The conditions for which bibliotherapy is prescribed are just as diverse as its forms. Research has shown that patients suffering from borderline personality disorder engage in significantly less frequent and severe deliberate self-harm when their therapy involves reading a booklet on coping strategies. Adults with asthma and rheumatoid arthritis found that their symptoms lessened in severity after they started keeping journals about their most stressful experiences. Obese adolescent girls who read an age-appropriate novel about a teenager who discovers “improved health and self-efficacy” lost weight more easily than those who didn’t read that novel.
What makes the written word so effective? Some experts believe success lies in a combination of the reading process and the content of what we read. When we immerse ourselves in a text, the words may stimulate the production of mental images. We imagine what characters look and sound like; we visualize the places they live and work; we act out the words on the page in our minds.
Brain imaging studies provide a glimpse of what happens when we get lost in a book. Some of the brain regions active during reading a story approximate the activity of performing, imagining or observing similar activities in the world. When reading, our brains simulate what happens in the story, using the same circuits we’d use if the same things happened to us. On a neurological level, we become part of the action.
Why reading is good for you, Part 23
A philosopher said the other night that the brain invented language and song to make itself fell good. Oh, those Gregorian Chants.