Biblioterapia w związkach z innymi naukami
Bibliotherapy in Relation to Other Sciences

Summary/Abstract: Bibliotherapy is a relatively young discipline, but already many authors have tried to establish its definition. Some definitions are more, others less extensive, but few of them go beyond the relationship between the book and the patient (client). The first two definitions of bibliotherapy accounting for the proper meaning of the term can be found in Polish publica-tions from 1971, namely in Encyklopedia wiedzy o książce [Encyclopaedia of books] and Słownik wyrazów obcych PWN [Dictionary of foreign terms]. They are very similar. The Encyklopedia reads: ‘Bibliotherapy - use of reading books and other printed materials as a therapeutical means in patient treatment’. Słownik instead of ‘reading books and other mate-rials’ talks about ‘selected texts as therapeutical aid in medicine, especially psychiatry’. Bibliotherapy is used with patients in hospitals and sanatoriums, and with individual pa-tients who cannot leave their home. It deals with the effect of books on various social groups through a proper selection of texts, methods and forms of working with readers who need special care. Bibliotherapy is similarly understood all over the world. Most foreign publica-tions focus on the therapeutical role of selected materials. Definitions point to the complexity of the bibliotherapeutical process; thus this problem is worth being looked at from many points of view. Bibliotherapy can be considered in many contexts: psychological, sociological and pedagogical one. The author of the present paper shares the opinion of several researchers, e.g. Danuta Gostyńska, Stefana Kratochvila, Wanda Kozakiewicz and Stanisława Cwynara, who claim that bibliotherapy is a specific psychotherapeutic technique, involving the use of an appropri-ately chosen text as having healing effects on one’s psyche. Sociologists are interested in bibliotherapy from a different point of view - what effects books have on the activity and literary preferences of the disabled and patients with chronic diseases. A therapeutist considers treatment to be an educational process, in which the patient learns ways to deal with his or her difficult situation. It is noticeable that differences in the attitude towards the described problem depend on the profile of individual researchers. Pedagogists see the role of a book as an activating stimulus which may change one’s attitude towards the disease, on the condition that the ther-apy be conducted by a trained pedagogist. Psychologists use their methods to reach into the patient’s psyche in order to change his or her attitude towards the disease. They consider books to be a helpful aid in achieving it. Finally librarians, who work with books every day, are convinced about their inestimable role in the treatment, and try to establish a list of most suitable titles.

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