What Is Animal–Assisted therapy?

Courtesy of Inyan Magazine

Animal–assisted therapy (AAT) improves people’s mental, physical, social, and emotional well-being. Many different animals can be used, depending on the needs of the client. These include horses (equine-assisted therapy), dogs (canine-assisted therapy), dolphins, rabbits, and Llamas.

           AAT takes places in a variety of setting including hospitals, schools, prisons, nursing homes, and mental health facilities. It can be conducted individually or in groups by a qualified AAT therapist or a professional with special expertise.

      The therapy involves specific goals rather than just spending time with the animals. Therapeutic experiences can include walking, brushing, petting, and caring for the animal in addition to processing the experience of a given task. AAT can be part particularly beneficial for people who are resistant to treatment with traditional psychotherapy or have difficulty accessing their emotions and expressing themselves through talking.

          People and animals have a strong bond. Animals are accepting, nonthreatening, and nonjudgmental, making it easier for people to open up around them. Inyan featured a Monsey- based program that uses horses in “Harnessing Horses for healing” by Sury Chohen Parshas Shemini / April 4, 2013).

Benefits of Animals- Assisted Therapy

Animal-assisted therapy helps clients improve fine-motor skills- focus and attention, balance, self-esteem, and self-control and it reduces anxiety, depression, and blood pressure. It helps build trust, empathy, and teamwork, improves social skills, and enhances problem- solving skills.

            People with a variety of conditions can benefit from AAT. These include autism, addiction, a variety of psychiatric and behavioral disorder, heart disease, chronic pain.

 ‘Paws Can Heal’

          Scientific research has shown that a person’s interaction with an animal can provide both physical and emotional benefits. It can act as a catalyst, motivating patients to help themselves. For example, a child will happily take a dog for a walk or throw an animal a ball, forgetting his or her pain for a while; the interaction enables the child to perform more tasks that will speed up the discharge process.

           Phoenix Children’s Hospital has a unique animal-assisted therapy program for patients and their families called paws Can Heal. The therapy is   requested by doctors, nurses, occupational and physical therapists, or child-life specialists

          Among other benefits, AAT motivates children to get up, walk about, leave their room and play, participate in other therapies, interact more with others and do things that may be difficult for them such as eating, taking medication, or waiting. It helps them forget their pain and discomfort, and it improves their mood.