The spoken word cure

Forget popping Prozac. Try the healing powers of the spoken word instead. The Reader Organisation, a British charity, is tapping into the nurturing sound of the human voice intoning words on a page with an anthology of prose and poetry meant to be read aloud. So drop the shrink. "Bibliotherapy" might be all you need.

From the Guardian:

"Listening to the spoken word is one of the most profound sources of comfort. The sense of being looked after, nourished and replenished, is like being fed. The listener can relax and place their trust in the reader. The experience is quite unlike reading to oneself. Part of this, claims Davis, comes from "the slowness of the human voice". When we are engaged at the pace of ordinary speech, we don't skip on, we engage with the many levels of meaning in the story. It grows deeper and more real. From this, people start to talk freely about what a text has meant to them – and become liberated in their personal lives."