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Briefs

by Tom Noble¹
214-692-1888
fax: 692-8577
tnoble28@hotmail.com
http://www.tnoble.com/

8.10.01

It should be remembered, however, that the mind requires, for its development, a variety of exercise, just as the physical body, to be properly developed, calls for many forms of systematic exercise. Napoleon Hill¹.

For if I were forbidden to read these books, I was sad not to be able to read the very things that made me sad. Augustine.²

… one of the most frequently mentioned enjoyable activities the world over is reading. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi³.

Bibliotherapy

I'm putting aside my book for a few minutes to talk to you about "bibliotherapy". I first encountered bibliotherapy last year while reading Plato Not Prozac by Dr. Lou Marinoff.⁴ Marinoff applies philosophy as therapy. Like a psychologist, he counsels people and assists them in analyzing their problems. But, then, he prescribes doses of Plato or Hegel or Sartre or Christ or Buddha.

I've wrestled with Plato, the Greek philosopher who lived about 350 years before Christ. If you missed Plato as an undergraduate, you were probably too young to have appreciated him then anyway. Dust off that old copy of The Republic and see if Marinoff has a point. Plato is heady stuff. Not only does he address most, if not all, of the major questions that western philosophy has addressed for over 2000 years since, Plato was a great writer. Before joining Socrates' cult, he aspired to be a poet and playwright.⁵ Plato serves us philosophy seasoned with dialogue and drama. His first four books describe the trial and death of Socrates, his mentor. Each is short and powerful. But, better than pills?

Remember Y2K? I wonder: When I mutter about Y2K in my elder days, will my great-grandchildren think that I am talking about a car? or one of their friends? One of the more interesting things about Y2K for me was when A&E ran a special on "Biography of the Millennium".⁶ The winner?⁷ Johannes Gutenberg: perfecter of the printing press. First book printed? The Bible. The Big B. That was in 1456 - five hundred years before Jimmy Swaggart. How many Bibles have we printed since then? How many lives have Gutenberg's Bible and its progeny touched in the last five hundred years? Boggles the mind.

Before Gutenberg, we had oral traditions, script made from wood blocks, and a scroll of papyrus here and there. But for a few hieroglyphs, man's knowledge stopped at what he could see, hear, smell, feel, imagine, and remember. Philosophers, shamans, gurus, and medicine women didn't write down their wisdom because, well, what was the point? Buddha, Homer, Christ, Socrates: not a book among them. Plato was an exception.

After Gutenberg, man not only had the power to think, he had the power to disseminate his thoughts. He could project his thoughts as far as he could send a book. The neighborhood just got bigger. Lesser intellect could access greater intellect. Wise men could cast their pearls to the rest of us. The history of man since the printing press is, in one sense, the history of books. Books gave ideas wings; they were the mind's manumission.

Books replicated themselves like hearty genes, and, then, something else happened. People learned to read. The more we read, the more we wrote, and the more we wrote, the more we read. Man and book coevolved. And, despite all of this progress, Plato's intelligence has survived. How many pills can say that?

Books transform us. They may not zap our brains like Merck's latest anti-depressing elixir, but they lift us up, you don't have to wait 3-6 weeks to see results, and they are cheaper than an HMO. Books tell us how to meditate and take us to fantasy worlds in the future. But, they also urge us to be greater and do better, and tell us that we can and how. They tell us how great people became great - valuable information for anyone wanting to improve the life-experience.

Who can deny the transforming power of The Koran, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Silent Spring, The General Theory of Relativity, The Bible, The Origin of Species, Common Sense, or Das Kapital? Each of these is a single volume that changed the way that millions of people view and live their lives. The written word transforms not just individuals but whole societies, lifting our collective consciousness. Warped space-time? Who would have figured it?

If you are with me so far, it is a short step from: if books are transformative, and if we counselors, lawyers, mediators, therapists, financial planners, and coaches are in the business of providing transformative experiences of one kind or another, to: we should be using books as therapeutic tools.

Next step: What is a bibliotherapist? And, more importantly, how much is the malpractice coverage? So far, bibliotherapy is unlicensed and undefined, as best I can tell. If there are any bibliotherapy cops out there, please check in. A search of the web turned up little. Current bibliotherapists are mostly psychologists recommending books to kids with problems like divorce, grief, generally, life's ugly maladies. I have discovered, so far, no local groups, state organizations, or dues-sucking, newsletter-happy, annual seminar types issuing continuing education credits and granting specialization certificates, passing out accolades and post-mortem plaques, or debating over the nuances of ethical systems designed to cover their assets. As far as I am concerned, if you love books and want to help people, you should be qualified. After that, let the markets rule!

Wherefore, premises considered, I hereby ordain myself: Tom Noble: Bibliotherapist. Cool. That was easy. Open for business! New business cards!

Now, back to my book.

^1. Law of Success, Lesson 2, p.6. ^2. Confessions, p. 34. ^3. Flow, p. 49. ^4. Interested parties should also consider Reading to Heal, by Jacqueline Stanley, who also happens to be a lawyer and teacher of legal research and writing. ^5. I. F. Stone, The Trial of Socrates, p. 4.^6. Don't hold me to the title. ^7. (and who remembers the guy who came in second?) ^8. If you are interested in book recommendations - to receive or share - send me an e-mail.