The article published in the June issue of Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal on the history of bibliotherapy might be of interest to H-Madness readers.

“Medicines of the Soul: Reparative Reading and the History of Bibliotherapy” by Jesse Miller connects the early 20th century emergence of hospital libraries and the therapeutic use of reading in the United States to a broader historical discourse on reading and ethics. Focusing on the coining of the term “bibliotherapy” in Reverend Samuel McChord Crothers’ 1916 essay “A Literary Clinic,” it suggests that Crothers’ intentions in that essay have often been misinterpreted by librarians and psychiatrists promoting the practice of bibliotherapy.

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, The Critic