There is nothing to read on the psych unit but a bulletin board listing the daily activities and some magazines. This makes Chihaya think about her relationship to books, which is a complex one. She muses that “it is every writer’s fear that our books will be the death of us” (p. 11) and humorously writes about how she once had a bookshelf that was so wobbly she worried it would topple over on her. However, the real damage that books inflict may be insidious. The author first began to read as an escape from her unhappy childhood, but she fears she now “love[s] books to a dangerous degree” (p. 20).  They have become her life to the extent that she does not know if she “would be anyone at all” (p.12) without them. A feature of her depression is that she has completely lost interest in reading. She half-seriously coins the diagnosis “bibliophobia” to describe her condition. It will take just the right book to cure her, and when she finds it, she begins to read again, and to heal.  

Over the course of Bibliophobia Chihaya tells us about the books that have been of vital importance to her, many of which she associates with relationships or with stages in her life. Eventually, she reads the DSM about her own psychiatric diagnosis, and she reads books that other people have written about their depression. Working with a therapist, she realizes she needs to move on, and she lets go of her academic career. By the end of Bibliophobia we learn that Chihaya has finally written a book, but it is not the one she was expecting to write. It is Bibliophobia.

Bibliophobia is an unusual hybrid of a book that is part literary criticism part memoir. The author has been influenced by numerous mental health memoirs including recent celebrated works by Donald Antrim, Esmé Weijun Wang, and George Scialabba.

The first chapter, the subsequent emotional journey of the author, and her conclusions all captured my attention. I must confess that much of the rest of this book interested me less for the simple reason that I had not read any of the books the author discusses in detail. I do not even think we have the same taste in literature. However, this may not prove to be a stumbling block to potential readers who are fans of Toni Morrison, Anne Carson or Anne of Green Gables, or who just love reading about books.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, stigma around mental health is common in Asian American communities. One praiseworthy attribute of Bibliophilia is how it calls attention to the challenges that these groups experience in accessing care. Chihaya, was raised by a Japanese father and a Japanese Canadian mother who “did not believe in the concept of mental health; everyone was either fine or just complaining” (p. 49). Growing up with the message that depression is “not for the children of immigrants [but] something that happen[s] to white people in independent films” (p. 7) it goes without saying that Chihaya cannot bring her symptoms to her parents’ attention. Filled with shame, it takes her many years until she can no longer ignore them. Fortunately, Chihaya has given us a book filled with insights that one hopes will inspire others to seek help.

Bibliophobia
Sarah Chihaya
Random House, New York, 2025, 214 pages

References:
https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/asian-american-patients
Web image from Wikicommons.

Herein I argue not only that video games are an epistemically valid artform but also that the health humanities should actively incorporate them into critical discussions. As any diligent qualitative researcher would say, such arguments must position the writer, so I’ll begin by briefly describing how I came to this topic.  

At the time of writing, I am a resident in psychiatry in New York City. I grew up and completed my formal education in the Middle Atlantic region, and video games have been a part of my life the entire way. As a child, I was fortunate enough to play both handheld (e.g., Nintendo Game Boy) and console (e.g., PlayStation) systems. I gravitated toward role-playing games (RPGs), those in which the player acts as a particular character to live through ​​that character’s narrative (often a hero’s journey). I especially loved fantasy and science fiction RPGs, which mirrored my passions in literature. Aesthetically, they transported me to rich worlds with stunning visuals. Practically, they taught me skills I didn’t realize I was learning (e.g., map reading, orientation in a digital space, manual dexterity). Emotionally, they carried me through incredibly challenging moments, providing a mentally stimulating escape when my child and adolescent brain needed time to process.  

The messaging had always been clear: if you want to do nothing with your life, then go ahead and play video games in your parents’ basement. Whenever I heard this, I became smaller. Despite my life aspirations and dreams of being a physician, I couldn’t help remembering that I was indeed the child living in his parents’ basement playing video games. I felt I was one step away from failure at any moment. I still enjoyed my games immensely, but I constantly created timelines for when I would “give them up.” Video games became a vice, a tumor that I needed to excise lest it devour me. 

But I couldn’t.  

Every time I attempted to leave video games in my past, something brought them back: the newest installation in my favorite series, a need for variation in my leisure activities, an offer to play a collaborative game remotely with new friends, a need for active escape. Still, I kept it secret. I talked about it with my closest friends, but only if they too struggled with the same addiction.  

Until one day I stopped. I made the active choice to talk about it with my peers, co-residents, and supervisors if it naturally presented itself. And, miraculously, the shame started to ease. I realized that video games nourish my life in ways that other activities do not. In some respects, they offer the narrative of literature, the visuals of movies, and the interactivity of board games all wrapped in one beautiful image. I started to question why I could spend countless hours reading or watching shows without concern but immediately felt guilty when I played a game. This piece, and subsequent series, seeks to challenge this socialized notion that video games are a waste of life force.  

Just like other forms of media, video games both comment on and transform the human experience. Video games have expanded into innumerable genres and formats. Gone are the days when you needed a desktop computer or a gaming system to play; the size and pervasiveness of the mobile game market is near incomprehensible. Video games have become a part of mainstream culture. It’s time we change our viewpoint on them and treat them like the critical pieces of media they are. Through MedHum, we will join in rewriting this narrative, highlighting the value of video games within the health humanities. First on our docket is an open-world game called Forspoken, a game with a bit of controversy in its reception. Stay plugged in to read it soon! 

Web image by Aditya Sethia