Rethinking Therapeutic Reading

Kelda Green completed her PhD at the University of Liverpool’s Centre for Research into Reading, Literature and Society in 2018.

‘A highly valuable, timely and scholarly contribution to the current debate around the therapeutic power of literary reading. The book distinctively recovers a tradition of “bibliotherapy” in Western literature and culture as the basis for an empirically tested blueprint of literature-as-therapy for modern-day readers. Serious writing about serious reading.’ —Josie Billington, Professor, Department of English Literature, University of Liverpool, UK

• Introduction; Part One: Four Models; I. Senecan Tragedy and Stoic Philosophy; II. Therapy and the Essay: Montaigne, after Seneca; III. Therapy and Poetry: Wordsworth, after Seneca; IV. Therapy and the Novel: George Eliot, after Wordsworth; Part Two: Three Experiments; V. Experiment One: First Impressions; VI. Experiment Two: Slowing Down and Tuning In; VII. Experiment Three: Writing Back; Conclusion; Index.