• ARTICLES, Special Section, The Joint Construction of Personal Meanings in the Arts

Literature and psychological intervention

Dalton, P.

Keywords:
Anticipation, listening, experimentation, judgement, sociality

Abstract:
An attempt is made to show how introducing literature into sessions of psychological intervention can be used to help the client to see a situation from another point of view. It can facilitate sociality, bring out aspects of the self that have become hidden and widen the person’s experience. The story within a novel may echo something in the client’s life or offer an alternative way of dealing with what is troubling them. Reading a play can help people to be aware of their feelings and poetry will often lift them beyond a current state of depression or anxiety.