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Animal Assisted Therapy - Therapy with Animals
contents
- Animal Therapy - Why?
- Therapy with dogs
- Cure of phobias?
- The horse therapy
- Lama therapy
- The dolphin therapy
Animal-assisted therapy refers to all procedures in which contact with animals is supposed to positively affect the lives of humans, borderline patients who get a daily structure through dogs, to autistic people who learn to lose their fear of being touched, to those who are depressive make first steps to communicate with people through contact with an animal.
Often, dogs are used for therapy. Image: Miriam Dörr - fotolia The emotional closeness of the animal, its body heat and above all its recognition by the animal have a healing effect.
Pet animals promote responsibility, caring, joy of life, empathy, and even optimism, summed up the emotional intelligence. These include the intuition, the recognition of feelings and the right reaction to the feelings of others. Animals show their feelings openly. In addition, their social status, ideal of beauty or material wealth does not matter to them.
Studies show that people who grew up with animals later in life can deal with problems in relationships better than those who grew up without animals.
Cohabitation with pet animals lowers blood pressure, stabilizes the circulation and leads to less sleep disorders. Pet animals prevent psychosomatic illnesses as a result of social isolation, and they reduce the risk of addictions.
Pets help to cope with stress, relationship problems, as well as the stresses of everyday life. Animals have no appointments, do not work, and they are always close to us. So they stop unsafe people.
Some animals make us laugh and challenge us to play, especially dogs and cats. Both stimulate endorphins in the brain, reducing pain, reducing stress and making us feel good.
Being together with animals has existential quality. Human beings are natural beings, and in our highly technological world, attachment to nonhuman nature is increasingly lost. Consequently, in the industrialized countries, the number of pet animals is increasing rapidly: If there is no forest in the vicinity, the terrarium with tree frogs provides a replacement. Working dogs like Labradors and Golden Retrievers find a new role as a family member.
Animal Therapy - Why?
In therapy, animals are targeted. Especially in children, they often initiate the treatment. Unlike dolls, they react to the child, showing their needs and feelings. Unlike people, they do not care about a patient's intellectual abilities - they are not interested in religion, color or culture.
Animals are spontaneous, they show the patient their affection and thus lift the joy of life. The soft fur of a cuddly cat satisfies a lonely person's need for tenderness, while dogs force us to take action, whether they want to play or greet us stormily. People who live in a nursing home or a psychiatric institution must give up their own responsibility and thus lose part of their self-confidence. Walking with dogs gives them the feeling of responsibility and competence.
In addition they promote the physical health. Whoever holds a dog, has to move several times daily to the fresh air and not only the dog, but also himself.
People with disabilities and senior citizens in homes are under a lot of stress, they have to live with the loss of their privacy because the carers wash, dress and take them from place to place; they are confronted with the death of friends and acquaintances, they suffer from physical limitations and illnesses.
Animals reduce this stress, as proven by various studies. This lowers the blood pressure in humans when they pet an animal, but also when the animal is only nearby. Instead of constantly pondering over their physical and emotional problems, the animal distracts from the suffering. What's more, animals bring curiosity back to a life that is inevitably shaped by routine.
Studies on curiosity research have shown that people are best at developing new ideas when they do not have to do too much or too little mentally. Add to this love, understanding and acceptance, meaning decisive feelings for people suffering from depression, dementia, borderline or burnout. Animals take the feelings that a human being shows for them, whether they have disabilities or not.
At the same time animals serve as a bridge for interpersonal communication. Sociophobics who walk with dogs, talk to strangers about their dogs, seniors in the home have a common theme when the grandchildren visit them.
The animal promotes a person's social activity. It is not an object, but a subject. If you are indifferent or even repellent to a cat or a dog, the animal will hardly have a social relationship. The more the patient comes out of his emotional shell, the more positively the animal responds and the patient immediately experiences the animal's increasing affection.
Therapy with dogs
Dog therapies are the most common animal-based treatments and involve educators, health professionals, social workers, and psychotherapists. In diagnosis, dogs are particularly helpful in diagnosing illnesses in which verbal communication is virtually impossible. This is especially true for people with speech disorders, the deaf, autistic or language barriers. Dog-based activity includes visiting dog services in nursing and retirement homes as well as kindergartens.
Dogs serve the rehabilitation of criminals in the US. At the Washington Corrections Center for Women, detainees can train service dogs to help people with disabilities, such as guide dogs, dogs that alerted the deaf, or those who are shopping.
The training of the dogs should also improve the social skills of the inmates. Most of them come from environments in which they experienced violence to a great extent, both mentally and physically.
The women can learn both social behavior from and with the dogs as well as gather success experiences when raising the dogs. They not only spend their imprisonment with a meaningful task, but also have a professional base when they come to freedom.
Therapy dogs complete a special training. It depends more on the individual than on the breed, but particular breeds are particularly suitable, firstly because they are very adaptive and secondly because they seek a close relationship with humans. These include, in particular, Labrador and Golden Retrievers, border collies and Australian Shepherd, and, in Anglo-American space, the Bull, Pittbull and Staffordshire Terriers, who are outlawed as "fighting dogs".
We distinguish between dogs, which keep the patients permanently and dogs that are in the hands of therapists and only come in contact with those affected on the respective dates. For example, a dog-based therapy promises success with depressives. These learn by contacting the dogs in the presence of a therapist to tear down their invisible wall to other people.
Therapy dogs that stay with the patients, help with mental disorders to develop a day structure and take responsibility: a borderline patient, for example, only went out of the apartment to shop, she slept on the windowsill, neglected her personal hygiene and developed a social phobia , She got two border collies trained as therapy dogs, to feed the dogs, to walk with them, and at the same time to find their affection brought back a little hold in her life, and she found in the dogs a basic trust that they lost to humans would have.
Retrievers are great at making things easier for people with mental or physical disabilities. An a hunter who does not bring the prey is like a watchdog leading predators to silver. Retrievers must act independently, be very persistent and love the water. You need a good nose and sharp eyes. These traits are common to all five recognized retrievers, making them ideal for animal-assisted therapy and assistance dogs. They are very eager to learn and can even go to the supermarket with special cars to bring their human's shopping, open doors, show whether the food burns or pick up the newspaper - but most of all, how they need caring.
The dog and wolf researcher Kurt Kotrschal found out that subjects in the presence of a dog had significantly lower levels of messengers than participants without a dog. The more they spoke and stroked the dog, the more relaxed they became.
The dogs had this effect only on insecure participants who suffered from behavioral problems. In psychologically stable children, the stress hormones decreased the most in the presence of an adult.
The conclusion is that a dog can create more confidence in children with attachment disorders than an adult. This would give dogs significant therapeutic potential to strengthen the relationship between therapist and patient.
A puppy suitable for a therapy dog does not belong to any particular breed. He should be very strong in nature, healthy and possess an extraordinary play instinct. He is not allowed to show aggression towards people, he needs a close relationship with his owner, great communication, patience and a high tolerance for stimuli.
Cure of phobias?
About therapy dogs circulating the wrong idea that they could cure dog phobias. No animal-assisted therapy, however, heals a phobia of the client. That's what a psychologist needs. Although he can use a dog within the therapy, the dog does not heal the phobia - because the animal is not responsible for it.
The horse therapy
Horses support two different types of therapy: on the one hand physiotherapy, in which horseback strengthens the muscle tension, on the other hand curative education, which should alleviate mental disorders.
During the physiotherapy on horseback, the horse walks in step, and the body of the patient adjusts to the movements of the horse. This is to relax spastic muscles and tense relaxed muscles. The upper body should gain posture, and a disturbed sense of balance should settle again.
This exercise gymnastics is particularly suitable for people who are partially paralyzed, so they develop a feeling for their torso again. However, it is not suitable for patients with multiple sclerosis, hemophiliacs or people who suffer from inflammation of the spine.
Riding or horse therapy. Image: Zlatan Durakovic - fotolia The "therapeutic pedagogical riding and vaulting", however, aims at children with mental disorders and psychosocial problems.
The idea behind it is to demand and promote the patient holistically: physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. Children react to horses with all their senses, they stroke the animals, they smell them, they hear the sounds the horse makes, they feed it, they can entrust their cares to them.
Children participating in this therapy clean the barn, watch the horse roll, and how it behaves on the pasture. In contrast to cats or rabbits, the children not only cuddle with the horse, but train their entire body.
The vaulting itself consists of gymnastics, which the child performs on the horse's back while the horse walks in a circle on the lunge. If the child does not move, vaulting will not work. The entire body is in action, and this is to lead in children who have a false self-image, either too little self-esteem or an exaggerated narcissistic, perceive themselves more realistic and "earthed" to approach the environment.
Anyone who rides must engage the horse with the whole body, and the animal gives off constant impulses of movement that are constantly changing. It runs faster or slower, deviating inwards or outwards from the circle. The child has to be prepared for it.
It is not a purely physical exercise. Without an emotional connection to the horse, it is not possible to adjust to its movements. Riding is a relationship between two living beings. A trained vaulting horse initiates this relationship.
For socially conspicuous children, horse therapy is the same as other animal therapies. Children who have problems with parents and teachers are easier on the horse than other people. In the horse, they learn at best a social behavior that has a positive effect on their relationships with other people.
The vaulting therapist has a special meaning. He is the bridge between child, horse and the adult world. He / she can teach the child how to behave in a social way by seeing the trust the horse gives the therapist. "Pferdeschinder" of the old school, which break horses, force them into exercises, are always out of place - but especially in therapy.
Ideally, through the relationship with the horse, the child learns to gently resolve conflicts, becomes more confident, learns to take responsibility, heighten his sensitivity, and can bring these learning experiences into groups of peers.
Lama therapy
Some therapists in Germany today work with llamas and alpacas. Llamas have special properties that can be conducive to the development of people with psychosocial problems.
For one, they are "exotic." While most people attach certain expectations to horses, dogs or cats, which are often unrealistic or even have negative experiences with these animals, most clients behave unbiasedly towards lamas.
Llamas hold back against people, but at the same time they are curious and friendly. They move slowly and are so well watched. If you approach a lama to stroke it, you should also move gently, otherwise the animal will be distanced.
For borderline or bipolar disorders, but also for post traumatic stress syndrome, short for all mental illnesses that are associated with extreme behavior, the lamation therapy is suitable. The interplay between closeness and distance balances out the affected person by curbing his emotional outbursts. At the same time, unlike the example of a deer, a llama does not completely go away when the patient behaves conspicuously.
The dolphin therapy
Psychologist David E. Nathanson developed the "Dolphin-Human.Therapy". In Nathansson's concept, the dolphin is the reward for cooperation between a child being treated, their parents and the therapist. If the child behaves in the sense of the therapy, it may go to the dolphin into the water. The effectiveness could never be scientifically proven.
A very popular but especially expensive therapy for children is dolphins. Image: Aleksandr Lesik - fotolia Nathanson wrote, "If we want a child to speak and the child does not want to speak, we need to get his attention and, with the help of the dolphin, make him feel the desire to speak in himself. We need to get the kid to do it once and then positively reinforce that behavior, so that he always feels the desire to speak. "
Other therapies in the US regard the encounter with the dolphin itself as a cure. In Germany, only the Nuremberg Zoo offers a dolphin-assisted therapy in which the children approach the dolphins from the edge of the pool and later climb into the pool.
Dolphin therapies have been hotly criticized for years, both by animal rights activists and marine biologists. The animal rights activists criticize that a welfare of dolphins in captivity is not possible, the marine biologists warn that this encounter between child and dolphin can be dangerous. In addition, they convey a completely wrong picture of the animals.
According to a study in 2006, the University of Würzburg came to the conclusion: "Due to the proven therapeutic effects of severely disabled children between the ages of five and ten years, the Nuremberg Zoo will be offering therapy with dolphins, which must be financed by the participating families themselves."
The Foundation Fund Dolphin Therapy wants to enable children with severe disabilities, the very expensive therapy: "The Foundation Fund Dolphin Therapy was created to enable children with physical and / or mental disabilities to carry out a dolphin therapy. Unfortunately, the costs of dolphin therapy in Germany are not covered by the health insurance funds, although the reports of returning families all report a significant improvement in the children's abilities. "
According to the Endowment Fund, dolphins reconnect with the environment, reduce fears and relieve cramps. Thus, they are effective in preventing disabilities such as spasticity, autism, brain trauma or birth defects. Allegedly, children would learn four times as fast after therapy as before.
Extensive research has shown that therapy in combination with the interaction of a dolphin promotes children's development and learns them up to four times as fast, says the Fund.
The aim of the dolphin-assisted therapy is to improve the patient's skills. The dolphin motivates the children to work with the therapist ashore.
The dolphin-assisted therapy is an intensive therapy for children with problems in language, motor skills and communication. It would not stand alone, but support traditional therapies such as physiotherapy and speech therapy where they would not progress any further.
Critics note, however, that the "enhancement of abilities" is solely subject to the subjective judgment of the parents, while there are no objective studies, whether the therapy really change the condition of children positively.
The marine biologist Dr. Karsten Brensing warns: "From personal experience I know that dolphins can be aggressive towards people. In addition, it became clear in my research that especially the animals in small enclosures try to avoid humans. It is these evasive reactions that cause stress in the long term and can be the cause of aggressive behavior. There are a variety of accidents ranging from simple scratches to rib fractures. And many coaches have had to pay to interact with captive animals. "
Ingrid Stephan heads the Institute for Social Learning in Lower Saxony. She says: "Effects achieved by dolphins can also be achieved by other species in my opinion."
The presence of friendly animals alone helps people who are mentally ill. In certain mental disorders, animals in therapy can significantly improve the symptoms. Not all animal species and individuals are equally suitable for all patients. Animal-assisted therapy supplements other therapies, but does not replace them. Therapy dogs and horses are specially trained; Parents who buy a pet for their mentally ill child to help them should be well informed and consulted with professionals: untrained dogs that respond quickly to stimuli and are not very resilient may even respond to extreme behavior of the victim aggressive. It is also advisable for a dog to have parents of those affected by the dog training in the dog school. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)