Bibliotherapy Use by Welfare Teams in Secondary Colleges

Y

11

Foreign Countries; Bibliotherapy; Secondary Schools; Urban Areas; Adolescents; Chronic Illness; Reader Text Relationship; Health Promotion; Teamwork; School Nurses; Social Services; Librarians; Secondary School Teachers; Young Adults; Fiction; Adolescent Literature; Story Telling; Story Reading

0313-5373

Bibliotherapy--the use of books to heal--is a concept that dates back to the time of the philosopher Aristotle who believed that literature had healing effects and that reading fiction was a way of purging illness. But how is bibliotherapy practiced now in secondary schools? This study investigates bibliotherapy use in a regional Australian city with adolescents who have chronic illness. It explores the responses of members of welfare teams (welfare co-ordinators, school nurses and teacher-librarians) within secondary schools to questions on how books are used with students experiencing issues. Findings indicate that although bibliotherapy practice is not a formal process within schools, its central phenomenon of a reader forming a relationship with a book and then changing in some significant way as a result is a concept that most participants understood and attempted to utilize with the students in their care. (Contains 1 table.)

As Provided

17

2011

EJ910397