Using bibliotherapy to rebuild identity for people with aphasia: A book club experience.

BACKGROUND: Aphasia book clubs were developed to support connecting with literature and reading for pleasure within an aphasia-friendly environment. Bibliotherapy is an evidence-based therapeutic approach, in which a book is selected to address the challenges facing the reader. Its aim is to facilitate a deeper understanding of a lived experience in order to promote healing, strategy development, and adjustment. Aphasia book clubs provide an opportunity to discuss books about the challenges associated with aphasia. A recent book, Identity theft: Rediscovering ourselves after stroke recounts the stroke recovery story of Dr. Debra Meyerson and 22 other stroke survivors. Identity Theft focuses on the need to reconstruct positive identities despite remaining disabilities to facilitate rebuilding rewarding lives. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of reading Identity Theft in an aphasia book club for people with aphasia (PwA). METHOD: 27 PwA read the book Identity Theft in one of four online aphasia book clubs offered by two universities. Weekly discussions were facilitated by graduate SLP students under the supervision of experienced clinicians. At the end of the 10 week program, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with participants to understand the lived experience. Interviews were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. RESULTS: Analysis of the interview data generated four main themes and 13 subthemes. The main themes included: Mechanism for Reflection, Power of Community, Engaged Learning, and Therapeutic Environment. Interview extracts illustrate the way these themes support increasing self-efficacy and rebuilding a positive identity. CONCLUSION: The themes align positively with outcomes associated with the bibliotherapy process. Themes also integrate into a self-management model that promotes self-efficacy through education, support, awareness, problem solving and goal setting. Caveats included determining participant readiness to examine recovery issues and facilitator preparation. Aphasia book clubs surrounding psychosocial texts may help PwA reconstruct a positive post-stroke identity.

Rethinking political correctness.

Legal and cultural changes over the past 40 years ushered unprecedented numbers of women and people of color into companies' professional ranks. Laws now protect these traditionally underrepresented groups from blatant forms of discrimination in hiring and promotion. Meanwhile, political correctness has reset the standards for civility and respect in people's day-to-day interactions. Despite this obvious progress, the authors' research has shown that political correctness is a double-edged sword. While it has helped many employees feel unlimited by their race, gender, or religion,the PC rule book can hinder people's ability to develop effective relationships across race, gender, and religious lines. Companies need to equip workers with skills--not rules--for building these relationships. The authors offer the following five principles for healthy resolution of the tensions that commonly arise over difference: Pause to short-circuit the emotion and reflect; connect with others, affirming the importance of relationships; question yourself to identify blind spots and discover what makes you defensive; get genuine support that helps you gain a broader perspective; and shift your mind-set from one that says, "You need to change," to one that asks, "What can I change?" When people treat their cultural differences--and related conflicts and tensions--as opportunities to gain a more accurate view of themselves, one another, and the situation, trust builds and relationships become stronger. Leaders should put aside the PC rule book and instead model and encourage risk taking in the service of building the organization's relational capacity. The benefits will reverberate through every dimension of the company's work.