Bibliotherapy: “Do books have the power to heal us?”

Here is a great CBC article and link to a recent Ideas podcast on bibliotherapy.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/bibliotherapy-health-1.7577698

While I love this idea, it does make me feel a bit old. When I was growing up before personal computers and the internet in the 1970s and ’80s, “bibliotherapy” was life, it was just the norm. Physical books filled my world and by the time I graduated high school I had probably read several thousand picture books, comics, and novels. The same cannot be said for my own children…sigh. A history of reading alongside mental wellness and self-consciousness is worthy of considerably more scholarly study. Will add that to my ‘after PhD to-do list’.

Author: Pia Russell

Pia Russell is a librarian and historian at UVic. Pia works in Special Collections and University Archives, the Department of History, and the Faculty of Education.