Bibliotherapy on Depressed University Students: A Case Study

Abstract

Bibliotherapy is an expressive therapy which uses an individual relationship to the content of books and poetry and other written words as therapy. Literature published since 1990 indicates that bibliotherapy has been employed in really every helping profession with every age group. This research aims to introduce this normal inexpensive therapy to people and to show the significance of this kind of therapy for patients who are suffering from depression. What we are going to prove in this research through a case study is that using fairytales, novels and stories in bibliotherapy can help adults to overcome their depression. To get this goal, the therapist used Beck depression inventory (Beck, 1967) to measure the degree of the patients’ depression in a clinic before and after the cure period. The amount of test-takers were 180, and 23 of them participated in the experiment. When the subjects of the research were known - who were those whose grade were more than 25 - the one-month reading process started. The materials which are used are some anecdotes, novels and stories which are carefully chosen by the therapist herself according to the patients’ needs. Then the post-test was given and almost every subject’s score was less than the pre-test. The result was analyzed by the computer software SPSS. So the result is that the amount of improvement in bibliotherapy appears to be comparable to the current treatments such as drug therapy. It is also useful as a complementary therapy to speed the recovery along with conventional therapy. And also literature helps people to have a better understanding of themselves and their surroundings.

Key words: Bibliothrapy; Depression; Literary texts