-year-old continuing education teacher in the midst of a relationship crisis, Duda prescribed the Brothers Grimm. Plagued by the feeling that she “couldn’t be herself” either at work or in her private life, the woman said she felt used by her partner. Afraid of his reaction and a possible breakup, however, she never discussed this with him.
Duda asked her to read “Clever Else,” a Grimm tale about a girl who prevaricates for so long about the things she wants to do that she never gets around to doing them. After reading it, the client called Duda that same evening, saying she had been moved by the story since “she had found herself in it.” At her next session, she told Duda about a vivid dream that convinced her she had to make a stand in her relationship. And after some more counseling, she did.
Bibliotherapy appears to have physiological advantages, too. A 2007 study involving 112 smelter workers in New Brunswick, Canada, for instance, found that workers who read a lot had greater protection against some of the effects of lead poisoning. Both readers and non-readers suffered equally from lead-caused motor impairment, but the non-readers had higher levels of intellectual impairment due to the brain damage the heavy metal can cause.
Reading alone can’t cure diseases, of course, but the researchers concluded that reading contributes to “cognitive reserve” (CR), the brain’s ability to protect itself and adapt to physical damage. CR has been “extensively studied in other neurological disorders—Alzheimer’s, stroke, other dementias, sleep apnea, traumatic brain injury,” says Margit Bleecker of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Neurology in Baltimore, Maryland, who co-authored the study. In all cases, “individuals with more CR are able to withstand injury to the brain.”
Pim Cuijpers of the Department of Clinical Psychology at the VU University in Amsterdam has conducted several studies into the successful use of self-administered bibliotherapy for depression, especially for those “who cannot be reached with traditional forms of therapy.” Most depressed people don’t seek professional help, Cuijpers says, because they’re unable (or unwilling) to see a therapist. For these people, bibliotherapy “is a non-stigmatizing and easy-to-use treatment method,” according to Cuijpers.
Cuijpers and colleagues from the Netherlands, China and Sweden examined the effects of guided self-help therapy on people suffering from depression, phobias and other anxiety disorders. Participants read standardized material on their respective conditions containing “step-by-step instructions on how to apply a generally accepted psychological treatment procedure to themselves,” Cuijpers explains. Clients accessed the information in book form, on the Internet and via video and audio. While minimal phone, e-mail or personal contact with a professional therapist or coach was provided, the patients generally worked independently at home.
The result: The guided self-help interventions had comparable effects to traditional face-to-face psychotherapy sessions. “There is no reason not to consider using [guided self-help interventions] as a complement in clinical practice,” Cuijpers concluded. Indeed, he expects the two forms of therapy to “blend in with each other increasingly in the near future.”
That could offer financial as well as mental health benefits, since bibliotherapy isn’t only effective but relatively cheap—which is why cash-strapped health systems are starting to set up “reading pharmacies.” In the U.K., the National Health Service gives physicians the option of prescribing self-help manuals to those seeking medical attention for mood disorders. The “books on prescription” program reaches tens of thousands of people each year, and has become so popular that more than half of English library authorities are using this or a similar form of bibliotherapy intervention, according to a 2007 survey.
Bibliotherapy has its limits, though, especially where psychological illness is concerned. “There are problems, such as severe depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder, that we can’t overcome with the help of a book alone,” says Doris Wolf, a psychologist in Mannheim, Germany, who has been working with bibliotherapy for more than 30 years. “In such cases, a book can’t replace a therapist.”
Reading an inappropriate or unhelpful text—whether it was chosen by your doctor, your librarian, your therapist or you—can also make things worse. After all, not all stories have happy endings, just as not all of life’s problems are happily resolved. “Experiences with the morals of stories may not always represent what we would consider self-improvement,” cautions Raymond Mar, an assistant professor of psychology at York University in Toronto. “Readers may choose to model morally murkier aspects of narratives as well.” Self-help manuals can also do more harm than good, if they’re administered without proper instruction or guidance.
If you’d like to get your recommended reading from someone other than a physician or psychologist, you’ll find plenty of bibliotherapists out there. In Milan, Italy, Stefania Moro takes her clients “on a journey to their memories, failures, hopes and dreams,” she says, by reading passages from carefully selected texts. Some of Moro’s regular recommendations include Dutch novelist Tessa de Loo’s The Twins (the fictional story of two sisters separated by World War II who meet again 40 years later) and American author J.R. Moehringer’s memoir Tender Bar (in which he recounts his childhood experiences with the quirky patrons of a New York pub, who become substitutes for his absent father). Works like these, Moro thinks, are ideal to help people “become travelers into themselves.”
A print and TV journalist for 15 years, Moro, who has a master’s degree in social psychology and a Ph.D. in philosophy, avoids “clinical or intellectual settings” in her meetings with clients, whom she prefers to call “searchers.” Instead, sessions often take place at her home over a glass of wine. Such welcoming, warm settings make it easier for searchers to find what they’re looking for, Moro says.
Both with individuals and groups, Moro reads aloud from the books she chooses and then discusses them with clients. While she’s quick to point out she’s not a psychologist and can’t provide “a solution for a happy life,” Moro is convinced these close encounters with fictional characters bring readers closer to themselves.
Laura, a 39-year-old video reporter from Milan who has attended Moro’s events for the past three years, agrees. “Stefania’s way of digging deep into the pages, her voice, all of her body and soul express a magical, mystical, but very humble and direct bond with the written word.” During the sessions, Laura says, she has been given “a key to open up to some sentiments, recollections, visions I could have never found on my own.”
At The School of Life in London, bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud first asks her client to fill out a questionnaire about his or her reading history, habits and personal circumstances. Then “after mulling the matter over for a few days,” she compiles a list of eight fiction titles she believes will provide the client with inspiration. Like a semi-humorous version of a doctor’s prescription, the list is accompanied by a brief diagnosis (“Patient suffers from job-related depression,” for example) and instructions on use and dosage (“Use for half an hour every day” or “To be read aloud once a week together with your partner”).
While many prefer to take their literary medicine alone, more and more people are opting to read and discuss books in the company of others, as evidenced by the increasing popularity of book clubs. In Dublin, there are 130 readers’ groups run by libraries and many more run privately. Some are hosted at library branches, hospices or prisons; others convene in restaurants, pubs or members’ homes. Some are for specific target groups, such as students in literacy classes or people for whom English is a second language; others welcome a general audience. Some specialize in particular literary genres; others plow through the bestseller lists.
All of the book clubs, however, share one rather simple thing: the pure joy of the written word. “Some people may augur the death of books,” says Jane Alger, divisional librarian at Dublin City Libraries, who has witnessed the local resurgence of readers’ meetings. “From what we are seeing here, that’s not true. It’s amazing what people will read. There doesn’t seem to be a limit.”
Some book aficionados are even reverting to the age-old rite of communal voiced reading. Since 2001, the Get Into Reading (GIR) project, set up by the U.K. non-profit The Reader Organisation, has been offering weekly group meetings for greedy readers in doctors’ practices, care homes and libraries across the country. “Our hypothesis is that reading literature aloud with others offers something uniquely valuable,” says Jane Davis, The Reader Organisation’s founding director. It “facilitates the creation of a series of powerful interplays: between the written text and the aural experience; between hearing the text from outside and processing it within; between one’s own experience and that of the author and characters; between the privacy of personal consciousness and the public experience of group discussion.”
When his wife, a dementia sufferer, was admitted to a nursing home in the Northern English city of Durham, retired businessman James Freeley decided that a GIR group would be a good thing for both her and the other residents. So in 2008, he trained to become a qualified reading instructor and, together with the care staff, has been running bi-weekly poetry sessions ever since.
“We pick poems with themes, like the seasons or starting school when term begins,” Freeley explains. “Often, while we are reading, someone will pipe up with a recollection from their past and that leads others to chip in with their own memories.” This helps the elderly participants “have a much better sense of being recognized as individuals,” Freeley says, and improves their speech development and concentration. According to staff, participants’ general sense of well-being, personal confidence and community increase, too.
The same effect can be observed in young people. Since 2009, the teenage members of a writing group run by the Clayport Library in Durham have regularly joined the poetry meetings, reading aloud both from the works of Wordsworth and Yeats as well as their own verses.
Young people may eventually be more comfortable with e-readers than with dog-eared paperbacks, but that’s unlikely to detract from the benefits of the reading experience. Dublin librarian Alger considers “electronic books and talking books as complementary to the traditional medium”—and for some, such as the blind and partially sighted, they’re essential. One of the Dublin reading clubs equips its members with audio books, without any apparent ill effects on discussions.
The way we read does matter, though. Proponents of Slow Reading believe we should linger over literature, not just speed as quickly as possible through 140-character tweets. Following the tradition of Slow Food, Slow Travel and other Slow movements, Slow Reading advocates like Canadian author John Miedema are convinced leisurely reading promotes both comprehension and enjoyment. Those who go slow “might only read a page or two at a time, reading and re-reading,” Miedema admits, but that leads them to better “apprehend the experience or meaning represented in the text.”
It’s not just reading that has salutary effects; putting pen to paper can be good for you, too. The Tumor Biology Center in Freiburg, Germany, carried out a three-year study in which cancer sufferers recovering from chemotherapy or surgery took part in poetry therapy. Their assignment: Write about the emotions triggered by their disease. The researchers concluded that patients’ well-being improved after they wrote about their feelings. Almost all of the cancer patients showed an “improvement in the psycho-social field,” says Susanne Seuthe-Witz, a sociologist who has conducted poetry sessions at the clinic since 1995.
At the start of a session, Seuthe-Witz reads either a short story, the first few paragraphs of a novel or a poem. The texts, such as German poet and essayist Marie-Luise Kaschnitz’ fairy tale, “The Old Garden,” are meant to encourage reflection and help patients face the future in a positive fashion. Seuthe-Witz asks participants to spend a few minutes jotting down whatever images, feelings or thoughts enter their heads. Then they have to write something—a sonnet, for instance, a haiku or a new ending to a familiar narrative. Seuthe-Witz believes brief forms like this are most suitable for expressing stressful emotions like fear because their brevity “protects against such emotions getting out of hand.” At the end of the session, the texts are read aloud and discussed. This exchange of ideas within a small group facing the same life-threatening disease intensifies the coping process started by the writing process.
“It’s possible that important feelings receive positive expression in this fashion and that patients no longer feel like victims but creators,” says Seuthe-Witz. “The words are like a part of themselves the patients can work with. In this way, they are no longer ruled by their fear but rather rule the fear themselves.” (For more on the health benefits of writing, see “Words that heal” on page 36.)
Writing exercises like this have application to spiritual as well as medical crises. Rev. Christine Fry, an adjunct faculty member at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California, organizes “Write for Health” courses at her home three times a week. Participants “come from a variety of faith traditions or no tradition at all,” Fry says. “Writing helps us connect with something larger, deeper than ourselves—with God or whatever we call holy.”
Fry first presents participants with a handout of the day’s Bible readings and quotes. She then asks them to write for about 20 minutes on themes like surprise, gratitude, openness or beauty. This time of quiet reflection and release, Fry believes, helps people “notice, feel and ponder who they are and how they love and live.” Fry is convinced it strengthens their link to the divine, not least because it’s much “easier to feel the presence of the holy in the midst of a group,” she says. (For more on writing as a spiritual practice, see “Standing barefoot before God” right next to this.)
Mackenzie Bearup, the teenager with reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), wants to share the healing power she’s found in books. When she heard that there were no books at the Murphy-Harpst Center for Severely Abused Children in Cedartown, 65 miles from her home, she started collecting them to donate to the facility. “Books have helped me so much,” she says. “I thought any kid that’s in really bad pain could use them, too.”
Bearup quickly amassed thousands of tomes, enough not only to stock the shelves of the Murphy-Harpst Center but those of numerous other children’s homes, treatment centers and homeless and domestic violence shelters in the area. She has since set up her own non-profit organization, Sheltering Books, and has so far distributed more than 38,000 books to some 30 different facilities.
Bearup’s experience, and that of others who have benefited from bibliotherapy, suggest it might be time to add a new twist to an old proverb: Reader, heal thyself.
Ursula Sautter, who has read a couple thousand books, thinks another couple thousand should probably keep her sane until old age.
Study shows positive results for increased sexual desire in women applying bibliotherapy
(And this would be true for men as well, though less often a problem. . .)
Bibliotherapy for low sexual desire: evidence for effectiveness.
Abstract
This study examines the effectiveness of
bibliotherapy for low sexual desire among women, which is the most
frequent sexual concern brought to counselors. Forty-five women
responded to an advertisement for participation in a study on low sexual
desire and were assigned to either the intervention or the wait-list
control group. The intervention group completed the Hurlbert Index of
Sexual Desire (HISD; Apt & Hurlbert, 1992) and the Female Sexual
Function Index (FSFI; R. Rosen et al., 2000), read the self-help book
under study in 6 weeks, and completed the measures a second time. The
control group completed the same measures 6 weeks apart. Results
demonstrated that the intervention group made statistically greater
gains over time as compared with the control group on measures of sexual
desire (HISD and FSFI Desire subscale), sexual arousal (FSFI Arousal
subscale), sexual satisfaction (FSFI Satisfaction subscale), and overall
sexual functioning (FSFI Total Score). A subset of participants in the
intervention group participated in a 7-week follow-up study, and these
participants maintained their gains in sexual desire and overall sexual
functioning. Findings have important implications for future research on
the efficacy of bibliotherapy generally and for low sexual desire
specifically. Results also have vital implications for the treatment of
low sexual desire.
Literary art & self-directed personal change
Fiction might be dismissed as
observations that lack reliability and validity, but this would be a
misunderstanding. Works
of fiction are simulations that run on minds. They were the first
kinds of simulation. All art has a metaphorical quality:
a painting can be both pigments on canvas and a person. In literary
art, this quality extends to readers who can be both themselves
and, by empathetic processes within a simulation, also literary
characters. On the basis of this hypothesis, it was found
that the more fiction people read the better were their skills of
empathy and theory‐of‐mind; the inference from several studies
is that reading fiction improves social skills. In functional
magnetic resonance imaging meta‐analyses, brain areas concerned
with understanding narrative stories were found to overlap with those
concerned with theory‐of‐mind. In an orthogonal effect,
reading artistic literature was found to enable people to change
their personality by small increments, not by a writer's
persuasion, but in their own way. This effect was due to artistic
merit of a text, irrespective of whether it was fiction
or non‐fiction. An empirically based conception of literary art might
be carefully constructed verbal material that enables
self‐directed personal change. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:425–430. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1185
http://htmlgiant.com/random/the-beginners-guide-to-deleuze/
Deleuze, as it were, The Beginning of Being & Somethingness
Ken Baumann
Over lunch, Christopher Higgs and I talked about Gilles Deleuze. I was saying how a lot of my friends–Chris, Blake Butler, and Derek White, to name a few–are really into his writing, especially the ginormous book A Thousand Pleateaus, co-written with Felix Guattari. I’ve tried to read it and get into it a few times, and kept putting the book up, scared off by not being able to immediately comprehend the text, not being able to decipher the numerous codes, terms, coinages. Recently, I changed. I picked up A Thousand Pleateaus again and flipped to a random chapter and read. I enjoyed it, and am enjoying it. Like my experience with Finnegans Wake, there are lucid swathes that I feel I understand, and then there are times when it’s packed dense or just orgiastically conceptual and I tune out a bit. But that process of coming in and out of lucidity is nice. Sort of trancelike.
I mentioned asking Chris some questions about Deleuze, his thinking, the books. I’m sort of acquainted with his ideas through the book A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (amazing book!), and what Deleuze I’ve now read. But, let me ask you/Chris some maybe dumb questions.
Firstly: Why should we read Deleuze?
Deleuze is the future. He is almost the now, but not yet. Just out of reach, just over the horizon, he is akin to the force that makes the sky pink after the sun sets and pink again right before the sun rises. He is both pre and post everything, like the feeling before a meal of being famished followed by the feeling after the meal of being stuffed. He does what no other thinker before him could do: he upends Plato, he quiets Hegel, he puts all the little thinkers to bed.
Consider it this way: if we imagine the past as a hallway full of doors marked dualism, binary thinking, either/or, mind/body, transcendence, then Deleuze makes philosophy contemporary by drawing a series of escape hatches on the ceiling of that hallway and marking them multiplicity, schizoid thinking, both/and, non-dialectical materialism, immanence. Deleuze is open, associative, connective. Deleuze is digital, affirmative, productive, innovative. In him, we have a blueprint for navigating the 21st century.
Okay, I better stop there for now. I can get pretty wound up and easily begin sounding like a preacher – I think my wife mentioned to you how I am sort of like a proselytizer for Deleuze.
But to respond to something else you said: I think many readers share your experience of being “scared off by not being able to immediately comprehend the text, not being able to decipher the numerous codes, terms, coinages” when first encountering his work—individually, and with Guattari. It’s a totally valid response, but it’s also a manageable hurdle.
Here’s the trick: do not bother trying to comprehend or understand the text. A desire for that level of control will only hinder your ability to experience it, use it, think it, and become it. To apply an analogy, I do not need to understand or comprehend my car in order for me to experience driving, to use the car to get to the grocery store, to think about the fact that I am sitting motionless while simultaneously moving rapidly through time and space, to become an extension of the car or vice versa. (In this way, Deleuze has really helped me formulate my general approach to all works of literature: I do not care to comprehend them or understand them in any way. I wish instead to experience them and use them and become them.)
Maybe I’m jumping the gun here, but I’ll share this great passage from one of my favorite contemporary thinkers/writers, Steven Shaviro, which serves as a great primer for understanding Deleuze’s approach and also frames an additional answer to your question, Ken, about why we should read Deleuze:
How can we use his philosophy in everyday life? Does he supply new or preferred ways of not only thinking but being? In other words: if I was looking for philosophy to guide me ethically and aesthetically, how does Deleuze show me how to live?
Danger warning! Deleuzian ethics are unconventional in ways that tend to piss people off, especially Marxists!
Prevailing wisdom would suggest that opposition is essential to change. Put in Hegelian terms, a thesis meets its antithesis in order to create a synthesis. Tit for tat. Action is met with reaction. For example, the government or big business or whomever does something you dislike, so you protest. They throw a punch, so you throw a punch. Back and forth. Eventually, this way of thinking tries to convince us, the tides will change. Eventually my punch will be the knockout punch, and those aggressive forces that pushed me to react will meet their doom. (“And the meek shall inherit the earth.”)
This is, unfortunately, a fantasy. Action will always prevail. Reaction will always fail. (Did protest end the war in Vietnam? Did protest stop the war in Iraq? Did protest stop the destruction of collective bargaining in Wisconsin recently? – No. It did not. Why? Because protest is reactive, not active; it is negative rather than affirmative; it assumes the subordinate position “I am against X!” rather than the dominate position “I am for X!”) It is the myth Nietzsche exposes in his groundbreaking and devastating Genealogy of Morals, a book that is central to my understanding of Deleuze’s ethical applicability. For Nietzsche, Deleuze, and myself, direct engagement is a mistake. Diffuse or indirect engagement is preferable. Diagonal rather than horizontal or vertical attack. Non-Euclidean game plans. Rhizome rather than root, molecular rather than molar, dynamic rather than static: reroute the flow of power toward new creative constructions. Think of it like a tug of war: the opposition relies on your engagement, on your antithesis. Without it, they would fall on their butts in the same way a person would fall on their butt if you were playing tug of war and suddenly let go of your end of the rope. By engaging with the opposition you merely serve to validate and empower that opposition. The only form of power one can truly wield is the power of action, of affirmation, of creation. Let go of the rope! You’re tired of going to the grocery store and finding fruits and vegetables from overseas, which have been treated with cancer-causing chemicals? Don’t bother fussing with the management or writing a letter to your congressman…let go of the rope and go build an organic community garden. Action. Creation. Do not be duped into thinking that you can win a battle against the powers that be – they are the powers that be because they took action, because they created something.
This also imbricates Spinoza’s view of ethics, which serves as the other major pillar of my understanding of Deleuze’s ethical applicability. For both thinkers, affirmation engenders creation and negation engenders destruction.
In everyday life, this means reconsidering our actions. It means asking oneself: am I acting or am I reacting? Am I creating or am I destroying? Am I affirming or am I negating?
That sort of speaks to the ethical issue. In terms of the aesthetic, I think Deleuze can help us in everyday life by encouraging us to foreground difference, to find beauty in difference, to seek heterogeneity rather than homogeneity, to focus our desire toward the unfamiliar, the strange, the new. A Deleuzian aesthetic is predicated, at least in part, on change, movement, transformation, repositioning, shifting, flowing, mutating, multiplying, generating, and, of course, magic.
If you could give someone a Deleuze bundle of five items, what would it contain? (It can include anything: any of Deleuze’s books/essays, anything Deleuze writes about often, other texts, other media, a desert root system, etc.)
Wow, tough question. There is so much good stuff out there, so many options. And it really would depend on what angle a person was particularly interested in exploring. Thinking in general terms, here is a bundle of five possible entry points:
An Introductory Bundle
*First, I would give them Deleuze’s book on Nietzsche, because I wholeheartedly agree with Michael Hardt’s opening statement in his Forward to the revised edition: “This book is, in my view, the best introduction to Deleuze’s thought.” (You can read Hardt’s entire Forward here.)
*Second, I would give them Michel Foucault’s critical examination of Deleuze’s first two books of independent philosophy (Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense) called “Theatrum Philosophicum,” which opens with Foucault’s famous statement, “Indeed, these books are so outstanding that they are difficult to discuss; this may explain, as well, why so few have undertaken this task. I believe that these words will continue to revolve about us in enigmatic resonance with those of Klossowski, another major and excessive sign, and perhaps one day, this century will be known as Deleuzian.” (You can read the whole thing here.)
*Third, I would give them the introduction to A Thousand Plateaus, which contains Deleuze & Guattari’s concept of the Rhizome. (You can read the entire introduction here.)
*Fourth, I would give them this lecture on Deleuze by Manuel De Landa, which elaborates lucidly on crucial concepts such as expressivity and morphogenesis.
*And fifth, I would give them Félix Guattari’s book Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972—1977, because one of the most effective ways of familiarizing oneself with Deleuze is by seeing him through the eyes of his longtime collaborator.
As an added bonus, I’ll offer three other useful bundles…
The Background Bundle
Five works to inform, expand, and enhance one’s engagement with Deleuze:
*Baruch Spinoza – Ethics
*Friedrich Nietzsche – On the Genealogy of Morals
*Henri Bergson – Creative Evolution
*Antonin Artaud – The Theatre and Its Double
*James Gleick – Chaos: Making a New Science
The Secondary Bundle
Five works that utilize or otherwise illuminate Deleuze in ways that I have found particularly provocative and/or useful:
*Steven Shaviro – Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics
*Bruce Baugh’s essay “How Deleuze can help us make Literature work” (which has been anthologized in the collection Deleuze and Literature)
*Gerald Bruns’s essay “Becoming Animal: Some Simple Ways” (published first in New Literary History, 2007, 38: 703–720, but also included in his newest book On Ceasing to be Human)
*John Rajchman – The Deleuze Connections
*Alain Badiou – Deleuze: The Clamor of Being
The Case Study Bundle
Five entries to get one thinking about the application of Deleuze’s philosophy:
*David Markson’s Author Quartet (Reader’s Block, This is Not A Novel, Vanishing Point, The Last Novel)
*William Burroughs’s Cut-Up Triptych (The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, Nova Express)
*Jean-Luc Godard’s Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle
*Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica
* Ryan Trecartin – P.opular S.ky (section ish)
http://brainblogger.com/2011/12/15/bibliotherapy-the-healing-power-of-books/
The Beginner’s Guide to Deleuze
Over lunch, Christopher Higgs and I talked about Gilles Deleuze. I was saying how a lot of my friends–Chris, Blake Butler, and Derek White, to name a few–are really into his writing, especially the ginormous book A Thousand Pleateaus, co-written with Felix Guattari. I’ve tried to read it and get into it a few times, and kept putting the book up, scared off by not being able to immediately comprehend the text, not being able to decipher the numerous codes, terms, coinages. Recently, I changed. I picked up A Thousand Pleateaus again and flipped to a random chapter and read. I enjoyed it, and am enjoying it. Like my experience with Finnegans Wake, there are lucid swathes that I feel I understand, and then there are times when it’s packed dense or just orgiastically conceptual and I tune out a bit. But that process of coming in and out of lucidity is nice. Sort of trancelike.
I mentioned asking Chris some questions about Deleuze, his thinking, the books. I’m sort of acquainted with his ideas through the book A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (amazing book!), and what Deleuze I’ve now read. But, let me ask you/Chris some maybe dumb questions.
Firstly: Why should we read Deleuze?
Deleuze is the future. He is almost the now, but not yet. Just out of reach, just over the horizon, he is akin to the force that makes the sky pink after the sun sets and pink again right before the sun rises. He is both pre and post everything, like the feeling before a meal of being famished followed by the feeling after the meal of being stuffed. He does what no other thinker before him could do: he upends Plato, he quiets Hegel, he puts all the little thinkers to bed.
Consider it this way: if we imagine the past as a hallway full of doors marked dualism, binary thinking, either/or, mind/body, transcendence, then Deleuze makes philosophy contemporary by drawing a series of escape hatches on the ceiling of that hallway and marking them multiplicity, schizoid thinking, both/and, non-dialectical materialism, immanence. Deleuze is open, associative, connective. Deleuze is digital, affirmative, productive, innovative. In him, we have a blueprint for navigating the 21st century.
Okay, I better stop there for now. I can get pretty wound up and easily begin sounding like a preacher – I think my wife mentioned to you how I am sort of like a proselytizer for Deleuze.
But to respond to something else you said: I think many readers share your experience of being “scared off by not being able to immediately comprehend the text, not being able to decipher the numerous codes, terms, coinages” when first encountering his work—individually, and with Guattari. It’s a totally valid response, but it’s also a manageable hurdle.
Here’s the trick: do not bother trying to comprehend or understand the text. A desire for that level of control will only hinder your ability to experience it, use it, think it, and become it. To apply an analogy, I do not need to understand or comprehend my car in order for me to experience driving, to use the car to get to the grocery store, to think about the fact that I am sitting motionless while simultaneously moving rapidly through time and space, to become an extension of the car or vice versa. (In this way, Deleuze has really helped me formulate my general approach to all works of literature: I do not care to comprehend them or understand them in any way. I wish instead to experience them and use them and become them.)
Maybe I’m jumping the gun here, but I’ll share this great passage from one of my favorite contemporary thinkers/writers, Steven Shaviro, which serves as a great primer for understanding Deleuze’s approach and also frames an additional answer to your question, Ken, about why we should read Deleuze:
Deleuze’s treatment of the philosophers he writes about is a
complicated one: one that is obscured more than it is explained by
Deleuze’s flippant and notorious comment about impregnating the past
philosopher from behind, in order to produce a monstrous offspring.
Deleuze is always closely attentive to the words, and the concepts, of
the thinkers he is writing about. He quotes them a lot, and paraphrases
their points using their own vocabularies. At the same time, Deleuze
never provides an interpretation of the thinkers he is discussing; he is
uninterested in hermeneutics, uninterested in teasing out ambiguities
and contradictions, uninterested in deconstructing prior thinkers or in
determining ways in which they might be entrenched in metaphysics. All
this is in accord with Deleuze’s own philosophy: his focus is on
invention, on the New, on the “creation of concepts.”
It’s not a matter of saying, for instance, that Plato and Aristotle and St. Augustine were wrong about the nature of time, and Kant or Bergson are right. Rather, what matters to Deleuze is the sheer fact of conceptual invention: the fact that Kant, and then Bergson, invent entirely new ways of conceiving time and temporality, leading to new ways of distributing, classifying, and understanding phenomena, new perspectives on Life and Being. A creation of new concepts means that we see the world in a new way, one that wasn’t available to us before. This is what Deleuze looks for in the history of philosophy, and this is why (and how) he is concerned, not with what a given text “really” means, but rather with what can be done with it, how it can be used, what other problems and other texts it can be brought into conjunction with. Deleuze writes about philosophers whose ideas he can use, or transform, in order to work through the problems he is interested in (full text here).
Like the avant-garde or experimental or innovative artist/writer,
Deleuze is a philosopher of the new. He is all about thinking in new
ways, which seems like a damn fine reason in-and-of-itself to read him,
in my opinion. Of course, that also makes him difficult, which makes
your Finnegans Wake comparison truly apt.It’s not a matter of saying, for instance, that Plato and Aristotle and St. Augustine were wrong about the nature of time, and Kant or Bergson are right. Rather, what matters to Deleuze is the sheer fact of conceptual invention: the fact that Kant, and then Bergson, invent entirely new ways of conceiving time and temporality, leading to new ways of distributing, classifying, and understanding phenomena, new perspectives on Life and Being. A creation of new concepts means that we see the world in a new way, one that wasn’t available to us before. This is what Deleuze looks for in the history of philosophy, and this is why (and how) he is concerned, not with what a given text “really” means, but rather with what can be done with it, how it can be used, what other problems and other texts it can be brought into conjunction with. Deleuze writes about philosophers whose ideas he can use, or transform, in order to work through the problems he is interested in (full text here).
How can we use his philosophy in everyday life? Does he supply new or preferred ways of not only thinking but being? In other words: if I was looking for philosophy to guide me ethically and aesthetically, how does Deleuze show me how to live?
Danger warning! Deleuzian ethics are unconventional in ways that tend to piss people off, especially Marxists!
Prevailing wisdom would suggest that opposition is essential to change. Put in Hegelian terms, a thesis meets its antithesis in order to create a synthesis. Tit for tat. Action is met with reaction. For example, the government or big business or whomever does something you dislike, so you protest. They throw a punch, so you throw a punch. Back and forth. Eventually, this way of thinking tries to convince us, the tides will change. Eventually my punch will be the knockout punch, and those aggressive forces that pushed me to react will meet their doom. (“And the meek shall inherit the earth.”)
This is, unfortunately, a fantasy. Action will always prevail. Reaction will always fail. (Did protest end the war in Vietnam? Did protest stop the war in Iraq? Did protest stop the destruction of collective bargaining in Wisconsin recently? – No. It did not. Why? Because protest is reactive, not active; it is negative rather than affirmative; it assumes the subordinate position “I am against X!” rather than the dominate position “I am for X!”) It is the myth Nietzsche exposes in his groundbreaking and devastating Genealogy of Morals, a book that is central to my understanding of Deleuze’s ethical applicability. For Nietzsche, Deleuze, and myself, direct engagement is a mistake. Diffuse or indirect engagement is preferable. Diagonal rather than horizontal or vertical attack. Non-Euclidean game plans. Rhizome rather than root, molecular rather than molar, dynamic rather than static: reroute the flow of power toward new creative constructions. Think of it like a tug of war: the opposition relies on your engagement, on your antithesis. Without it, they would fall on their butts in the same way a person would fall on their butt if you were playing tug of war and suddenly let go of your end of the rope. By engaging with the opposition you merely serve to validate and empower that opposition. The only form of power one can truly wield is the power of action, of affirmation, of creation. Let go of the rope! You’re tired of going to the grocery store and finding fruits and vegetables from overseas, which have been treated with cancer-causing chemicals? Don’t bother fussing with the management or writing a letter to your congressman…let go of the rope and go build an organic community garden. Action. Creation. Do not be duped into thinking that you can win a battle against the powers that be – they are the powers that be because they took action, because they created something.
This also imbricates Spinoza’s view of ethics, which serves as the other major pillar of my understanding of Deleuze’s ethical applicability. For both thinkers, affirmation engenders creation and negation engenders destruction.
In everyday life, this means reconsidering our actions. It means asking oneself: am I acting or am I reacting? Am I creating or am I destroying? Am I affirming or am I negating?
That sort of speaks to the ethical issue. In terms of the aesthetic, I think Deleuze can help us in everyday life by encouraging us to foreground difference, to find beauty in difference, to seek heterogeneity rather than homogeneity, to focus our desire toward the unfamiliar, the strange, the new. A Deleuzian aesthetic is predicated, at least in part, on change, movement, transformation, repositioning, shifting, flowing, mutating, multiplying, generating, and, of course, magic.
If you could give someone a Deleuze bundle of five items, what would it contain? (It can include anything: any of Deleuze’s books/essays, anything Deleuze writes about often, other texts, other media, a desert root system, etc.)
Wow, tough question. There is so much good stuff out there, so many options. And it really would depend on what angle a person was particularly interested in exploring. Thinking in general terms, here is a bundle of five possible entry points:
An Introductory Bundle
*First, I would give them Deleuze’s book on Nietzsche, because I wholeheartedly agree with Michael Hardt’s opening statement in his Forward to the revised edition: “This book is, in my view, the best introduction to Deleuze’s thought.” (You can read Hardt’s entire Forward here.)
*Second, I would give them Michel Foucault’s critical examination of Deleuze’s first two books of independent philosophy (Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense) called “Theatrum Philosophicum,” which opens with Foucault’s famous statement, “Indeed, these books are so outstanding that they are difficult to discuss; this may explain, as well, why so few have undertaken this task. I believe that these words will continue to revolve about us in enigmatic resonance with those of Klossowski, another major and excessive sign, and perhaps one day, this century will be known as Deleuzian.” (You can read the whole thing here.)
*Third, I would give them the introduction to A Thousand Plateaus, which contains Deleuze & Guattari’s concept of the Rhizome. (You can read the entire introduction here.)
*Fourth, I would give them this lecture on Deleuze by Manuel De Landa, which elaborates lucidly on crucial concepts such as expressivity and morphogenesis.
*And fifth, I would give them Félix Guattari’s book Chaosophy: Texts and Interviews 1972—1977, because one of the most effective ways of familiarizing oneself with Deleuze is by seeing him through the eyes of his longtime collaborator.
As an added bonus, I’ll offer three other useful bundles…
The Background Bundle
Five works to inform, expand, and enhance one’s engagement with Deleuze:
*Baruch Spinoza – Ethics
*Friedrich Nietzsche – On the Genealogy of Morals
*Henri Bergson – Creative Evolution
*Antonin Artaud – The Theatre and Its Double
*James Gleick – Chaos: Making a New Science
The Secondary Bundle
Five works that utilize or otherwise illuminate Deleuze in ways that I have found particularly provocative and/or useful:
*Steven Shaviro – Without Criteria: Kant, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Aesthetics
*Bruce Baugh’s essay “How Deleuze can help us make Literature work” (which has been anthologized in the collection Deleuze and Literature)
*Gerald Bruns’s essay “Becoming Animal: Some Simple Ways” (published first in New Literary History, 2007, 38: 703–720, but also included in his newest book On Ceasing to be Human)
*John Rajchman – The Deleuze Connections
*Alain Badiou – Deleuze: The Clamor of Being
The Case Study Bundle
Five entries to get one thinking about the application of Deleuze’s philosophy:
*David Markson’s Author Quartet (Reader’s Block, This is Not A Novel, Vanishing Point, The Last Novel)
*William Burroughs’s Cut-Up Triptych (The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, Nova Express)
*Jean-Luc Godard’s Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle
*Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica
* Ryan Trecartin – P.opular S.ky (section ish)
Bibliotherapy works best on self-motivated
Bibliotherapy – The Healing Power of Books
A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.In this era of tablets, videogames and virtual reality, it may seem anachronistic for kids to be told that “reading is good for you.” Though there are many ways in which reading can be beneficial for the education of youth, there are other ways in which books can improve our lives.
— Franz Kafka
Bibliotherapy uses books to address a variety of psychological problems. There is a clear initial distinction to be made between the bibliotherapy that uses self-help type books, and the one that tries to heal more indirectly by having people read other types of fiction and non-fiction books, the content of which is expected instigate transformation. Many scientific studies have been carried out since the late seventies which bear testimony to the positive effects of bibliotherapy for mental health.
Books against international students’ depression
A 2010 study targeting Japanese students at American universities showed significant improvements for depression and stress related to living and studying away from Japan after reading an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy self-help book. Scientists concluded that bibliotherapy was responsible for an overall improvement of mental health and psychological flexibility, in the case of Japanese international students.
Bibliotherapy for kids
As early as 1983, Robert Douglas Ray and Donavon D. Lumpkin presented an influential study relating the use of bibliotherapy for kindergarteners. The procedure involved reading by teachers, retelling of stories by the children, and a number of follow-up activities. Researchers measured the effects of bibliotherapy on children’s self concept and reading readiness, and their conclusion was that it had an extremely positive impact on pupil perceptions and achievement.
Another interesting study, also from the 1980s, tried to establish whether bibliotherapy might be used to improve children’s perceptions of disabled individuals. The research findings found that although teachers and students found the reading program useful and enjoyable, it was largely the students who had been most exposed to disabled individuals during their school years had the most positive views about themselves, regardless of whether they had been reading about the topic or not.
Effects on depressed old adults
A 2011 study used bibliotherapy to treat very old adults with subthreshold depression, concluding that there were no significant positive results, and that bibliotherapy might be more effective on highly motivated individuals.
Books for life
Aside from cognitive behavioral uses of bibliotherapy, literary crowds are starting to take these matters into their own hands, on the edges of the scientific world. In London, a group of writers started the School of Life offering bibliotherapy prescriptions tailored to clients’ individual needs. Though this type of bibliotherapy seems to be in fashion, there have been no scientific studies trying to establish whether potential murderers might be deterred by reading Crime and Punishment.
While bibliotherapy seems to hold great potential for treating psychological problems, more modern controlled studies are required, and more specific texts may need to be written in order to establish it as a clear treatment alternative for a variety of psychological problems. In the meantime, although there is no scientific reason to explain it, it might be healthy to just enjoy a good book that breaks those frozen seas inside our soul, as Kafka would have it.
References
Muto T, Hayes SC, & Jeffcoat T (2011). The effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy bibliotherapy for enhancing the psychological health of Japanese college students living abroad. Behavior therapy, 42 (2), 323-35 PMID: 21496516
Joling, K., van Hout, H., van?t Veer-Tazelaar, P., van der Horst, H., Cuijpers, P., van de Ven, P., & van Marwijk, H. (2011). How Effective Is Bibliotherapy for Very Old Adults With Subthreshold Depression? A Randomized Controlled Trial American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 19 (3), 256-265 DOI: 10.1097/JGP.0b013e3181ec8859
Ray, Robert Douglas. The relationship of bibliotherapy, self concept and reading readiness among kindergarten children. Ball State University, 1983.
Agness, Phyllis Jean. Effects of bibliotherapy on fourth and fifth graders’ perceptions of physically disabled individuals. Ball State University, 1980.
Michele Cassou & Stewart Cubley quote
Poetry Is Quote
PDF article on bibliotherapy study
.sll.1923156320120402.1900
Bibliotherapy on Depressed University Students: A Case Study
Tahereh Ahmadipour, Fatimah Avand, Samaneh Mo’menpour
Abstract
Bibliotherapy is an expressive therapy which uses an individual relationship to the content of books and poetry and other written words as therapy. Literature published since 1990 indicates that bibliotherapy has been employed in really every helping profession with every age group. This research aims to introduce this normal inexpensive therapy to people and to show the significance of this kind of therapy for patients who are suffering from depression. What we are going to prove in this research through a case study is that using fairytales, novels and stories in bibliotherapy can help adults to overcome their depression. To get this goal, the therapist used Beck depression inventory (Beck, 1967) to measure the degree of the patients’ depression in a clinic before and after the cure period. The amount of test-takers were 180, and 23 of them participated in the experiment. When the subjects of the research were known - who were those whose grade were more than 25 - the one-month reading process started. The materials which are used are some anecdotes, novels and stories which are carefully chosen by the therapist herself according to the patients’ needs. Then the post-test was given and almost every subject’s score was less than the pre-test. The result was analyzed by the computer software SPSS. So the result is that the amount of improvement in bibliotherapy appears to be comparable to the current treatments such as drug therapy. It is also useful as a complementary therapy to speed the recovery along with conventional therapy. And also literature helps people to have a better understanding of themselves and their surroundings.
FULL TEXT PDF LINK:
http://cscanada.net/index.php/sll/article/view/j.sll.1923156320120402.1900/4144
Must read Adam Phillips
http://www.economist.com/comment/1337420
ON FIRST meeting Adam Phillips, you might not think that he was a
psychoanalyst. His office in Notting Hill is filled with books on every
wall and in stacks on the floor. But instead of therapeutic manuals, you
will find volumes of poetry by J.H. Prynne, Percy Bysshe Shelley and
Geoffrey Hill. The complete “À la recherche du temps perdu” nestles into
the wall. He would not be out of place as a tutor in an Oxford
quad—where he studied English before training as a child psychotherapist
in London.
This eclectic mix of influences is evident in his psychoanalytical work. His books include “On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored” (1993), “On Flirtation” (1995) and “On Balance” (2010). Approaching psychoanalytical ideas through the more oblique lens of literature, they may not cure your neuroses, but they make for an interesting read. He has been running a series at the Lutyens & Rubinstein bookshop, where he speaks with poets about their lives before they read aloud their work. Philip Gross, John Fuller, Adam O'Riordan, Bernard O'Donoghue, John Burnside, Christopher Reid and Jo Shapcott have all taken part.
We spoke to Mr Phillips about poetry as a form of therapy and the perils of reading psychoanalytical criticism.
What do you see as the relationship between psychoanalysis and poetry?
The most obvious link is that they are both linguistic arts. Freud suggests not exactly that we speak in poetry, because poetry has line-endings, but that we potentially speak with the type of incisiveness and ambiguity that we're most used to finding in poetry. So, to put it slightly differently: the reading of poetry would be a very good training for a psychoanalyst.
In the preface to “On Flirtation” you call psychoanalysis a “kind of practical poetry”—can you elaborate on this?
On the one hand, psychoanalysis is practical in the sense that there is an attempt to solve a problem, or to cure somebody, or at least to address their suffering. But the other thing that psychoanalysis does is that the project is to enable somebody to speak. It's the attempt to create the conditions in which somebody can speak themselves as fully as possible.
It is as though Freud invented a setting or a treatment in which people could not exactly speak the poetry that they are, but that they could articulate themselves as fully as they are able. [A session] lasts 50 minutes, and it's always at the same time each week, just like a sonnet is always 14 lines. It's a similar thing. The form makes possible the articulation.
So it's the constraint of poetry that connects it to forms of therapy?
Exactly.
Is it possible to draw an analogy between the bad reputation psychoanalysis can have and the bad reputation poetry can have—that poetry is obscure, that it's difficult?On the one hand it is a question of taste. If people don't like something, they just don't. But when it isn't simply a matter of taste or sensibility I think it is a resistance and a fearfulness. That poetry, rather like music, might move them in ways they would rather not be moved. Or believe they'd rather not be moved. The people who hate psychoanalysis often go on hating it. And I think the reason is that there is something about it they want to keep in touch with. Because it holds something, just as poetry does.
When you speak of poetry making people feel something that they don't necessarily want to feel, like music—are you implying that poetry has a therapeutic use?
I do, I really think it has a use. There is a thing Kafka says in his diaries which is something like “literature is an axe to break the sea frozen inside us”. I think that we are very frightened of the intensity and the excesses of our emotional lives. And that the arts—and if you happen to like poetry, then poetry, but it could also be music—enable you to both bear and get pleasure from your feelings. And also to discover the things that matter most to you. If they engage you, they really engage you, you're not indifferent to them.
One critic has said that he had to reread your books in order to fully understand them. Do you see your prose as something akin to poetry—as an art form that demands close reading?
I think it's true, and it's partially by osmosis—in the sense that people write because they have read, and most of the writers I like have been poets. Though how one writes is a bit of a mystery to oneself. You just do it. My experience is that I sit down and write and I make it sound right to me, or sound good or interesting. And that's it.
Is psychoanalysis stronger as a literary rather than medical pursuit?
I think it's only strong as a literary form, really. I think that the medicalisation of it has sort of killed it.
Can you analyse a poem in the same way that you may analyse a patient?
No, but there are overlaps. The big difference, which is the obvious one, is that the poem can't answer back. You can use things gleaned from psychoanalysis to interpret the poem. But, as you know, loads of psychoanalytical criticism is the most boring thing on earth. You think, why did they write it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/why-talk-therapy
-is-on-the-wane-and-writing-workshops-are-on-the-rise.html?pagewanted=all
(NY Times article says writing groups are replacing traditional therapy.)
This eclectic mix of influences is evident in his psychoanalytical work. His books include “On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored” (1993), “On Flirtation” (1995) and “On Balance” (2010). Approaching psychoanalytical ideas through the more oblique lens of literature, they may not cure your neuroses, but they make for an interesting read. He has been running a series at the Lutyens & Rubinstein bookshop, where he speaks with poets about their lives before they read aloud their work. Philip Gross, John Fuller, Adam O'Riordan, Bernard O'Donoghue, John Burnside, Christopher Reid and Jo Shapcott have all taken part.
We spoke to Mr Phillips about poetry as a form of therapy and the perils of reading psychoanalytical criticism.
What do you see as the relationship between psychoanalysis and poetry?
The most obvious link is that they are both linguistic arts. Freud suggests not exactly that we speak in poetry, because poetry has line-endings, but that we potentially speak with the type of incisiveness and ambiguity that we're most used to finding in poetry. So, to put it slightly differently: the reading of poetry would be a very good training for a psychoanalyst.
In the preface to “On Flirtation” you call psychoanalysis a “kind of practical poetry”—can you elaborate on this?
On the one hand, psychoanalysis is practical in the sense that there is an attempt to solve a problem, or to cure somebody, or at least to address their suffering. But the other thing that psychoanalysis does is that the project is to enable somebody to speak. It's the attempt to create the conditions in which somebody can speak themselves as fully as possible.
It is as though Freud invented a setting or a treatment in which people could not exactly speak the poetry that they are, but that they could articulate themselves as fully as they are able. [A session] lasts 50 minutes, and it's always at the same time each week, just like a sonnet is always 14 lines. It's a similar thing. The form makes possible the articulation.
So it's the constraint of poetry that connects it to forms of therapy?
Exactly.
Is it possible to draw an analogy between the bad reputation psychoanalysis can have and the bad reputation poetry can have—that poetry is obscure, that it's difficult?On the one hand it is a question of taste. If people don't like something, they just don't. But when it isn't simply a matter of taste or sensibility I think it is a resistance and a fearfulness. That poetry, rather like music, might move them in ways they would rather not be moved. Or believe they'd rather not be moved. The people who hate psychoanalysis often go on hating it. And I think the reason is that there is something about it they want to keep in touch with. Because it holds something, just as poetry does.
When you speak of poetry making people feel something that they don't necessarily want to feel, like music—are you implying that poetry has a therapeutic use?
I do, I really think it has a use. There is a thing Kafka says in his diaries which is something like “literature is an axe to break the sea frozen inside us”. I think that we are very frightened of the intensity and the excesses of our emotional lives. And that the arts—and if you happen to like poetry, then poetry, but it could also be music—enable you to both bear and get pleasure from your feelings. And also to discover the things that matter most to you. If they engage you, they really engage you, you're not indifferent to them.
One critic has said that he had to reread your books in order to fully understand them. Do you see your prose as something akin to poetry—as an art form that demands close reading?
I think it's true, and it's partially by osmosis—in the sense that people write because they have read, and most of the writers I like have been poets. Though how one writes is a bit of a mystery to oneself. You just do it. My experience is that I sit down and write and I make it sound right to me, or sound good or interesting. And that's it.
Is psychoanalysis stronger as a literary rather than medical pursuit?
I think it's only strong as a literary form, really. I think that the medicalisation of it has sort of killed it.
Can you analyse a poem in the same way that you may analyse a patient?
No, but there are overlaps. The big difference, which is the obvious one, is that the poem can't answer back. You can use things gleaned from psychoanalysis to interpret the poem. But, as you know, loads of psychoanalytical criticism is the most boring thing on earth. You think, why did they write it?
Emotional communion provided by literature
-is-on-the-wane-and-writing-workshops-are-on-the-rise.html?pagewanted=all
(NY Times article says writing groups are replacing traditional therapy.)
By STEVE ALMOND
Why Talk Therapy Is on the Wane and Writing Workshops Are on the Rise
1. In Which the Author Reveals a Scandalous Motive for Attending Grad School
When people ask why I became a writer, I tend to emphasize the era, in
my mid-20s, when I turned off the television and became a more serious
reader. I talk about the sentences of Saul Bellow and Lorrie Moore, how
enraptured I was, how I wanted to emulate them. It makes for a nice
story.
But it’s not the part of the story that really matters. What really
matters, it seems to me now, is that I was bored with my job as a
newspaper reporter and depressed. I was living in exile from my family
and driving away the people I loved with an astonishing efficiency. What
I needed was therapy. As it happened, I applied for a Master of Fine
Arts in fiction.
Most of my comrades arrived in similar states of disrepair. We did our
best to conceal the worst of it, to play the part of eager newbies
grateful for the opportunity to hone what we referred to majestically as
“our craft.” But the crazy inevitably surfaced, under the aegis of
booze or pot or some brisker narcotic. After parties, we stumbled into
the night howling songs of loneliness and sorrow. At least I did.
Around the workshop table, our instructors urged us to focus on
technique: point of view, sentence structure, show don’t tell. We were
permitted to discuss the suspiciously familiar afflictions of our
characters, but to probe too vigorously into psychology was to invoke
the cardinal rule of workshop: writing is not therapy.
This made sense to me. As the child of two therapists, I knew the
process well enough by then. My sessions were tedious affairs, thick
with self-pity and grievance — the trademarks of the young solipsist.
I figured I had gone into the literary racket because I had urgent and
profound things to say about the world and because I was a deeply
creative person. But looking back, I can see that the instigating
impulse for me, for all of us really, was therapeutic. We were writing
to confront what Faulkner called “the human heart in conflict with
itself.” And not just any hearts. Our hearts.
2. A Theory More or Less Guaranteed to Rankle Therapist and Writer Alike
A generation ago, when “Annie Hall” won the Oscar for Best Picture, talk
therapy occupied a prominent place in our collective imagination,
whether or not you partook. If you wanted to spend several hours a week
baring your soul to a stranger who was professionally obligated to
listen and react, you went into therapy. Today you join a writing
workshop.
Plenty of folks still seek therapy, of course, including writers. And
not all of us are damaged individuals who write to work out our neurotic
conflicts. (I’m sure there are plenty of well-adjusted authors, even if
I have never actually met one.) What I’m suggesting isn’t a
correlation, so much as a broader cultural shift — that literary
endeavor has supplanted therapy as our dominant mode of personal
investigation.
The waning of psychotherapy has clear roots in the rise of
psychopharmacology. Drug companies have been hard at work over the past
three decades, marketing meds to troubleshoot our faulty brain
chemistry. As managed care has compelled more and more psychiatrists to
trade their notebooks for prescription pads, the classic image of the
patient on the couch has been replaced by a man with a pill in his palm.
The ascent of creative-writing, particularly in an age dominated by the
impatient pursuit of visual stimulation, might seem harder to explain.
But my sense is that people remain desperate for the emotional communion
provided by literature.
Consider this: Back when I started writing fiction in the early ’90s,
there were a few dozen M.F.A. programs in the entire country. I had no
idea the degree existed — and I was an English major from a liberal-arts
college. Today, there are nearly 200 such programs, along with more
than 600 other undergraduate and graduate degrees in creative writing.
Thousands of people attend literary conferences and take courses at
writing centers. The Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ annual
conference, once a lowly gathering of faculty from 13 member colleges,
has grown into a kind of sprawling four-day trade show that plays host
to more than 10,000 writers, editors and aspirants.
Over the past few years, I’ve visited dozens of these programs and
conferences. I’ve met hundreds of students and talked with them about
their work. Some are young college grads hot to become the next Dave
Eggers. Others are grandmas hoping to document or embellish some bit of
personal history. In each case, what strikes me aren’t the particulars —
age, attitude, ambitions — so much as their essential motive. What they
really want isn’t fame or fortune but permission to articulate feelings
that were somehow off limits within the fragile habitat of their
families. They are hoping to find, by means of literary art, braver and
more-forgiving versions of themselves.
I think now of the student I met last year, a beautiful, nervous young
woman of Caribbean descent who had written a comic essay about the
grueling ritual of straightening her hair. Despite her breezy tone,
glints of despair kept showing through, particularly in those passages
when it became clear that her immigrant parents enforced this
humiliation.
“It sounds like there was a lot of pressure on you to be perfect,” I said.
The woman, whom I met only a few minutes earlier, began to weep in quiet convulsions.
It is at this point that I can hear the phantom convulsions of my
literary comrades. “Damn it, Almond,” they’re saying. “You really are
making workshops sound like therapy.” Fair enough. The official job of a
workshop is to help a writer improve her prose, not her psyche. But
this task almost always involves a direct engagement with her inner
life, as well as a demand for greater empathy and disclosure. These
goals are fundamentally therapeutic.
What’s more, the workshop is (or should be) only one small part of a
larger creative process that involves reading, reflection and writing.
It is this solitary work that marks the writer’s most sustained
investigation of the self.
As much as we like to indulge in this fantasy, authors don’t create
anything out of whole cloth. Like the patient on the analytic sofa, we
fixate on particular stories and characters and themes because they
speak to the fears and desires hidden within us. Our inventions
inevitably take the form of veiled confessions.
J. D. Salinger didn’t write “The Catcher in the Rye” because he suffered
a nervous breakdown after the death of his little brother. But he did
conjure Holden Caulfield from the deepest part of himself, as a means of
wrestling with his own anxieties about loss, madness, and the cruel
deceptions of the adult world.
The beauty of the artistic unconscious is that it allows us to sneak up
on our own intentions or to disguise them altogether. A few months
before the end of Kurt Vonnegut’s life, a fan asked him to identify his
central topic. As the author of 14 wildly inventive novels, Vonnegut
might have cited the perils of technology or the corrosive effects of
wealth or the moral tolls of war. Instead, he said this: “I write again
and again about my family.”
3. The Internet Enters Our Story
Back in the old days, the Internet was billed, rather quaintly, as an
“information superhighway” that would ease the exchange of data and
ideas. As anyone with a smartphone knows, at this point it functions
more frequently as the world headquarters of narcissistic recreation, a
place people prowl when they’re feeling lonely and restless and
unrecognized. The central innovation of the social media has been to
offer a public forum for our private lives. The Midwestern wife who once
devoutly guarded the intimacies of her kin, now posts essays about them
on her blog and tracks her hit count.
But the Internet, while it might excite the desire for creative
self-expression and sudden acclaim, does little to slake our deeper
yearnings. What we want in our heart of hearts is not distraction but
just the opposite, the chance to experience what Saul Bellow called “the
arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.” We want to be heard
and acknowledged. It’s the difference between someone “liking” our
latest Facebook update versus agreeing to listen to our story, the whole
bloody thing, even and especially when it runs up against bruising
revelations.
For those with the means, therapy used to serve this function. But it
did so in a covert and stigmatized fashion. Creative-writing programs
represent a return to the ancient pleasures and virtues of storytelling,
a chance to break the frantic cycle of screen addiction. Students join a
flesh-and-blood community of writers, readers and critics, all of whom
have chosen the rigors of narrative over the emotional fragmentation of
the digital age. They receive professional guidance, and the possibility
exists, however gossamer, that they will mature into genuine artists.
Try finding that online.
4. A Word in Defense of the Writing Cure
It’s become something of a trope for critics to grouse about the
creative-writing boom, particularly those critics who cling to the
Hemingway model: that artists should be forged by the fires of “real
life,” not trained in academies. It’s certainly true that the modern
literary landscape can feel, from the inside, like an elaborate Ponzi
scheme in which naïve acolytes subsidize the careers of their betters.
I recently began leading a new workshop composed of students in their
50s and 60s. All have children and busy careers. And I sometimes wonder,
as I look around the room, why at this late stage they’ve chosen to
write at all. I fear that perhaps I’m giving them false hope. But it’s
hard for me to remain cynical when I think about their motives. What
they’re seeking is exactly what I wanted: the refuge of stories, which
remain the most reliable paths to meaning ever devised by our species.
A few weeks ago, we critiqued a novel excerpt about a trio of fractious
sisters who travel to a family reunion in the country of their birth.
The author was prone to comma splices and garbled exposition. But I
spent most of class gently suggesting that she work to expose the
dynamics roiling beneath the family bickering. Afterward, she told me
she was grateful the class had discerned what the piece was really
about. She paused, shifting from one foot to the other. “It’s tough with
my sisters. There was a lot of unhappiness.”
I have no idea whether my student will do the lonely, dogged labor
necessary to get her novel published. I’m not sure that’s what matters
in the end. What matters is that she and her comrades have found a way
to face the toughest truths within themselves, to begin to make sense of
them, and maybe even beauty. In a world that feels increasingly
impersonal and atomized, I can’t think of a more thrilling mission.