A rise in animal-assisted treatment

Using animals in psychotherapy has long been considered unusual. Research shows that there are many benefits.

This is the dilemma of cat lovers. It’s the cat lovers’ dilemma. You spend hundreds of dollars on vet bills, buy food that smells, clean litter trays and throw away food sachets. The feline companion scratches and strays your furniture, leaves dead rodents on your carpet, and sometimes disappears for three days.

Yoni Yehuda is an Israeli psychotherapist who says that humans are characterized by survival thinking. Jack Daniels, his cat, licks water from a glass on Yoni’s office table.

He says no apparent “quid pro quo” with animals. They are often helped out of pure motives, sometimes without expecting a return. It’s giving from something very pure inside span>

This idea is the basis of the professor’s research – offering therapy to people who have mental illness by asking them to take care of animals. He believes that healing is deeply rooted in the human-animal relationship. He says that God was the first animal-assisted psychotherapist. A parrot flies at the mosquito nets in his office window.

A camel and an outside llama frolic on the sand in the sun. Yehuda is home to hundreds of animals. These include horses, turtles, and an exotic Jesus Lizard that can run on water. He also has a South American coati with a ring-tailed South American hair and turtles. Many animals were saved and cannot be returned to nature or re-homed for different reasons.

Yehuda’s and the centre’s work area at the experimental, even controversial, end of a scientific discipline that is becoming increasingly popular worldwide.

In the late 18th century, animals were used in mental hospitals to promote socialization. A patient may be allowed to stroke a dog when feeling stressed. According to practitioners, animals can be used to motivate patients or serve as a metaphor for their difficulties. Some people with trauma prefer not to interact at all with others.

Over the last few years, dozens of studies have shown that animals used in therapy can have a limited but positive effect on various disorders, including schizophrenia, depression, and addiction.

“A lot of studies aren’t very high quality but it gives you a good view,” Karin Hediger (a psychotherapist and researcher at the University of Basel in Switzerland) says.

For two years, Hediger ran a centre that housed horses, chickens, and rabbits. It also helped adults and children with mental disorders. Hediger has discovered that animals can help patients understand their feelings and act in an easy way to comprehend.

A specially trained therapy horse can respond to aggression and frustration by reading patients’ body language. Hediger states that the client realizes there’s something wrong.

Some patients do not speak. She says that in such cases, it is “perfect to work with animals because they are not verbal too span>

The field is growing, and an umbrella group, the International Association of Human-Animal Interaction Organizations, has been trying to encourage more high-quality research.

“There are effects and they can be scientifically supported. However, many effects are difficult to prove statistically as they are emotional in nature,” says Prof Marie-Jose Enders Slegers, president.

“On an emotional level, you can see that [patients] are relaxed. They have fun. They are peaceful. And that is such a wonderful thing.” That is a wonderful thing .”

IAHAIO worked to professionalize the field by implementing ethical and professional guidelines. Exotic species such as monkeys or reptiles were banned from therapy due to potential dangers and risks of transmittable disease.

Many members of the community have criticized captive dolphin therapy. There is little quality research to support it.

Yehuda is a bit of a maverick. He has created his therapeutic methods and works with wild and domestic animals at his centre in an occupied West Bank settlement.

His career began by being a patient. His right side became paralyzed in 1987 while he was a paratrooper. He was later diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. His mental state deteriorated after he was again wounded by a Palestinian militant.

He recalls that he began to practice self-care and try to understand his feelings and being.

Yehuda holds a doctorate in psychology and teaches a respected three-year course at Hebrew University. He is a master of several methods and has used different animals to suite various conditions.

He has developed a program with stick insects, butterflies and worms for phobias. We have a special way to help people with eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia.

The centre was open in a limited capacity throughout the pandemic.

An unnamed patient said that he was “on the verge” of being hospitalized after serving in the Israeli army in Gaza in 2014. He was “on the brink of being hospitalized “.”

He expected to be asked questions about how he felt when he booked in at the centre. Yehuda instead told him to take care of the goats. “I had no interest in animals. He recalls spending hours sitting with the goats as he walks through the enclosure. He adds, “It wore me down physically, helped to sleep.” He approached Yehuda after several weeks because he was ready to talk. Months later, he still helps at the centre.

Yehuda believes animal-assisted psychotherapy is a “new and living field” of psychotherapy, but his work is also ancient and intuitive.

His goal is to make people feel that they have a purpose in life, even to give water to cats.

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