Words of solace from the books that help us through a crisis

She recently described how, after the disintegration of her first marriage to actor and director Kenneth Branagh, she put on his old dressing gown and crawled from the bed to the computer where she immersed herself in re-reading and adapting Jane Austen's novel into what was to become an Oscar-winning film in which she also co-starred with Kate Winslet.

Although long dead, the Regency era novelist and her acute take on human relationships apparently did more to salvage Thompson's battered feelings and heal her broken heart than any amount of anti-depressants or hours spent on the couch.

The Jane Austen effect is not just about the escapism of wallowing in a bygone time of bonnets, petticoats, picnics and making advantageous marriages, though. For all the world she describes is small, Austen manages to wrap up in within

it a comprehensive summary of the problems entailed in relationships between men and women the world over – back then and even now.

Austen's stories put good and deserving people into difficult situations, setting them against all kinds of adversity. How satisfying it is to journey with Lizzie Bennet and Mr Darcy as each overcomes their own pride and prejudice about the other to recognise their true love after many months of misunderstandings.

Of course, for many people it isn't Jane Austen but some other writer who provides consolation in an hour of need. I've heard Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

and Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace all cited as reliable props in times of crisis.

You can see how Alcott's and Wilder's worlds of solid domesticity and family loyalty provide uncomplicated, reliable and old-fashioned stereotypes. But what of Gone With The

Wind, where the heroine Scarlett O'Hara is tough as old boots and rather heartless until her permafrost thaws and she realises she loves but is about to lose Rhett Butler, the man who has adored her for years?

The comfort of this American Civil War story, which follows a revolution in US society and the birth of a new order, lies in the sheer, dogged survival instincts of Scarlett. With or without the man, she'll go on. It's just the kind of thing you need to slap yourself across the chops with when you think everyone's against you or life is over because love is lost. Scarlett's "Tomorrow is another day" is one of literature's great mantras.

"Various aspects of seeking solace seem to me worth considering," says Bridget Bennett, professor of American Literature at Leeds University. "Are we looking for lives that we identify with that find some kind of resolution – and this then suggests to us that this can happen to us?

"Or are we looking for (characters in) worse situations than our own and therefore the solace is that our lives seem less bad?

"Do we turn to old favourites as we would a comfort blanket or cup of tea? Is it, conversely, when we feel better about ourselves that we search for the new, ie new books, so when we feel

bad we go back to things we know already?"

Professionals recognise the therapeutic power of the familiar story or poem.

"I have come across this sort of thing, where a well-loved book provides some sort of solace in a crisis," says psychotherapist and novelist Lucy Beresford. "It's especially likely that a favourite book has well-drawn storylines and characters you can really relate to.

"The book people turn to usually reflects their own life in some way, and there is some kind of resolution to problems presented in the story. I'm heartened by Emma Thompson's comments because people can find great succour and comfort in novels.

"I have had patients who have turned to Jane Austen in a crisis; her name comes up again and again. I've also heard people say they gain comfort from writers like Bill Bryson, and the repetition of certain

observations they have enjoyed. Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy has also been mentioned. Even if the storyline is far removed from your own, the books mentioned seem to have one thing in common, and that is triumph over adversity."