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What is it about the wagging tail of a dog or the purr of a
cat that makes us feel so calm, so safe, so present? Not a
few clients have said, “I came to see you for psychotherapy
because you work with dogs.” I remember one patient who came
in and said, “Y’know I didn’t know you from beans, but I
figured, how bad could you be if you rescued two dogs?”
Another young man was so traumatized by abuse that he held
onto one of the dogs and cried for two months. He could not
yet tolerate the vagaries of human relationship, but he
could let the dog love him. And through that a bridge was
formed back to life.
Animal-Human Bonding
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One of the major sources of disease is the stress of
loneliness and isolation. Even in the midst of a crowd, we
can feel alone, anxious, disconnected. As a result, one of
the essential elements to healing is connectedness. A
physician without empathy, compassion, and love is doing
half her job. So the question becomes, do animals feel? More
specifically, do they feel with us and like us?
The evidence seems to suggest they do. When my patients cry,
my dogs go over, nuzzling them with their snouts, licking
away their tears, looking for ways to soothe them and make
them feel better. |
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Anyone
with pets has seen the same thing. They know when
we’re angry, when we’re afraid, when we’re sad, when
we’re angry. And the only way they could know would
be to have similar emotional states themselves.
One of the major sources of disease is the stress of
loneliness and isolation. Even in the midst of a crowd, we
can feel alone, anxious, disconnected. As a result, one of
the essential elements to healing is connectedness. A
physician without empathy, compassion, and love is doing
half her job. So the question becomes, do animals feel? More
specifically, do they feel with us and like us?
The evidence seems to suggest they do. When my patients cry,
my dogs go over, nuzzling them with their snouts, licking
away their tears, looking for ways to soothe them and make
them feel better. Anyone with pets has seen the same thing.
They know when we’re angry, when we’re afraid, when we’re
sad, when we’re angry. And the only way they could know
would be to have similar emotional states themselves. |
The Field of Pet Therapy
Something about animals—not just cats and dogs, but horses,
dolphins, birds, geese, mice and rabbits—helps us to heal.
It is not simply a sentimental fantasy. It’s science.
Aaron Katcher MD and Patricia Gonser PhD are currently
engaged in research that suggests that animals can have a
positive effect on people’s mental health. I know one
fellow, a 55-year old teacher who was going through a
terrible spot with his adolescent son, who eventually needed
hospitalization. He had also suffered from depression off
and on through his life. And he said, in no uncertain terms,
that if he had not had his dog, he would have lost his mind
or left his home.
In the Ohio Reformatory for Women, Susan Kestella is the
Director of a pet therapy and wildlife rehab program. They
started with wildlife rehabilitation as a way of helping the
community (because it is such time-consuming work, few
people can or will do it) but it turned out to be much, much
more. The inmates became intensely involved, developing
exquisite rapports with the animals as well as with each
other, building self-respect, skills, and resources they
weren’t aware they had. What they found was that the
disabled pets that they could never release and had to keep
in the prison, were able to help not only the inmates who
worked with them, but dozens of other low-functioning or
disabled inmates. They found that the simple act of holding
the rabbits on their laps calmed the women and changed the
environment in the prison itself.
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