Bibliotherapy can heal your trauma.
But what is bibliotherapy? And how can we put it into practice?
This episode of Hardcore Literature goes deep into how we can live the great books and read therapeutically in order to soothe, combat, and defeat mental anguish stemming from trauma.
How to Heal Your Trauma with Literature (A Guide to Bibliotherapy)
Timestamps:
- 0:00 the meaning of bibliotherapy
- 1:00 the first recorded mention of bibliotherapy
- 2:00 the World Wars and current times of crisis
- 2:20 discovering the great books in lockdown
- 3:00 bibliotherapy and mental health
- 4:00 why do we go to therapy? (discussion on trauma/PTSD)
- 4:35 psychoanalysis, CBT, logotherapy
- 4:55 symptoms of PTSD (and my personal experience)
- 7:20 do only broken people get therapy?
- 7:51 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- 9:30 the importance of conscious self-care rituals and routines
- 10:00 the value of bibliotherapy
- 11:00 the neurotic introvert’s dilemma
- 12:30 why you should give importance to great books
- 13:00 why Proust is a genius
- 13:50 reading is “me time” and strategic detachment
- 14:20 2020’s constant loop is causing a mental health crisis
- 15:00 what happens when you change your mental diet
- 16:00 why spend so much time talking about fictional characters?
- 17:55 the value of having a practice
- 18:20 degradation of religion and resulting loss of ritual, community, meaning
- 19:00 how to learn to talk to yourself through literature
- 20:30 the importance of good role models
- 20:50 how to home-school and get your children reading
- 21:00 don’t take Shakespeare for granted
- 23:13 the bibliotherapeutic style of writing and journalling
- 25:15 an example of what bibliotherapy-style reading looks like
- 28:16 how to carry ideas around and apply them to your life
- 28:30 why memorise all of Shakespeare’s sonnets?
- 29:30 how to make friends with dead authors
- 30:50 what story are you telling yourself?
- 32:12 find meaning in collecting, building, refining
- 33:00 how you do one thing is how you do everything
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