Reading is healing

Literature can show you a way through inner conflicts and can enable your mind to think positively, ensuring an emotional release that can help bust stress.

Book Therapy
When we read a story we relate ourselves with the characters and live with it. The characters inspire us which helps us to overcome all the difficulties which we face in our life. This is Book Therapy.
Book Therapy is an art of healing through literature, stories and poetry - precisely books. The idea of book therapy seems to have grown naturally from the human inclination to identify with others through their expressions in literature and art. For instance, a grieving child who reads a story about another child who has lost a parent will naturally feel less alone in the world. In this way, the adult provides guidance in the resolution of personal crisis through the use of directed readings and follow-up activities.
Dr Ira Saxena, a child psychologist said, "I use books as a means to heal children affected by trauma in its various forms as they are the most vulnerable and easily affected my mental stress. I have been conducting workshops in various schools of Delhi and NCR to educate the teachers about book therapy so that they can handle their school kids carefully. Reading story books to a child on one to one basis has wide ranging impact on the development of a child's personality influencing class performance and verbal skills. I have seen kids crying after story telling sessions. Their emotions automatically come out when they relate with the story but for this first it is important to comprehend what goes on behind the mind of the child. The process plays a significant dimension of promoting reading skills that not only encourage learning but soothe the troubled mind."
Not only kids, everybody can be healed through books as we all need some power in life to motivate ourselves.

BOOKs AS HEALER
An International Conference on Book Therapy is being organised for three days from February 9 to 11 at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

--Madhuri Balodi