Bibliotherapy: A Creative Treatment for Mental Disability
Open Access
- Author:
- Griffiths, Kato
- Area of Honors:
- English
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Christopher Dean Castiglia, Thesis Supervisor
Carla J. Mulford, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Bibliotherapy
Mental Disability
Mental Illness
Creative Treatment
Cognitive Behavior Therapy
Creative Nonfiction
Disability Studies
Teleology
Digression
Fantasy
Creative Arts Therapy
Story of Your Life
Ted Chiang
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
Howl's Moving Castle
Hayao Miyazaki - Abstract:
- Despite repeated calls for a model of disability that captures the real physical and psychological suffering of people with disabilities, scholars within the field of disability studies have been reluctant to investigate creative treatment for disability. My goal in this project is to lay the groundwork for a theory of disability that focuses on how people with mental disabilities, or disabilities due primarily to mental disorders, can consume art, literature, and media in ways that improve their well-being and treat their suffering. To do so, I adapt for non-clinical use the concept of bibliotherapy, “the guided reading of written materials in gaining understanding or solving problems relevant to a person’s therapeutic needs” (Riordan and Wilson 1989, 506). To demonstrate the practical significance of bibliotherapy, I use the strategies garnered from my bibliotherapeutic readings of three texts to understand or reinterpret my own stories, thereby treating my own mental disability. The three texts that I analyze are: Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life, J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl's Moving Castle.