Participation, Beauty and Meaning
Participation, Beauty and Meaning: An Account of My Research Journey* ‘ Reading literature can help one regain one’s balance when the mind is distressed or out of equilibrium, as a result of illness, disability, or a traumatic event encountered in the course of an ordinary life’. I wrote this in my first ever ESREA paper in 2017 and it was the beginning of a journey that I made to find out whether there was any truth in the theory known as bibliotherapy. In my research since then I have posed the question of whether a reading of literature can help to heal minds and hearts? As a result, I have come across indications from my own life and from outside sources that this can be so. I have amassed a vast number of articles on the subject and published several essays, both in educational journals and as part of a group of bloggers. Most of the latter are writers of novels for children and adults. Since I joined this group, about five years...