Biblio*Therapy

What is Bibliotherapy?

Biblio: book

therapy: healing

Bibliotherapy is a technique that can be employed to help navigate life's challenges at any age, but is an especially helpful tool when working with children and young adults.

Every Friday we will be sharing bibliotherapy for parents, bibliotherapy for therapists, and bibliotherapy for the community at large. My dream is that it can be a space where we can collaborate as we continue to build our own libraries and learn how to use books for emotional growth and as a mental health strategy!

Build your family’s emotional library—discover stories that help children understand their feelings and grow through life’s challenges. Photo by Aleksei Ieshkin on Unsplash

Simply put, bibliotherapy introduces important, and oftentimes difficult themes from a safe distance. As we engage in the process of understanding a problem and discovering solutions through the lens of a book, we develop the ability to then generalize those same solution-oriented skills to our own struggles.

Reading develops emotional and mental strength that other therapy tools for kids and adults cannot replicate. For example, watching a movie made from a book is a different experience than reading the book itself. When we watch a movie we surrender our own creative interpretation of the story to that of the filmmaker; we are removed from the potential of creating an otherwise deep and personal relationship with characters and events that are depicted with written words and animated by our own imagination.

This blog will include book themes and age group recommendations. Please comment, share your own insights, and make recommendations for more resources as frequently as possible!

One book at bedtime can open the door to healing conversations. Try bibliotherapy with your child—it starts with a story. Photo by Jernej Graj on Unsplash