Five Ways Homeschoolers Can Benefit From Bibliotherapy
What Is Bibliotherapy?
What exactly is bibliotherapy and how do we use it? Bibliotherapy is another tool for our homeschooling, parenting, and wellness toolbox.
If bibliophiles are lovers of books, I’ll bet you can guess what bibliotherapy is!
You nailed it! Using books as a medium to help facilitate the healing process in therapy.
Bibliotherapy is a form of creative arts therapy that uses literature to help you improve your life by providing information, support, and guidance through reading books and stories. Books and other written material can influence human emotions and provide wisdom, emotional connection, insight, and comfort.
Bibliotherapy: Definition, Types, Techniques, and Efficacy (verywellmind.com)
To learn more about how bibliotherapy can benefit you in your homeschool, check out our blog post here.
Benefits of Bibliotherapy For Homeschoolers
Emotional Benefits – Practicing bibliotherapy can help bring about positive change, such as a reduction in negative patterns of thinking which can in turn impact how we feel.
How we think impacts how we feel and also what we do! (The reverse is also true.) Feelings have a function. Actually, they have four: Protection, Bonding, Communication, and Response. (For a more in-depth discussion of the purpose of feelings check out our blog post here.)
Increasing one’s understanding, awareness of and ability to manage one’s emotions, as well as being able to recognize and respond appropriately to the emotions of others, is a concept known as emotional intelligence. High levels of emotional intelligence are associated with greater overall happiness.
Cognitive Benefits – Storytelling is one of our oldest traditions. Even before the written word, oral histories were passed down from generation to generation. We are wired for stories. Stories are how we learn to relate to one another.
Bibliotherapy is sometimes referred to as therapeutic storytelling. When readers identify with characters in a book that face similar challenges or experiences as their own, it helps build empathy, compassion, self-compassion, awareness, and insight – all of which are conducive to healing.
Mental and Physical Health – Bibliotherapy is a form of creative arts therapy much like music or art therapy. In a therapeutic setting, bibliotherapy can be effective as a means to help a client work through their presenting problem (i.e., the reason a client seeks therapy) to resolution.
Outside of the therapy office, books can help us process difficult experiences or life changes such as divorce, moving, or grief and loss. It can also help children and adolescents understand what is going on inside their developing brains or bodies as a supplement to a health curriculum (i.e., developmental bibliotherapy)
Versatile – Both nonfiction and fiction materials can be used. Board books, picture books, biographies or memoirs, historical fiction, YA, you name it. Bibliotherapy can be used in an individual setting or with groups. Creative bibliotherapy often takes place in a group setting and utilizes stories, poems, and fiction.
Cost-Effective/Accessibile – Bibliotherapy as a medium is accessible for nearly everyone. Even nonreaders can benefit from audiobooks or having the material read to them.
Costs for materials are typically relatively low due to the availability of gently used materials online and in used bookstores. Books can be traded or borrowed. Public libraries are available in most urban and suburban areas or have digital access for rural areas. My neighborhood has several mini-libraries where patrons in our community share in lending and donating gently used reading material for all to use.
My Family’s Experience With Bibliotherapy
To learn more about how I have used bibliotherapy as a professional therapist and a homeschooling mom, check out my blog post here.
HCN’s Bibliotherapy Book Club
Did you know HCN has its own Bibliotherapy Book Club? Click here to learn more.
Want to delve deeper into the world of bibliotherapy within the comfort of community? Consider joining our private Facebook group.
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Blessings,
Kimberly Bennett, LPC
Founder/CEO It’s Only Homeschooling
Founder/CEO The Homeschool Counseling Network
This website is not a professional counseling website and nothing here should be construed as professional counseling advice. Although Kimberly Bennett, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor, she is not your counselor, and no counselor-client relationship is established unless she has signed an agreement with you. All information provided through this website is for informational and educational purposes only.
