Bibliotherapy is an expressive therapy that involves the reading of specific texts with the purpose of

healing. It uses an individual's relationship to the content of books and poetry and other written
words as therapy. Bibliotherapy is often combined with writing therapy. It has been shown to be
effective in the treatment of depression.[1] These results have been shown to be long-lasting.

History[edit]
Bibliotherapy is an old concept in library science. According to the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus,
in his monumental work Bibliotheca historica, there was a phrase above the entrance to the royal
chamber where books were stored by King Ramses II of Egypt. Considered to be the oldest known
library motto in the world, it read: House of Healing for the Soul.[citation needed] This should come as no
surprise to bibliophiles that books were thought as salubrious even in Ancient Egypt. Galen, the
extraordinary philosopher and physician to Marcus Aurelius of Rome, maintained a medical library in
the first century A.D., used not only by himself but by the staff of the Sanctuary Asclepion, a Roman
spa famous for its therapeutic waters and considered to be one of the first hospital centers in the
world.[3] As far back as 1272, the Koran was prescribed reading in the Al-Mansur Hospital in Cairo as
medical treatment.[4]
In the early nineteenth century, Dr. Benjamin Rush favored the use of literature in hospitals for both
the amusement and instruction of patients.

[5]

By the middle of the century, Dr. Minson Galt II, wrote

on the uses of bibliotherapy in mental institutions, and by 1900 libraries were an important part of
European psychiatric institutions.
After the term bibliotherapy was coined by Samuel Crothers in an August 1916 Atlantic
Monthly article, it eventually found its way into the medical lexicon. [6] By the 1920s there were training
programs in bibliotherapy. One of the first to offer such training was the School of Library Science at
Western Reserve University followed by a program at the University of Minnesota School of
Medicine.[5] Hospital librarians were at the forefront of bibliotherapy techniques. E. Kathleen Jones,
the editor of the book series Hospital Libraries, was the library administrator for the McLean Hospital
in Massachusetts. This influential work was first published in 1923, and then updated in 1939, and
then 1953. Pioneer librarian Sadie Peterson Delaney used bibliotherapy in her work at the VA
Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama from 1924 to her death in 1958. Elizabeth Pomeroy, director of the
Veterans Administration Library Service, published the results of her research in 1937 on the efficacy
of bibliotherapy at VA hospitals.[5] The United Kingdom, beginning in the 1930s, also began to show
growth in the use in of reading therapy in hospital libraries. Charles Hagberg-Wright, librarian of the
London Library, speaking at the 1930 British Empire Red Cross Conference, spoke about the
importance of bibliotherapy as part of curative medicine in hospitals. In addition, reports from the
1930 Public Health Conference about bibliotherapy were included in the British journal Lancet. [7]
With hospitals taking the lead, bibliotherapy principles and practice developed in the United States.
In the United Kingdom, it should be noted, some felt that bibliotherapy lagged behind the US and
Joyce Coates, writing in the Library Association Record, felt that the possibilities of bibliotherapy
have yet to be fully explored .[7] In 1966, the Association of Hospital and Institution Libraries, a

division of the American Library Association, issued a working definition of bibliotherapy in

recognition of its growing influence. Then in the 1970s, Arleen McCarty Hynes, a proponent for the
use of bibliotherapy, created the Bibliotherapy Round Table which sponsored lectures and
publication dedicated to the practice.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotherapy