Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture and faith from the Antipodes.

General

Bibliotherapy

Interesting article in this week’s Listener (Chicken Soup of the Wallet by Noel O’Hare) which comments on doctors in the UK sending people to libraries to read “self-help” books rather than prescribe anti-depressants. The main thrust of the argument seems to be that patients get to be proactively about their situation as well as also reducing costs on the health system.

I like the comment at the end of the article that argues that if you’re reading ‘self-help’ books you should also be reading a range of fiction to enter into the (simulated) experiences of others and to learn from them. It ends with a quote from Chomsky.

“It is quite possible,” Noam Chomsky has said, “that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology.”