Bibliopsychology, Bibliopedagogics, Bibliotherapy: History, Theory, Practice

Nataliya L. Karpova Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Leading Researcher, Institute of Psychology, Russian Academy of Education (Moscow)

Abstract The article examines historical and practical issues of bibliopsychology and leading theoretical principles of the founder of psychology of reading – N.A.Rubakin. The basics and functions of bibliopedagogics are described and some data from history, theory and practice of bibliotherapy are outlined. Concrete experience of using bibliotherapy in logopsychotherapy is presented. The article contains a review of collective studies in the area of bibliopsychology, bibliopedagogics, bibliotherapy (2005, 2014) and also refers to the Reader of Studies on Reading and Literacy (2014) prepared by members of the Institute of Psychology, Russian Academy of Education.
Keywords bibliopsychology, bibliopedagogics, bibliotherapy, theory, method, reader, text, author.

Contemporary culture with its growingly complicated problems of education and more strain on learners’ psyche cannot be imagined without attention to bibliopsychology, bibliopedagogics and bibliotherapy. In Russian psychology and “library science” (N.A. Rubakin’s wording) there are recognized methodological attitudes, according to which reading a book- especially fiction – is in many ways an expression of the reader’s personality directed towards dialogical communication. Thus, bibliopsychology puts the focus of its attention on interaction, on reader’s communication with the text, bibliopedagogics uses communication for educational purposes, while bibliotherapy is concentrated on medical and remedial goals. But, as far as practical experience goes, separation of these processes is at times conventional because each of them speaks both about psychology of reader’s perception and complexities of arranging the process of working with a book and in this or that way harmonizing the psyche of reading functions.

All three above mentioned directions of working with a book address most of all texts of fiction. Meanwhile, as psychologists and sociologists point out, great differences of types and complexities in processes of thinking are revealed between people who are used to reading and those who are not. The same finding refers to communication habits. There are many authors, who state that the present-day situation in psychology of reading is characterized by an immense amount of literary sources but many of them are badly structured and scattered among different sciences. There is unreasonable reduplication, discrepancy in terminology and sometimes elementary ignorance of resources accumulated in psychology of reading. At the same time, researchers say that “ abundance of publications about reading is not reflected in the system of information resources, especially in available reference aids for reading as an interdisciplinary and polydisciplinary area of knowledge” (V.A. and C.M. Borodin [5, р. 21-27]).

In 2005 a collective monograph Bibliopsychology and Bibliotherapy [4] was published. It was the first attempt of those working in the Institute of Psychology, Russian Academy of Education, to collect and present the findings of recent decades carried out in different areas of working with a book. It was followed by another monograph in 2014–Bibliopsychology. Bibliopedagogics. Bibliotherapy [5], which was devoted to 150th anniversary of the founder of “bibliologic psychology” – Nikolay Alexandrovich Rubakin. You can see there articles about different sides of N.A.Rubakin’s activities and also some papers about psychological aspects of Chekhov’s, Dostoyevsky’s, Pushkin’s creative activity (part 1). They reveal the basics and principles of bibliopedagogics by showing how you can work and communicate with literary texts and textbooks in the classroom and school library (part 2). There were articles on issues of bibliotherapy, some materials describing out-of-class work and activities of logopsychotherapeutic groups with “healing books” (part 3).

Both above-mentioned books were meant to help practical psychologists, teachers of different subjects, methodologists who deal with reading and librarians in their work to raise students’ culture of perceiving and understanding texts. Also, they aimed at drawing attention of general public to family reading and to great therapeutic potential of fiction. The same goals were set by Studies on Reading and Literacy in the Institute of Psychology for 100 years – a reader devoted to 100th anniversary of the first Psychological Institute in Russia [11] (complete text is on site: www.pirao.ru).

All three above-mentioned voluminous books are an example of interdisciplinary approach to a multifaceted phenomenon of reading. They enable us to get acquainted with works of specialists in different areas of bibliology – theoreticians and practical experts. They also give a review of interesting publications and recent studies because a number of materials were selected by editors from books and collected articles that had been already published. The chosen publications are devoted to problems of psychology and pedagogy of reading and to bibliotherapy.

Relying on the mentioned sources, in which I used to be either a co-author or an editor, and following a number of leading researchers in the field of bibliology, I will dwell on fundamental concepts and the essence of such phenomena as bibliopsychology, bibliopedagogics and bibliotherapy.

1. From History of Bibliopsychology

Appearance of books, especially invention of book-printing in the XV century, was of enormous significance for European culture. As literacy was expanding, books and, later, libraries became an essential part of civilization. But even before book-printing, when culture relied on written language, a need for text studying arose. It brought about a special field of knowledge – hermeneutics: art and theory of text interpretation. Church literature required it because it had to deal with Biblical texts. Starting with Renaissance, it became important for classic philology, which addressed texts of antiquity. In Modern times appeared literary criticism appeared, it studied literature as a sort of art and mostly relied on experience of hermeneutics.

In the course of cultural development there came about new aspects of studying literary works and their authors, they were fundamentally new approaches to text analysis. An outstanding linguist and philosopher W.Humboldt underlined the significance of the language of literary works: language is not a ready instrument but it is a means of self-expression and understanding life. That is why it is important to go deeply into the language of the text. Another German scientist W.Dilthey developed principles of “understanding psychology”, which referred to understanding the language of literary texts. Actually, problems connected with introducing books into people’s life had started to be discussed in scientific literature before they became a subject for a special scientific discipline. Gradually some data about regularities of perception of printed signs and whole texts was accumulated. More and more attention was drawn to the process of creative activities in literature and to authors’ personalities [4; 5].

In the middle of 1940-ies a well-known Russian psychologist B.M. Teplov complained in the preface to his essay devoted to one of Pushkin’s Little Tragedies – Mozart and Salieri [11, pp.183-190] – that analysis of fiction is not normally marked among the methods of psychological research. In fact, psychologists do not use this method, although they refer to one or another kind of literary characters or situations (a remarkable in this way paper by L.S.Vygotsky Psychology of Art [7] was written in 1920-ies but it was published much later). B.M. Teplov was truly convinced that “fiction contains inexhaustible resources of materials, which cannot be avoided by psychology as a science standing on new ways which are opening now in front of it” [11, 184]. The scientist spoke about the necessity and importance to give detailed proofs to this thesis and establish principles of scientifically grounded psychological application of fiction materials.

The works of our remarkable compatriot – a bibliologist and culturelogist N.A. Rubakin – put a milestone in developing a special branch of science devoted to interaction of man and a book. At the beginning of 1920-ies he came out with a comprehensive program of “bibliological psychology” (his own term) and created an International Institute of Bibliopsychology in Lausanne. The aim of the Institute was “academic study of ALL (italicized by us – N.K.) psychological phenomena associated with creation, circulation and utilization of printed, written and oral speech” [18; 19].

2. Theory and Practice of Psychology of Reading

The area of psychology of reading is grand: “reader – text – author” – this is the way to describe one of the main objects that bibliopsychology studies. Why does a man read and what needs does he meet through reading? What is the influence of book reading on personality and his/her development at different life stages? How do admirers of different authors (genres) differ from each other as personalities? What are psychological mechanisms of reading? What are conditions and standards of readers’ development?

By studying the influence of oral, printed and written words either on an individual or on a group of people, N.A. Rubakin considered it necessary to observe “the primacy of reader” over “the primacy of contents”. He stated that “there is no book without a reader” and “we should study not words but psychological phenomena stimulated by them”. Rubakin relied on three laws put forward by: 1) linguists W. Humboldt and A. Potebnya: “A word, a phrase, a book are stimuli but not transmitters of somebody else’s thoughts, feelings or aspirations”; 2) a biologist R. Semon – about the unity of psychic and physiological phenomena; 3) a philologist I. Tan – about the importance of race, environment and the moment of time. According to these laws, he isolated three main factors, which precondition the emergence and evolution of literary phenomena, and worked out and described key methods and principles of bibliopsychological research.

The gist of his program was systemic study of the triad “reader – book (text) – author”. He noted that normally each of the triad parts was analyzed by itself, separately, while the most essential thing is their interaction and unity. Rubakin proceeded from the fact that the main point was the role of the reader. He considered it improper to study the text first, then to study the author (sometimes vice versa) and make the reader secondary. He emphasized that each reader has his individual selective way to assimilate and comprehend texts. Readers introduce into texts something from their own, and, finally, the meaning and significance of texts depend on mental and moral qualities of those who read and perceive them. Perception of the reader has its own individual and in-born prerequisites, so interconnection between the reader and books should be considered in the context of culture and history [18; 19].

Defining bibliopsychology as a synthetic science, Rubakin pointed out its alliance with natural science, mathematics, humanities (social, philosophic, historic), with philology and linguistics, bibliography and bibliology, with applied sciences and – above all – with psychology. He singled out “three major levels”. The first level is verbal bibliopsychology – science that studies “stimulations-excitations produced on the reader by individual words”. The second level – interverbal bibliopsychology – studies “psychic phenomena that take place in the spans between perceptions of separate words and adjoining words and bind them into a single whole which is called a phrase”. At the third level – superverbal – “separate words of the text are no more differentiated, prime attention is focused on the result of phrase-perception (simultaneous perception of a few words that go together), turning them into extra-verbal thought, feeling, mental picture or another emotional experience”. Perception study is not confined to phrase limits: our attention is also focused on the effect, which is caused “integrally by the whole text, the whole book and literature on the whole” [18, p.112].

The basic task of theoretic bibliopsychology is “to clarify functional dependencies of bibliopsychological perception on individual and social peculiarities of the subject”. Applied bibliopsychology has to study “practical ways to radically improve creative work, embracing creation, circulation and utilization of oral, written and printed word”.

Pioneering works by M.M. Bakhtin, a specialist in the study of literature and art theorist, made a paramount contribution into psychological studies of text perception [2; 3]. His concept was based on the idea of dialogue, which was understood by him not only as the norm of communication between individual personalities but also as a norm of selfawareness and as a way for a personality to interact with objects of culture and art. He showed that a word (thought, piece of information) in a dialogue acquired a number of new meanings. Each of the meanings had equal rights for existence in that sort of polyphony. At the same time, personality’s realization of “Self” happens exactly in communication with “others”. Consequently, reader’s perception in its essence means a kind of mental dialogue with the text and its author. These ideas got wide recognition, they contribute in many ways to the process of understanding specific problems normally referred both to bibliopsychology and bibliotherapy.

According to O.L. Kabachek, semiotics – a teaching about signs and sign systems, which had further development in XX century – was of major importance for a more detailed study of mechanisms of text perception. Some or other systems of signs, natural or artificially created, are regarded as special “languages” that have some common rules. Semiotic approach to text study implies three levels: 1) to single out and classify combinations of signs; 2) to interpret the meanings of certain sign structures; 3) to clarify the interconnection between the meanings of sign systems and those who perceive them. This sort of approach got into literary criticism right after linguistics. New aspects of research and their results enriched bibliopsychology as well.

At the same time, Kabachek emphasizes, Rubakin’s theory, which was considered outdated, was much ahead of its time in its contents. Many of his theses were almost literally repeated in receptive aesthetics – one of modern synthetic psychological and literary critical approach. Receptive aesthetics is a trend in criticism and study of literature. It originates from the idea that a literary work “appears” and realizes itself only in the process of meeting, a contact of a literary text with a reader, which due to “feedback” in its turn influences the literary work and in this way determines a particular and historically based character of its perception and existence [5, pp.43-53].

Hermeneutics made a great contribution into development of modern bibliopsychology as well. The founder of “romantic hermeneutics” F. Schleiermacher believed that hermeneutics was the art of comprehension but not interpretation, that is why the method of text study should be dialogic. Text study in a wide cultural and historic context combined with awareness of the author’s peculiarities and with knowledge about the laws of language development enables the interpreter to understand the author and his work deeper than the author could possibly understand himself and his own work. A philosopher G.G. Shpet was of the opposite opinion. He stated that a created text “lives” its own life and does not depend on the author’s will. As for M.M. Bakhtin, he insisted that there is always an author behind the aims of an object (artistic work): “…To see and understand the author of the work, – he wrote, – means to see and understand something different, another person’s consciousness and his world, that is another subject”. The most deliberate formula of text study was offered by a philosopher V.F. Asmus: art image is re-created by the reader “according to the guidelines which are given in the work itself, but the final result is determined by mental, emotional, spiritual activities of the reader” (quoted from: 5, pp. 43-53).

Readers of various age look for meeting their specific needs and interests in books of fiction that is why each type of literature is relevant for a definite age. On the other hand, a work of fiction becomes a source of cultural awareness of the world and self for any person. To find out early original conditions that involve a person into reading as a source of cognizing the world and his own self is a necessary link in the system of research in modern bibliopsychology and bibliopedagogics.

3. Fundamentals and Functions of Bibliopedagogics

Researchers of Rubakin’s creative activity write that his work could be compared to the work “of a solid multidisciplinary research institute and at the same time an institute of readers’ socialization”. Anyhow, this work is still waiting for serious theoretical generalization. Rubakin considered a book as “a mighty instrument of struggle for truth and justice”. He called library “an association of books” and offered his way to organize librarianship on a “national pedagogical grounds”. As reading and life in man’s destiny are firmly connected, reading can be understood as “life strategy”. Rubakin’s works possess methodological and methodical value, and his research experience in studying readers and reading is interesting and important for every teacher, psychologist, philologist, a specialist in library science (V.A. Borodina, G.A. Ivanova et al. [5]).

Let us look at the basis and functions of bibliopsychology that show methods of work and possibilities of communication with fiction and textbooks in a classroom and in a school library, where attention is centered on a reader who is a learner.

One of leading contemporary specialists in the area of library pedagogics I.I. Tikhomirova, while specifying the definition of the subject of library pedagogics, underlines that pedagogical aspects of librarianship involve to a certain extent all fundamental parts and functions of general pedagogics. Library pedagogics implements educational function, which is often “called enlightening and associated with selfless devotion as social archetype of librarian”. A teaching function is singled out (technologies, which are developed for librarianship now, are mostly connected with this function). Pedagogical function is important because library actively influences children’s growth in the way of literature and reading. By doing all these types of pedagogical activities in their combination, a librarian assists to the formation of a socially adapted and creative personality. When we understand library activity as pedagogics of cooperation, communication with the reader comes first.

Speaking about reading guidance in the structure of library pedagogics, Tikhomirova singles out the following items: a) help to the reader in choosing books, which meet his/her interests; b) assistance in developing skills of independent choice of books; c) help in learning the techniques of reading and the ways of text perception by means of talking, discussions and by teaching methods of effective and emotional reading [21].

A research group called Problems of Constructing School Textbooks is set up in the Institute of Psychology RAE and is guided by Academician G.G. Granic. They develop a “reading” approach whose aim is to teach schoolchildren the techniques of dealing with texts of fiction, to form “reading competence” and in this way to prepare students for perception of literary works. “The model of ideal reader” that was created has greatly influenced authors of later theoretical and practical works in the area of reading activity. Researchers give a lot of impressive examples which refer to reading educational and popular scientific texts. They show what it is “to be able to work with a book” and study on one’s own. The main idea is that for understanding and memorizing a text one should treat it in an active way. It means that a student should ask questions and look for answers, put forward his/her own assumptions, agree with some ideas, doubt something, argue, in other words, communicate mentally with the text and its author. These are the prerequisites for reader’s complete perception. A teacher can competently lead students’ to independent reading if, firstly, he is aware of what reading activity is like; secondly, if he knows how it is formed; and, thirdly, if he has necessary material for training it [8; 9]. Works of the quoted group of authors testify how the unity of psychology and pedagogics can help practice of teaching.

While looking at the functions of bibliopedagogics, let us dwell on the issue of library resources meant for support and development of gifted children. A gifted child is first of all a reading child, as shown by studies of N.S. Leites [11, pp.222-228]. I.I. Tikhomirova remarks that a distinguishing feature of gifted children, irrespective of the sort of their interests, is their active imagination, which makes their other higher psychic functions active. Of special importance for a child is his/her creative reading, the development of which is mostly determined by a librarian. “It is this very reading that most of all contributes to revealing, support and development of child’s abilities for creative activity. Structure of the process of creative reading and the model of a gifted child’s active consciousness, where imagination stands out as the integrating center, completely coincide” [5, p.161].

Age is an important factor, thus we should mention here that receptivity to reading depends not only on the reader’s personality but on the type of books offered to people of different age and on the form of their presentation. This makes the role of libraries intended for children, adolescents, adults – and especially school and specialized libraries – clearly evident.

3.1. From History of Bibliotherapy

Bibliotherapy is a comparatively young branch of science situated at the interfaces between science, therapy and art. The term “bibliotherapy”, which means intentional use of literary works for understanding and solving person’s urgent problems, was introduced by an American researcher S.Crothers in 1916. According to the definition accepted in 1920 by the US Hospital Library Association, bibliotherapy is “application of specially selected reading materials as means of therapy in general medicine and psychiatry for solving personal problems by way of guided reading” [6, p.85].

In the course of time, three main trends appeared in this method’s evolution: 1) A so-called “medical” trend, where therapist performed the main part, while the role of a librarian was subsidiary; 2) A “library” trend, where “curative reading” was a responsibility of a specially trained librarian; 3) A “complex” trend, whose participants believe bibliotherapy to play an auxiliary or sometimes equal part in the healing process of neuroses and some somatic diseases.

In Russia reading for therapeutic goals has been known since the 30-ies of XIX century. I.E. Dyadkovsky wrote about it at the end of XIX century, S.S. Korsakov and V.M. Bekhnerev – at the beginning of XX century. However, serious scientific foundations of bibliotherapy began to take shape much later. Those issues were studied by such outstanding specialists as L.S. Vygotsky, B.M. Teplov, I.Z. Velvovsky and others. V.N. Myasishev underlined that the method of bibliotherapy represents a complex combination of bibliology, psychology, psychotherapy, psychocorrection. Since 1920-ies studies of therapeutic effect of literary works on human health have been made in libraries situated in holiday homes and medical resorts. Articles in Health Resort Business for 1928 mention positive influence of humorous stories and memoirs on holiday-makers. Bibliotherapy was also actively used in medical libraries [15].

3.2. Bibliotherapy: Theory and Practice

As it has been mentioned, bibliotherapy can be understood not only as medical treatment but also as education with the help of books. In this way it is related both to medicine and to pedagogics, that is why librarians use this term too. In some cases they help customers in their choice of books, in others they discuss books with those who need some support. Bibliotherapy has different goals: for example, one of them may be connected with changing a person’s emotional state, another one may be associated with influencing personal qualities. It may be seen as outer guidance or come out as means of self-analysis and self-development. As a result, there are a few approaches to classify bibliotherapeutic methods: therapeutic role of different literary genres is clarified; importance of reader’s inner involvement into the process of text perception is considered. A special problem is to discover the influence of such aspects of attitude to reading as reader’s expectations, emotional and value mind-sets, degree and character of catharsis.

Analysis of psychotherapeutic communication through literature demands for bibliotherapy to be taken as the means for and the aim of communication because there is an evident difference between the processes of ordinary reading and healing reading. If the basis of ordinary reading is primarily built up by a cognitive motive (comprehending some reality external of the reader), the initial motive of healing reading is selfknowledge. At the same time, bibliotherapy arranges the process of learning something new about the outer world. Specially selected reading texts enable the readers to look into themselves, to analyze their feelings, to answer questions concerning the place they occupy in this world. Researchers note that “figures of bibliotherapeutic discourse possess a cultural potential, which was tested by time and space and they have already become classis” [5, p.210-220].

There are some special studies devoted to problems of therapy through creativity. Fundamental functions and areas of application of bibliotherapy are revealed: psychotherapeutic, diagnostic, communicative, projecting, modelling. These methods can be used individually and in groups [14].

Recent decades were marked with another direction of bibliotherapy – fairy-tale therapy. Ritually a fairy tale has been a kind of fiction easily understood and fascinating for little listeners. The contents of fairy-tales are not just entertaining, they make children reflect on things, empathize. Specially selected fairy-tales help weak and unhealthy children overcome low self-esteem, doubt, timidity, etc. There are a lot of ways to involve children into different forms of active responses to fairy-tale contents: discussions and arguments about the meaning of a tale, including the right of each child to change the destiny of its characters; dramatizations based on the plot of a fairy-tale, and the like. All of these develop children’s emotional sphere while making them more sympathetic and sure of themselves. Vivid creativity typical of this age is clearly seen in child’s individual qualities.

Fairy-tales possess a great educational potential, especially if children are introduced to them through active participation and assistance of parents. Findings of different studies prove that a fairy-tale can fulfill diagnostic and therapeutic functions in the work with children. Thus, bibliotherapeutic methodology (in its proper adaptation) can be used for children with weak health and limited possibilities at their very early age [10].

In the past decades fairy-tale therapy has been more and more actively used both in the work with teenagers and adults. In so doing therapists use not only traditional folk fairy-tales or tales of some authors, but they create particular texts aimed at treating some diseases and phobias. 3.3. Bibliotherapy in logopsychotherapy Speaking about wide expansion of the term bibliotherapy, let us dwell on its concrete application. In 1980-ies the method of bibliotherapy was for the first time adapted by a speech therapist and psychologist Y.B. Nekrasova for treating serious cases of logoneurosis (stuttering) [16; 17]. In a newly invented system of group logopsychotherapy bibliotherapy as a method of indirect (through a book) psychotherapeutic effect comes as one of the most fundamental methods at all stages of “healing correctional education”. Since the end of 1980-ies we have been developing this system in the line of family group logopsychotherapy.

Bibliotherapy and logopsychotherapy can be presented in individual and group forms and serve for different functions at different stages of treatment. At Stage I it is used for propaedeutic purposes – diagnostic, communicative, prognostic, and therapeutic. At Stage II it becomes a foundation for building up a seance of emotional-stressful therapy “to give up stuttering”. At Stages III and IV – in the course of active and supportive logopsychotherapy – it acquires a group form (besides individual) and is used to prepare and give a talk, to form and master skills of spontaneous speech in different situations.

At all stages of social rehabilitation people from patients’ closest environment take part in the system of family group logopsychotherapy. It gives us a chance to study the problem of psychology of “healing reading” in a deeper way, to understand the dynamics of bibliotherapeutic process and the state of mind of all group participants – stutterers, their parents, relatives and the logotherapist himself/herself [12].

Already the first bibliotherapeutic task – to read and analyze in writing H.-C. Andersen’s fairy tale “Ugly Darkling” and A. Chekhov’s stories “Melancholy” and “Little Joke” – creates for future group participants a unique situation of their self-dislosure. While talking about literary characters, they can indirectly speak with the therapist about their own selves, their ailment, about what excites and disturbs them most. It is symbolic that first tasks begin with H.-C. Andersen’s tales, then participants deal with stories by A. Chekhov, I. Turgenev, M. Gorky, R. Bradbury, novels by A. Marshall, E. Porter, B. Shaw’s play “Pygmallion”, a number of other works, and they are concluded by R. Bach’s parable. From “Ugly Darkling to “Johnathan Livingston Seagull” – this is the way that our patients pass through both at the preparatory stage in the course of bibliotherapy and during all the course of logopsychotherapy.

There are a number of literary works, which are offered for reading and further group discussion to all group participants, but some of them have age limitations. Our studies showed that the common thing for all age groups about fiction perception (for books offered at the propedeutic stage of family logopsychotherapy) was the ability to perceive a literary text and independently do its analysis in writing. These activities make it possible to single out unique personal qualities and inclinations of stutterers and outline the areas which are of interest to them. Our findings:

  1. Primary school age due to insufficiently developed cognitive functions is characterized by literalness in text perception. Their analysis of literary works lacks consistency, their wordings are usually brief and syntax of their constructions is simple and short. At the same time, works of children of this age are informative enough, they use vivid comparisons and produce interesting opinions.
  2. Perception of literary works in adolescent age is distinguished by sharp topicality of such problems as arrangement of social systems, outcasts and leaders, attitude to handicapped people, principles of hierarchy in society, concepts of morality and value, interrelationship between sexes. The size of texts grows, some compositions reveal artistic talent and predisposition of authors to broad generalizations. Schoolchildren of 10-12 years of age are capable of rather deep introspection and thoughtful analysis of their reading. Experience of numerous groups in many cities shows that after taking our educational and healing course young adolescents considerably “grow up” socially, morally and personally, especially if they are supported by parents and close relatives.
  3. Bibliotherapeutic works of many adolescents and young adults are characterized by bigger volume, more consistency, cohesion, logicality, and validity of responses. They have a better understanding of an implied special purpose of the texts offered for reading. Most of these works supply logopsychotherapists with rich material, so that they are able to reveal unique personal qualities of stutterers and their families.

A distinctive result of our 15-year long work was a collective monograph Family Group Logopsychotherapy: Studies of Stuttering (2011), containing numerous findings in bibliotherapy. It was based on 30 groups of family logopsychotherapy for stuttering adolescents and adults and over 20 groups for stuttering preschoolers in Moscow, Taganrog, Vladivostok, Samara and Samara region. The book shows peculiarities of using this method with preschoolers but it also shows its cultural and educational function [20]. Our experience proves that bibliotherapy is one of effective technologies to draw participants into reading and teach people of different age to enjoy reading and revive the lost tradition of family reading.

* * *

The aim of this article was to introduce our readers – psychologists, teachers, librarians and other specialists who study a complex phenomenon of reading – to its different aspects, but not to bring the concepts of bibliopsychology, bibliopedagogics and bibliotherapy to a common denominator. All three phenomena have a common root in their names: it comes from Greek biblio – book. There are a lot of works devoted to what bibliopsychology and bibliopedagogics study and how they do it, and also what are the functions of bibliotherapy. Anyway, N.A. Rubakin’s words are worth remembering. He said that a person lives under certain historic conditions, and the character of his life determines “what, how and what for to read” in each particular case. Present-day conditions urge us not only to look for causes of “non-reading” or “not this sort of reading” but to create as well as we can (taking into account our individual and collective possibilities) some reading environment that would promote reader’s multifaceted development through his life activity. As for bibliopsychology, bibliopedagogics and bibliothrapy, they contribute a lot to a more competent decision of this problem.

References

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    Karpova, N. Bibliopsychology, Bibliopedagogics, Bibliotherapy: History, Theory, Practice [Текст] / L. Nataliya, N. Karpova // Przegląd Biblioterapeutyczny. – 2016. – Vol. 1(6). – С. 149-161. – 0,95 п.л. – ISSN 2391-971X.