by Nicola Morgan | October, 2017 | Education, Nicola Morgan
Ancient wisdom has suggested that books can be therapeutic from Plato’s time through the enlightenment to modern day Bibliotherapy courses. Literary fiction has been a source of fascination for me since the eighties when my teacher announced that the study of literature was about ‘The Art of Living’. I believe she had a point and I later spent a stint in my career as a teacher of English Literature trying to persuade teenagers who would ask ‘but is it in the exam Miss’ of the same. Still on a mission, I am now investigating the value of literature in positive psychology. I briefly outline just a few of the connections in this blog. Mindfulness The benefits of Mindfulness are well-documented. Mindfulness can take the form of meditation but it can also involve pursuing activities mindfully; being in the moment, paying close attention and observing. Reading can most certainly be pursued in this way. In a lovely article by the writer Tim Parks, ‘Mindful Reading’ he considers the pleasures of reading. In reading carefully, mindfully, you can feel and observe your own reactions to the world that a writer is creating for you, to the characters that you are being presented with, to the problems and dilemmas and worlds that unfold in the pages of a novel. “…the excitement of reading is the precarious one of being alive, and reacting from moment to moment, in the most liquid and intimate sphere of the mind, to someone else’s elusive construction of the precarious business of being alive now.” – Tim Parks In Dr Mark Williams’ ‘Mindfulness’ one of the pieces of...