The recent announcement that GPs (全科医生) may send patients with depression away with the suggestion that they 41 a "mood-enhancing" book will have entranced some 42 left others bristling. When we set up our bibliotherapy service through The School of Life in 2008, our 43 was obvious: to show people that books, and 44 novels, not only have the 45 to lift spirits, but to 46 fundamental psychological shifts, healing and enriching the heart, the intellect and the soul in extraordinary ways. But you could 47 that someone with depression would 48 to make their way to the library, 49 put a spring in their stride, simply by the offer of some mood enhancing reads.
One of the things we have found as bibliotherapists is that clients with depression 50 a therapeutic book require a very 51 prescription. Some may want a book that offers some escape— 52 case the odd English humour of Dodie Smith"s I Capture the Castle may 53 the trick. But others may 54 with impatience to anything 55 seems too unlike real life.
The majority of our clients do not come to us for medical reasons; most come 56 they love reading, and in this day of publishing overload they want to be sure they use their reading time well. There are few greater pleasures in life than discovering a novel that 57 back a world you recognise—and yet takes you into a deeper experience of that world. And research has shown that reading can be highly effective in 58 stress. We find Henry James a 59 way to order your mind when everything becomes too much—the literary 60 of Beethoven or Bach.