“It is quite possible—overwhelmingly probable, one might guess—that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology.”
— Noam Chomsky
I have spent most of my life in the pages of books. I have befriended characters in the stories I’ve read and had conversations with them that have lasted well into the night. They have taught me so much. Psychological case histories are all well and good yet the diagnoses always follow the case studies and then tend towards the theoretical. In a well-written book or a good story (the two overlap but aren’t identical) different characters with various mindsets interact and through the interactions of their personalities there is incalculable value to be found. Fictional characters can be at least as real as the average person you meet (and far more than most online personas).Different branches of psychology work well for various people tho in the long run too many of them adopt a “one size fits all” solution and believes that it can benefit anyone. Encountering different mirrors of yourself both in fiction and in life can accomplish a lot more if we open ourselves to the experience.
Blessings, G
Travelling Adrift by G A Rosenberg 
Focalor by G A Rosenberg 
Explosion Across Dimensions by G A Rosenberg 