Reading: Therapy or Hazard?
Ceridwen Dovey wrote an article titled “Can Reading Make You Happier?” . It all started off because she was gifted a “remote session with a bibliotherapist”. Biblio-what? “Bibliotherapy is a very broad term for the ancient practice of encouraging reading for therapeutic effect.” She’s not kidding: “Today, bibliotherapy takes many different forms, from literature courses run for prison inmates to reading circles for elderly people suffering from dementia.” Some studies claim reading increases empathy, thus making you a better person. Other studies claim that: “Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers.” Even if you feel that calling books therapeutic is going too far, you’d find it hard to see how a kid reading books i...