Literary Therapy
Edward Santoro, an American just back from teaching literature in Europe, emailed a number of comments stemming from his reading through my website. Here’s one:
Many years ago I was thinking seriously about a radical psychology (though I wasn’t calling it that) that would include fiction as therapy, quite similar to prescribing Prozac or Ritalin or whatever is the flavor of the day. If somebody is trying to work through a difficult issue, particular works of fiction could be prescribed, discussed, analyzed. This dialogue and the learning to think critically about a text would put a person into a better position of knowing the self and society and their interrelation. I thought and still do think this would be a successful therapy. The irony is that this is exactly what education is supposed to do. Years ago I was looking for books on just such a topic, and though there were a few, nothing really described what I had in mind.
I don’t read as much fiction as I’d like to, and I’m not a therapist, and I don’t know much about the literature-therapy connection, but I wonder if there’s more work on this than Edward has been able to find. The link between the two also seems congruent with efforts by philosophical counselors to de-medicalize therapy.
Coincidentally, yesterday I read a long keynote address by singer Michelle Shocked to the 2003 convention of NARPA, the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy. Here’s the relevant overlap:
I am an eccentric person. I think in very unorthodox and unconventional ways. It’s not a deliberate effort on my part; it’s a result of a certain type of adolescent alienation that I addressed by becoming very immersed in literature, by spending a lot of time by myself and then by developing creative outlets. When I was in the mental hospital, one of the comments that the psychiatrist made to me was that I was “under the influence of literature.” And I had enough presence of mind at the time to recognize that statement for the anti-intellectual assessment that it was. But the influence of literature, and its impact on my life and work and worldview, has been very crucial to my understanding of who I am.
I know there’s a range of therapies for people whose mental and emotional struggles vary widely. I wonder if using fiction has been useful somewhere along that continuum, perhaps especially for people under literature’s influence.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I don’t know if anyone still uses this forum, but I have been presented with a job opening at a soon-to-open drug and alchohol addictions counseling center as a musical and literary therapist. I thought at first that I was being charged with basically the creation of an entirely new field of counseling, but it turns out that there is a little bit out there about it. I was wondering if there was a way that I could get in contact with Mr. Santoro, the gentleman who left the first comment on this page? I would love to pick his brain for some useful ways to begin my research and counseling.
Your Servant,
Avalon Manly
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs