“One sheds one’s sicknesses in books – repeats and presents again one’s emotions, to be master of them.” DH Lawrence, The Letters of DH Lawrence
Bibliotherapy dates back to ancient times when libraries were seen as sacred places where answers and healing could be found. This session explores reading as an active strategy to help clients cope with life’s challenges, looking at the wider and deeper ways in which fiction and non-fiction can ‘find’ people, emotionally and imaginatively, and help sustain them during period of grief and loss.
Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event
- An understanding of the key principles of Bibliotherapy and how to apply them to moments of grief and loss. We will look at various strategies including the role of books ‘on prescription’, responding to our reading through therapeutic writing and making use of a practical, interactive approach with clients.
- The experience of using literature as an art therapy and as form of remedy and healing when dealing with loss and grief.
- As a powerful tool for a facilitator to support individuals.
Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?
- Therapists and educators interested in integrating Bibliotherapy into their practice.
How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?
- This workshop will provide a theoretical and practical context to Bibliotherapy and reading for wellbeing and show how it can be integrated into our work
Course Content
Presenter
Nicole Moody has worked as an instructor and facilitator since 2008, teaching a range of courses to American undergraduate students. Partly as a response to the pandemic, Nicole designed, developed and delivered a new course: “Bibliotherapy – The Art of Reading for Wellbeing”. The course explores the way reading can be used as a tool towards improving the quality of our everyday lives, aiding the enhancement of self-esteem, interpersonal relationships, and emotional granularity. She has delivered webinars on Bibliotherapy and is an experienced facilitator who has run Reading for Wellbeing and Therapeutic Writing workshops. She has spoken in schools, book shops and charities and runs a regular “Reading for Wellbeing course” at her local independent bookstore, Books on the Hill in St Albans.
