Using Bibliotheraphy in Adult Counseling

Abstract

In recent years bibliotherapy has become a popular approach and it has been commonly utilized in psychological counseling as a supplemental method to the traditional counseling techniques. Therefore, the purpose of this literature review was to introduce the bibliotherapy methods to the reader working in adults counseling settings. Bibliotherapy is aimed at changing the client’s faulty assumptions and cognitions and encouraging them by giving a task as reading articles, brochures or books. In order to do that, brochures, articles, and reading assignments are used to accentuate this therapeutic process. Bibliotherapy has been successfully used in counseling children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly for a variety of reasons and the effectiveness has been documented evidence based. Bibliotherapy provides some advantages including: accentuating the therapy, decreasing the time required for healing, cost effectiveness, and shortening the waiting period; in addition, clients do not have to go to the therapist’s office. Since it matches the client’s pace, it enhances the client’s sense of self esteem and autonomy. In this paper, the definition, historical development, the prevalence of this method and clients’ characteristics were evaluated, and the role of counselors’ was discussed.