Bibliotherapy as Narrative Practice

Reader Empowerment Through Re-Authoring Conversations

Authors

  • Mariana Casale

Keywords:

bibliotherapy, narrative therapy, re-authoring, story, discourse, deconstruction, agency

Abstract

Based on the view that reading literature is a dialogical act of decentring and co-authoring, narrative bibliotherapy can achieve reader re-empowerment in the face of culturally dominant discourses which are at odds with a person’s values and beliefs causing suffering and oppression. The aim is that readers regain a sense of agency in the re-authoring of preferred life narratives, inspired and driven by what they give value to, potentiating wisdoms that underpin them. This article examines several key concepts and practices of narrative therapy as developed by Michael White and David Epston and their application to bibliotherapeutic practice, establishing a clear link between the poststructuralist foundations of both practices. Example questions about a poem support the examination of the bibliotherapeutic use of externalising conversations; deconstruction of culturally dominant discourses; finding exceptions in the problem story and re-authoring alternative stories. It argues that alongside the benefits of this practice for the individual, the power of each reader’s voice and its reverberations in the collective become forces for both individual and societal change.

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Published

2025-07-01