I Go among Trees and Sit Still: The therapeutic benefits of reading

Primary Care and Health Sciences at University of Liverpool and The Reader Organisation in the UK have been running a pathbreaking initiative to help people suffering from depression. They have been conducting a two year study into the therapuetic effects of attending a reading circle. The poem, "I go among trees" is one of well over a hundred poems which have been used to close the weekly one and a half hour collective reading sessions.

So far the researchers have concluded that attendees benefit in terms of: "their social well-being, by increasing personal confidence and reducing social isolation; their mental well-being, by improving powers of concentration and fostering an interest in new learning or new ways of understanding; and their emotional and psychological well-being, by increasing self-awareness and enhancing the ability to articulate profound issues of self and being". Researchers were also able to identify what types of literature work, why they work and how they work in the specific context of depressive illness.

These types of psychosocial initiatives are an alternative or powerful adjunct to more conventional pharmaceutical interventions in the area of depression and it is encouraging that research is being carried out to establish the scale of their impact and to work more closely on establishing the exact "mechanism of action".

You can read the full report here