What is Animal Assisted Therapy?
Animal assisted therapy is the individualised, goal-directed and deliberate integration of an animal in a therapy setting, where therapy is being conducted by a health care or human-services professional.
Animals are a useful addition in mental health therapy practices due to a wide variety of factors. However, their natural ability to calm people, their social mediation effect and ability to become instruments for psychological change appear to be the largest contributing factors. Animal assisted therapy is also commonly implemented into client treatment plans because it can challenge the barriers associated with therapy engagement. This includes in populations that typically struggle to engage in treatment such as children, adolescents, clients experiencing substance use disorders and clients who have experienced trauma.
What Therapy with an Animal Assisted Therapist Might Look Like.
Working with a therapy animal can include a variety of activities. However typically treatment could include:
Spending your session with a therapy animal on the couch with you
Playing games with the therapy animal to develop insight into different topics
Completing common psychological treatment such as cognitive behavioural therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy or schema therapy with the support of the animals
Doing sessions outside rather than inside the clinic room