Voicenotes from Me, Your Resident Bibliotherapist
How Effective is Bibliotherapy? Podcast + Transcript
PODCAST
Listen to the podcast episode here.
TRANSCRIPT
In today’s voicenote from me, I wanted to focus on whether bibliotherapy is effective and what is the evidence for it?
So just to recap, what is bibliotherapy?
Bibliotherapy is the use of books and reading materials as a therapeutic tool to address mental health issues. Its main advantages are ease of use, low cost, low staffing demands, and greater privacy. If you’d like to learn more about bibliotherapy them Book Therapy’s online Bibliotherapy, Literature and Mental Health course takes you on a step-by-step course to show you how bibliotherapy works, the various tools and techniques available, how it serves as an adjunct to psychotherapy and counselling, why it supports cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), resources and book recommendations available, plus tonnes more.
In terms of whether bibliotherapy is effective let’s look at the evidence for it.
The effectiveness of bibliotherapy can depend on various factors, such as the individual's specific needs and the quality of the reading material used. However, research suggests that bibliotherapy can be effective in treating a range of mental health conditions.
Effectiveness of Bibliotherapy for Depression & Anxiety in Adults
A meta-analysis published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in 2015 reviewed 29 studies that used bibliotherapy for the standalone treatment of depression in adults across 2,061 adults. The analysis found that bibliotherapy was showed a significant reduction in depression on a standalone basis and was