There are different definitions of bibliotherapy. Bibliotherapy is a therapeutic process in which a bibliotherapist helps an individual or a group of people solve various mental distress or serious life problems using selected literature (or other media). At the same time, it is also a consultancy, which helps healthy people to develop and solves minor problems. There are different criteria, which needs to be satisfied if a person wants to perform the bibliotherapy and largely depend on specific problems the participants deal with. It is a complex process, which requires bibliotherapists with the knowledge from different areas (librarianship, psychology, pedagogy, literary studies, etc.). Master’s thesis first presents the basic characteristics of bibliotherapy (how the bibliotherapeutic process takes place, when and where the bibliotherapy is performed, different types of bibliotherapy, etc.). Later it focuses on reading in general, the history of reading, the perception of reading today, reading in the digital age and various reading disorders. In the main part, master’s thesis focuses on the importance of literary studies for bibliotherapy. The thesis also presents the areas of literary studies or the areas of literary studies important for the performance of bibliotherapy. These are reception aesthetics, aesthetics of performance, poetry therapy, psychonarratology, narrative empathy and the neurobiology of reading. In Slovenia, bibliotherapy is rarely used and therefore not much researched. Especially in the field of literary studies, there is almost no research on this process. Master’s thesis explains why literary studies are important for the implementation of bibliotherapy. At the same time, it aims to encourage the research of bibliotherapy within the literary studies in Slovenia.
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