With or without a therapist: Self-help reading for mental health

Objective: To address a critical gap in health education scholarship by exploring the contexts in which self-help reading takes place, the motivations of self-help readers and the processes through which such readers engage with books on mental health. Design: Structured, in-depth interviews conducted with participants recruited through online classified advertisements. Setting: Self-help readers were recruited from the four largest cities in western Canada. The setting of self-help reading as an ‘intervention’ was as natural as possible, with readers being asked to reflect upon their recent experience of reading a self-help book. Method: Qualitative interviews conducted with 45 readers. Interview transcripts were analysed thematically. Results: Illustrative narratives are provided for two categories of readers: those who read in conjunction with direct therapeutic intervention and those who read without input from a therapist. Findings within both categories indicate a high level of diversity in terms of contexts, motivations and experiences. Conclusion: Understanding the diversity of readers and their experiences is an important prerequisite for health educators wishing to develop a critical and responsible approach to positioning self-help literature within the broader range of approaches to promoting mental health.