Bibliotherapy

Evidently bibliotherapy used to be all the rage. Instead of medication or perhaps more traditional therapeutic techniques, persons with some sort of mental and/or emotional issues would be told to read certain things. Seeing the characters navigate their own quote-unquote stormy waters would, at least in theory, provide the reader with opportunities for reflection and closure.

Emma Thompson, that great British actress, has talked a bit about how writing the screenplay for Sense and Sensibility was pseudo-bibliotherapeutic. And there does indeed seem to be a school of thought that Jane Austen in particular has remarkable self-healing properties.

What about you? Do you indulge in bibliotherapy? What books do you self-prescribe?