It kicks off after five years of planning “Demeter’s Library”, the bibliotherapy project sponsored by APS CiaoLapo ETS in the hospital wards of obstetrics and gynecology, aimed at hospitalized women and staff.
Following the success of “Hugs of Stories,” the project to promote well-being and reduce stress in hospitalized infants and their parents that currently involves 12 wards throughout Italy and has already trained about 100 health workers, the project dedicated to women hospitalized in obstetrics and gynecology and the ward’s nursing staff begins today.
The goal is to involve ten wards per year, to train staff on the importance of reading aloud and shared reading as a relational and stress-reduction tool, and to donate to the wards a small library with books chosen for their salutogenic characteristics.
What is bibliotherapy?
Demeter’s Library is a bibliotherapy project, which literally means “cure with books”; bibliotherapy comes from the Greek and consists of:
- biblíon (βιβλίον) = book
- therapeía (θεραπεία) = care, treatment, assistance
The term appeared in the first decades of the 20th century to refer to the therapeutic use of reading in settings such as hospitals, sanatoria and asylums. Subsequently, the use of the book as a cure spread “beyond the wall,” to quote a famous book by Australian author Janet Frame; today the book is used in wellness promotion projects, in pathways to support life-cycle transitions, in prevention projects in situations of fragility, and in any context where reading can foster the development of awareness of self and the world.
Θεραπεία is a word that has several meanings, all of which are important when we seek to define bibliotherapy: alongside the first meaning of “medical care,” we very appropriately find the meaning of“service,”“addressing attention,” and“standing by.” Bibliotherapy is a relational space that promotes and cultivates participants’ well-being through reading and books.
When we talk about bibliotherapy, therefore, we mean a healing process that takes place through the book object and through the reading as a relational experience. When we talk about bibliotherapy we are always talking about a relationship between two or more people, mediated by the book and the sharing of a story.
Books and reading are at their best within a relationship in which attention is paid to the person, his or her affairs, needs, and difficulties but also, above all, to his or her resources, even those that the person does not yet know he or she has.
Through other people’s stories, made up of words, images, and silences, bibliotherapy promotes people’s blossoming, fostering access to their personal resources.
Bibliotherapy uses reading, whether alone, in a low voice, out loud, in pairs, or in groups, as a salutogenic tool to promote health and each person’s own internal resources, capable of promoting personal and collective well-being.
Why bibliotherapy during hospitalization in gynecology or obstetrics?
Bibliotherapy provides preferential access to one’s inner world: it helps us get in touch with our thoughts, emotions and even our memories, and allows us to take a clearer view of how we function.
Reading a good story is like planting robust and tenacious seeds that know how to sprout not only during the reading but also, and especially afterward, when the book is closed.
Being admitted to a gynecology or obstetrics ward can be a delicate time, sometimes complex or fraught with mixed emotions. Whether it is a high-risk pregnancy, a delicate situation that needs to be monitored, a gynecological procedure, or the management of a critical event such as a perinatal loss, a hospital stay places women in a condition of suspension and vulnerability. In these contexts, the need for listening, emotional closeness and meaning becomes particularly acute and cannot, must not, go unmet.
This is where bibliotherapy can make a valuable contribution. Understood as a process of meaningful interaction between people and between people and the book, bibliotherapy provides access to a form of welcome and support, which can activate the physiological reprocessing of the stressful event and allow a transit, an accompaniment through the days of hospitalization. Through the written word, through the figures in books and their ability to evoke inner stories and suggestions, hospitalized women can find a space of self, recognize themselves in other people’s stories, feel less lonely, and access new perspectives and resources.
The proposed texts-which range from poetry to illustrated books-do not have a didactic or didactic function, but act as relational mediators and symbolic healing tools. Reading in the hospital then becomes an opportunity to slow down, listen to each other, put difficult emotions into words, and find the thread of self in the midst of uncertainty and fatigue.
Particularly in obstetrics and gynecology departments, bibliotherapy can support therapeutic alliance, foster women’s empowerment, and create protected spaces of expression, even where verbal language is difficult to activate.
To propose bibliotherapy in gynecology and obstetrics is to recognize that care is not only pharmacological or surgical, but also narrative, symbolic, relational. It is to offer a presence that passes through speech, story, and listening, restoring dignity, agency, and meaning to every experience.
Like all words that end in -therapy, bibliotherapy also has its detractors: there are many people who, instead of informing themselves, studying and learning more about a subject that has been talked about in the rest of the world for more than a hundred years as a valuable tool to support people’s health and well-being, turn up their noses and consider bibliotherapy an outrage to literature and books.
Working with bibliotherapy for almost twenty years, I think I can say that, on the contrary, the book employed in therapeutic settings reaffirms and enhances the importance of shared stories for human beings and their well-being. It is all about choosing from time to time, the right books, the right stories, for the people we are working with. It’s all about respect, of people and stories.
If you work in an obstetrics or gynecology department and want to learn more about
about“Demeter’s Library” project and how to participate with your department, write to
abbraccidistorie@ciaolapo.it
