1.

Bibliotherapy, the appeal lies within the appeal, the ability takes in the scent of the yellowing pages. The character’s aging with the papers but yet remaining the same in the story. The comfort, a tranquility coming from the nostalgia that these stories bring to the readers, the characters holding the power to guide the reader in their darkest times. Bibliotherapy calmes your sensory overload, bringing your crashing waves intrusive thoughts at bay and to calming waters. In “Bibliotherapy” Sarah Mc. the writers introduce the resource that began as a “literary clinic.” The writers take us back to the word wars, not only would soldiers be coming back with physical wounds they would also come back home with deeply rooted psychological wounds as well. Flashbacks of the time spent at battle and experiencing your comrades being killed in front of you. At times soldiers’ minds begin to resemble the trenches where they would lay, dark, cramped up, and filled with beings that do not belong there in the first place. Sarah states that “war nerosis” affected a significant amount of individuals who had come back from World War one between the years of 1914 to 1918. The number of soldiers who experienced shell shock have never been accurately identified. Although the soldiers that did seek psychological help did allow for mental health issues to be addressed and for new approaches to be founded. The soldiers that had been admitted to a ward for shell shock or had just been seeing an occupational therapist on their own, had been introduced to bibliotherapy as a form to reintroduce the soldiers to daily life scenarios. To allow this effort to happen libraries became the leading role. Various books that would either introduce new skills or would give the soldiers a reality to escape to and a place that would allow them to process their emotions.

2.

Imagine if you had experienced a trauma, a deeply ground shaking trauma that would not only shape your life but change the way you perceive the elements around you. Many victims of abuse for instance, live their lives in fear, even after coming out of the abusive environment. They become paranoid finding it very hard to keep their feet on the ground, now imagine if a child experienced this. Day after day of abuse and belittlement. Oftentimes children who are victims of abuse, find comfort in outdoor environments, to people or places. Or, there are many who reach for books allowing their imagination to whisk them away to a place where they may not experience any harms. That is the power of bibliotherapy, conveying knowledge and power to tiny individuals who need it the most. Story lines that take the children on adventures and who give them comfort, and humour to make them feel less alone in their big world.