Animal Assisted Therapy
Therapists working with animals can bring the physical and emotional benefits of human-animal interactions to their clients. Animals live in the present without the bias of labels and past judgments. They respond to clients in the moment and are effective at confronting behaviors and attitudes with a non-judgmental, non-verbal, and honest response. Horses, in particular, respond to everything a client thinks and does, which offers a client awareness and information, highlighting current patterns and motivating change to new ones.
Animal assisted therapy (AAT) is a series of goal-directed interventions in which an animal meeting specific criteria is an integral part of the treatment process which:
· Promotes improvement in human social, emotional, and/or thinking and intellectual skills.
· Opens a path through a person’s initial resistance. For example, children often think that if a therapist has an animal in the office, the therapist “can’t be all bad.”
· Increases insight through the projection of feelings and experiences onto an animal.
· Opens a channel of emotionally safe, non-threatening communication between client and therapist.
· Provides positive, appropriate physical contact. For some adults and children, touch from another person is not acceptable, but the warm, furry touch of an animal is.
· Provides an effective channel through which at-risk children can learn nurturing skills. By being taught to interact appropriately with an animal, children can develop these skills.
· Fulfills the need to be nurtured through the engagement of nurturing activities.
Adapted from Delta Society and Acres for Life training literature.