The basic premise of bibliotherapy is that information, guidance, wellbeing and solace can be found through reading. This book draws on the latest international practical and theoretical developments in bibliotherapy to explore how librarians, healthcare providers and arts organizations can best support the health and wellbeing of their communities. There is no standard approach to bibliotherapy. This book considers how different theories apply to different types of bibliotherapy, using case studies to illustrate how particular approaches can be used across a broad range of settings and with a variety of user groups. By focusing on the theoretical basis and history of bibliotherapy, as well as current practice, it helps to identify areas in which bibliotherapy could grow as a field of study and of practice. Bibliotherapy programmes using books to support good mental health are found around the world. The editors and their contributors present examples from public libraries, academic libraries and healthcare settings internationally - including the UK, North and South America, and Australasia. Collaboration and diversity are key themes: engaging in bibliotherapy offers librarians key opportunities to collaborate with partners outside the profession, while engaging with more diverse audiences. The book will be of interest not only to researchers and theorists, but equally to those managing bibliotherapy programmes in health, public and academic libraries. It will also be very useful for healthcare providers and those with an interest in wellbeing more generally.

Literature and Therapy: A Systemic View is an invitation to the world of literature, drawing us into the creative and imaginative spaces which lie between readers and their choice of novels, plays and poems. In this world, the fundamental importance of emotion and intuition is recognised, as is the power of literature to promote transformations of meaning in every day life and in therapeutic practice. Its potential to contribute depth and diversity to therapists' personal/professional development is explored via literary reflections and qualitative research findings. The author defines the terms literature and therapy broadly, emphasising their mutual relevance in contemporary and historical contexts, acknowledging the richness of literary resources and signposting accessible routes to their use in clinical practice. A systemic view, highlighting relationships, calls to the reader to explore both therapy and literature with fresh eyes, newly motivated thoughts and a lightening heart.

Why do Americans read contemporary fiction? This question seems simple, but is it? Do Americans read for the purpose of aesthetic appreciation? To satisfy their own insatiable intellectual curiosities? While other forms of media have come to monopolize consumers' leisure time, in the past two decades book clubs have proliferated, Amazon has sponsored thriving online discussions, Oprah Winfrey has inspired millions of viewers to read both contemporary works and classics, and novels have retained their devoted following within middlebrow communities.   In Reading as Therapy, Timothy Aubry argues that contemporary fiction serves primarily as a therapeutic tool for lonely, dissatisfied middle-class American readers, one that validates their own private dysfunctions while supporting elusive communities of strangers unified by shared feelings. Aubry persuasively makes the case that contemporary literature's persistent appeal depends upon its capacity to perform a therapeutic function.   Aubry traces the growth and proliferation of psychological concepts focused on the subjective interior within mainstream, middle-class society and the impact this has had on contemporary fiction. The prevailing tendency among academic critics has been to decry the personal emphasis of contemporary fiction as complicit with the rise of a narcissistic culture, the ascendency of liberal individualism, and the breakdown of public life. Reading as Therapy, by contrast, underscores the varied ideological effects that therapeutic culture can foster.   To uncover the many unpredictable ways in which contemporary literature answers the psychological needs of its readers, Aubry considers several different venues of reader-response--including Oprah's Book Club and Amazon customer reviews--the promotional strategies of publishing houses, and a variety of contemporary texts, ranging from Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner to Anita Shreve's The Pilot's Wife to David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. He concludes that, in the face of an atomistic social landscape, contemporary fiction gives readers a therapeutic vocabulary that both reinforces the private sphere and creates surprising forms of sympathy and solidarity among strangers.

Proust was an invaluable authority on how to live a richer, happier and more successful life. Although Proust was rarely happy himself, this study shows the benefits he can bring to our lives.

Alain de Botton takes everyday concerns - such as expressing sadness or being romantic - and dispenses advice and observations based on the works of some of history's greatest writers, artists and thinkers.

One of the most influential voices in modern philosophy - the author of The Course of Love, Religion for Atheists, The Art of Travel and The School of Life. Alain de Botton presents a one-stop shop for solving the problems of everyday life through the wisdom of history's great philosophers. Alain de Botton has set six of the finest minds in the history of philosophy to work on the problems of everyday life. Find out what Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche would say about the things that bother us all the most: lack of money, the pain of love, inadequacy, anxiety, the fear of failure and the pressure to conform.