Reading for Depression/Mental Health

Abstract

Firstly, Clare Ellis and Eleanor McCann recount their experiences of delivering UK charity. The Reader’s Shared Reading model as part of mental health provision in both community and hospital contexts. Specifically, they focus on reading Shakespeare (poetry and drama respectively) and on readers’ momentary or ‘real-time’ responses to experiencing the literature as a vocal presence. Finally, Anne Line Dalsgård reports on her study of the experience of public librarians delivering Shared Reading groups to psychologically vulnerable people in Denmark, as part of a collaboration between The Danish Reader Association and psychiatry and municipal health centres aiming to promote community mental health.