How bibliotherapy changes the brain

The process of bibliotherapy, including reading, writing about what was read, discussing the book, and trying to live out those ideas, causes changes in the brain.

Teachers know that the more engaged students are, the more they learn. It’s the same with an individual child involved in bibliotherapy. According to Dr. James E. Zull, professor of biology and of biochemistry, learning that engages all parts of the brain causes more learning to occur. Dr. Zull describes the cognitive or cerebral cortex parts of the brain into: getting information, making meaning of the information, creating new ideas based on the information, and acting on the information.

In bibliotherapy, children are employing various aspects of their brain, thus learning by engaging all of their brain. In addition, bibliotherapy helps a child’s learning because it pushes the child to figure things out for themselves. Rather than explaining things, the use of stories, metaphors, analogies, and demonstration are what help students to learn (Zull, 2004).

So, change a child’s perception of themselves and their world by giving them bibliotherapy projects. Have them read a book, story or poem; write about what they read; discuss what they read; and put that information into practice in their daily life. You just might help a child to heal from their emotional wounds.

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Zull, James E., The Art of Changing the Brain, Educational Leadership, 2004. Retrieved from http://coe.winthrop.edu/marchelc/Brain%20Development/brain%20pages/aarticles/
the_art_of_changing_the_brain.pdf

Bibliotherapy definition

Bibliotherapy definition:

“Integrating reading, writing, and drawing to address and attend to emotional issues and personal challenges.” -Susan Ward

It’s not just reading books, but responding to them through the creation of prose, poetry, stories, and drawings, usually in the form of a journal. The creative work may be followed by discussion, thought, prayer, or meditation, weaving these new insights into one’s worldview.

Other, more traditional definitions of bibliotherapy state:

-Bibliotherapy is an expressive therapy that uses an individual’s relationship to the content of books and poetry and other written words as therapy (Wikipedia)

-The use of reading materials for help in solving prersonal problems or for psychiatric therapy (Merriam-Webster)

-The use of books (usually self-help or problem-solving works) to improve one’s understanding of personal problems and/or to heal painful feelings (Gale Encyclopedia of Medical Terms)

My definition, which moves beyond reading to include creating a journal, encompases the early Greek meaning of the word bibliography which mean to copy books by hand, and the later 12th century use of the word which meant the intellectural process of composing books (Bibliography: An Inquiry into It’s Definition and Designations by Rudolf Blum). Also, the original Greek word for therapy, therapeia, meant to care for or attend to.

In many ways, my process of bibliotherapy expands biblio- and therapy to include self (auto-), writing (graph-), and study (-ology). I guess you could say I advocate therapeutic auto-biblio-graph-ology or, a therapeutic self study using books and writing. But, until autobibliographology catches on, I’ll keep calling it bibliotherapy plus!