What is bibliotherapy?

Walking with Stories: Bibliotherapy in Narrative Arts Therapy

Sometimes it is easier to begin with a story than to find words for what is happening in our own lives. We may be carrying grief, feeling uncertain about a relationship, or finding our way through a change we barely understand. A story gives us somewhere to begin, with a character to follow, a landscape to imagine and something to wonder about together.

This is where my approach to bibliotherapy begins: with the understanding that human beings have long turned to stories to make sense of being alive.

Stories have travelled between people through telling, singing, dancing and remembering. They have been carried by grandparents, shared around fires and held in the names and memories of places. Across generations, people have listened to stories about love and loss, danger and courage, separation, belonging and return. Listening becomes a way of joining a conversation larger than our own experience.

My work in Narrative Arts Therapy is particularly rooted in Indigenous Southern African narratives, many of which I have worked with, translated and published over the years. These stories come from particular people, languages and places. Their meaning lives within relationships: between storytellers and listeners, communities and landscapes, people and the animals, plants and waters with whom they share a world. Attending to those relationships is part of attending to the story.

In a session, we might begin by reading or listening together. The story becomes a third presence in the room, something we can both turn towards. We follow what happens and linger where our attention catches: a woman waiting beside a river, an animal offering help, a path disappearing into the bush.

We ask questions. What does this character want? What makes her hesitate? Who notices her absence? What surprises us about the ending? Sometimes two people hear the same passage quite differently, and that difference opens a useful conversation.

This is close reading: giving a story enough attention for its details, silences and possibilities to emerge. We allow it to open questions, and we give ourselves time to wonder.

Then we make something in response. A drawing, a few lines of writing, a clay figure or a small arrangement of found objects can help us stay with whatever caught our attention. Artistic skill is incidental here; what matters is the opportunity to explore. A person might paint the river because its colour stays with them, or make the waiting woman because they keep wondering what she will do next.

The maker decides what their work means. I listen and offer questions, and meaning develops through our conversation. Sometimes it remains uncertain for a while.

Only then, if the person wishes, do we turn towards their own life. “I know that feeling of waiting,” they might say. Or, “I wonder who helps me when I lose my way.”

We begin by reading the story closely. And then we read ourselves through that lens.

We bring the same curiosity and patience to our lives that we offered the story. We notice the experiences we return to, the things we leave unsaid, the people who have mattered and the choices that changed our direction. An overlooked memory may come forward: a time we acted with courage, received care or found a way through something difficult. Gradually, our account of ourselves may become more spacious.

Walking beside another story can ease the pressure to speak directly about something painful. It also reminds us that other people have wondered about fear, loneliness, love and belonging before us. Their circumstances were different, yet their stories offer companionship as we consider our own.

For me, bibliotherapy within Narrative Arts Therapy is a practice of listening, imagining and making meaning together. We meet a story, give it our attention and respond through the arts. Then, when we are ready, we turn towards ourselves with that same attentive care.

A life deserves close reading.

If you want to explore this idea further, do make use of my complementary WhatsApp appointment. A click on the top right hand corner of this page.