Animal-Assisted Therapy – just a bunch of warm fuzzies?
What is Animal-Assisted Therapy? Can anyone do it? What animals are most helpful for which populations? What does it accomplish? A series of articles will try to answer the many questions related with this therapeutic field
Animal-Assisted Therapy – everyone talks about, it makes intuitive sense, and arriving home after a hard day to a dog who is deliriously happy to see us makes us feel happy and good about ourselves. But what is Animal-Assisted Therapy? Can anyone do it? What animals are most helpful for which populations? For whom is it most effective? What does it accomplish? These are questions that are commonly asked.
In the US, there are numerous advertisements on the internet to the effect of "Come and learn to do Animal-Assisted Therapy with your pet at your local Senior Citizen's Home," "Train your dog to work as a therapy dog to help kids in school learn how to read," "Help raise your child's self-esteem through Animal-Assisted Therapy." These questions and advertisements just scratch the surface of what is, in general, mass confusion over the commonly used term "Animal-Assisted Therapy".
In this article, the first in a series of articles on the subject, the reader will be exposed to various definitions of animal-assisted interventions and their applications.
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Definitions
Animal-assisted interventions are separated into three categories: AAT (Animal-Assisted Therapy), AAA (Animal-Assisted Activities) and AAE (Animal-Assisted Education). The Delta Society, an organization in the US that deals with the human-animal connection, defines AAT as "a goal-directed intervention in which an animal that meets specific criteria is an integral part of the treatment process. AAT is directed and/or delivered by a health/human service professional with specialized expertise, and within the scope of practice of his/her profession.AAT is designed to promote improvement in human physical, social, emotional, and/or cognitive areas. AAT is provided in a variety of settings and may be group or individual in nature. This process is documented and evaluated." For instance, in AAT, a psychologist adds the presence of animals to her practice of play therapy with children to help them express themselves emotionally, or an occupational therapist will employ her dog to motivate the patient to perform various tasks which will improve functioning.
The Delta Society defines AAA as a way to "provide opportunities for motivational, educational, recreational, and/or therapeutic benefits to enhance quality of life. AAA is delivered in a variety of environments by specially trained professionals, paraprofessionals, and/or volunteers, in association with animals that meet specific criteria."
For example, an individual may make weekly visits to kindergartens with a different animal each week with planned activities surrounding the animal, a volunteer may make visits to the residents of a Senior Center with her dog, or an expert in dog obedience may run a program in which children with behavior problems learn to train dogs as a way to unobtrusively help the children themselves to accept and internalize the positive aspects of self-control.
AAE employs the presence of animals in order to advance certain educational goals. For instance, a child who is too shy to read aloud in class may be asked to read stories to a dog "who needs personal attention and just loves to be read to".
However, these definitions are widely ignored in descriptions of various programs. When searching Google, one will find descriptions of programs, advertised as AAT, that use volunteers accompanied by their pets, with the stated goals that are identical to those listed above for AAA. Schools often proudly announce their use of "AAT" in the classroom to promote learning.
So, why all the confusion?
The main source of the confusion may lay in the misunderstanding between the terms therapy and therapeutic. Therapy is carried out by academically-trained therapists, who receive on-going clinical supervision, according to the general goals as stated by the specific profession in which the therapist has been trained and specific goals according to the individual client.In the area of Animal-Assisted Therapy, the most common therapies are psychotherapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. Many Animal-Assisted Interventions that are not therapy may be very therapeutic. That is, they raise the quality of life of the participant and facilitate goal attainment. The problem seems to stem from the desire of lay persons to see themselves as therapists, which confuses themselves, the potential clients, and the general public.
It cannot be emphasized enough that a therapeutic intervention may be no less important than therapy in the life of the participant. For instance, a child may be in the midst of an emotional crisis which makes him feel self-conscious and isolated. The child's teacher who has an ongoing relationship with the child may employ a therapeutic activity within the classroom that may lead to the child's acceptance of his situation, seeing it as not so out-of-the-ordinary, helping other pupils understand what the child is going through, leading to the child feeling less socially isolated and more accepted.
The same child's psychologist may help the child be in touch with his inner world and learn to express it emotionally, so as to be able to work through the related thoughts and emotions, leading to insight and change. Both the interventions of the teacher and psychologist lead to significant improvement in the child's emotional well-being. Therapy is one type of therapeutic intervention, and a therapeutic activity is another type of therapeutic intervention. The general goal of increasing the emotional well-being of the child is the same, but is reached by using complementary methods with specific and intermediate operational goals that are different.
Horse (riding) of different (therapy) colors
An area which is fraught with confusion between the terms AAT and AAA is that of therapeutic riding. There are credentialed therapists that use horses and riding in their Animal-Assisted Therapy. For instance, riding may be used by a physical therapist as a motivational tool to encourage the patient to use certain muscles that the patient may otherwise refuse to use.
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Horses as healers (Photo: Yigal Zur)
Another example of the use of horses and riding is in Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy, which is an experiential psychotherapy that involves horses and activities related to horses such as handling, grooming, longeing, riding, driving, and vaulting in order to reach the usual goals of psychotherapy.
According to the Israel National Therapeutic Riding Association, therapeutic riding "uses the horse and horseback riding in planned recreational activities as a primary medium for treatment of persons who are limited in their functional abilities due to illness, disability, injury, mal- adaptation or other conditions."
Unless conducted by a trained therapist, it takes on the nature of an Animal-Assisted Activity. Therapeutic riding instructors (who are not therapists as defined above) have studied in programs (with a requirement of only a high-school education) which give background knowledge of horse behavior and health issues, as well as introductory courses in the field of mental health and physical functioning.
AAT may use various AAA activities within therapy, but it will make further use of these activities in accordance with the type of therapy. For instance, one common goal of both AAA and AAT is the raising of self-esteem in the client. In AAA, it is often said that by feeding and taking proper care of animals, therefore having the animals' welfare being dependent on the client, the self-esteem of a child may rise due to the feeling that "Because of me, the animals are better off, happier, and they value me, so I value myself."
The question is if this rise in self-esteem is specific to the situation or if it is internalized and generalized to other situations. It also does not touch the basic source of the low self-esteem. In Animal-Assisted Psychotherapy, a child's rise in self-esteem within the therapy setting is only the beginning.
This feeling would then be discussed with the therapist, who might ask why the child does not feel this way outside of the therapy setting, and together they may arrive to an emotional and cognitive understanding of the source of the low self-esteem (perhaps due to a father who consistently berates him, or due to having experienced sexual abuse), leading to a more basic understanding and insight into the situation and to deeper and more widespread change.
Future articles will concentrate on the subject of Animal-Assisted Psychotherapy (AAP): definition and history, description of various settings, roles of animals in psychotherapy, the status of the field in Israel and in the world, professional training, AAP with various populations, and more.
Nancy Parish-Plass, Animal-Assisted Psychotherapist, Founding Chairperson of The Israeli Association of Animal-Assisted Psychotherapy – MERCHAV, Professional Consultant for Animals and Society – The Israeli Journal for the Connection between People and Animals
- To contact Animals and Society: [email protected]
