This morning I ran across a BBC article about bibliotherapy that raised my eyebrow because the idea of learning things like social behaviors, coping mechanisms, etc. from books was something I’d just … always taken for granted. So I was a little taken aback to learn that not everybody assumes this is one of a number of useful side-effects of reading….
Admittedly, I’ve been an avid reader since childhood. I read so much, in fact, that it’s a little embarrassing to admit, so when talk turns to how many books people have read in the last month or year, I generally brush it off with, “well, reading is my superpower” because, I mean … I wouldn’t be able to guess.
Naturally, reading so much has left deep impressions on me. And sure, some have been negative. For example, when I was a child, reading fiction written primarily from the 1940s to 1970s taught me that only boys could be adventurous heroes, and girls were annoying nuisances at best and damsels in distress at worse. (Or, more often, simply nonexistent). Because I hadn’t been assigned male at birth, I knew I’d have to be twice as stoic, independent, and self-reliant as any boy if I wanted to be a brave hero like the characters I was reading about. That left me some psychological issues to confront over the years.
But other effects have been more positive. Reading fiction written by people from different cultures and countries, of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, with different sexual orientations, from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and so on has helped, and still helps, me appreciate diversity and consider different perspectives on things I might otherwise never think twice about. And yes, sometimes reading fiction helps me escape my day-to-day stressors or manage a bad mood, both of which I also consider positives.
There’s nothing new about the idea that reading books is therapeutic; “The Healing Place of the Soul” was inscribed over the library of Thebes, circa 300 BCE, and in the 1800s, books were offered to patients in U.S. mental institutions as part of their therapeutic regimen, a practice that spread to England and Europe. The term bibliotherapy was coined 100 years ago, in 1916.
Research indicates that reading books as self-therapy can be useful, especially against depression. Unfortunately, book-reading has been on the decline in the U.S. and the U.K. for the past 20 years, something I have definitely noticed in the college classroom. But maybe things will improve with the recent uptick in interest in reading — #BookTok seems to be making a difference, as is the younger generation’s move toward “analog life” as a way to escape the ubiquitous screen (I write, on a screen, to be read on a screen….). I hope so! For one thing, I want to be able to talk about books with more people I meet….
So — read widely, read books by authors who are different from you, read fiction, read nonfiction, read on paper, read on a screen, read to learn, read to escape, read to mood-manage … just read. It’s good for you.