Bibliotherapy: The Use of Books in Psychiatric Treatment^*

Abstract

The guided use of selected books as an adjunct to treatment is applicable to patients in all stages of life and with a variety of problems. This paper describes the authors' experience using books as an adjunct to therapy with psychiatric patients. The authors define the term, review the literature, and set out the objectives of bibliotherapy. The paper presents some principles to follow when assigning books, and examples of books used for common problems. Finally, examples are given of bibliotherapy in action at two Ontario hospitals, and some future directions are suggested.

Bibliotherapy for mental health service users Part 1: a systematic review

“…Many survey and ‘case study’ report articles have been published by practitioners and clinical advocates of bibliotherapy recommending its use and providing examples of best practice, for example, Adams & Pitre, 62 Anstett & Poole, 63 Campbell & Smith, 64 Cohen, 65,66 Frude, 67–69 Goldstein, 70 Gottschalk, 71 Gusich, 72 Katz & Watt, 73 Lanza, 74 and Myers 75 . Floyd 76 reviewed bibliotherapy (reading a self‐help book) as an adjunct to psychotherapy, McKendree‐Smith, Floyd & Scogin 77 summarized the use of bibliotherapy in depression, and indicated future developments in computer‐based treatments.…”

Bibliotherapy and information prescriptions: a summary of the published evidence‐base and recommendations from past and ongoing Books on Prescription projects

“…Bibliotherapy has been described as ‘the guided use of reading, always with a therapeutic outcome in mind’ (Katz & Watt 1992). The term information prescription is newer than Bibliotherapy but generally refers to the provision of a prescription of information from a clinician to a patient in any format (hardcopy or electronic).…”

Reading and recovery expectations: Implementing a recovery-oriented bibliotherapy program in an acute inpatient psychiatric setting.

“…While meta-analyses by Marrs (1995) and Gualano et al (2017) both found evidence that bibliotherapy can be effective, both focused on studies examining the impact of self-help books on specific problem behaviors, not on the reading of autobiographies. There are several descriptive accounts in the literature of reading groups on inpatient psychiatric units that seem similar to the intervention described here (see Katz & Watt, 1992;Inglis, 1993;and Elser, 1982), but none report the use of objective measures or control groups. There is a need for a study that utilizes a control group and standardized outcome measurements to assess the potential benefits of literature as a means for healing.…”