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Mental Illness Is A Broad Category

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Mental illness is a broad category, that encompasses many different types of illnesses, and can affect anyone at any time. This illness is on a continuum, that can affect one patient differently than another patient. A mental status of an individual is associated with many factors that play into this person’s daily life. Mental illness can cause an individual to feel isolated, hopeless, and worthless; therefore, result in other forms of mental illnesses or conditions to occur. Many of these individuals may turn to drugs, self-harm, or even complete suicide. This could be because, they are trying to get rid of the pain that these mental illnesses are causing them. These individuals are told by their doctor, that they have an illness that…show more content…
An interesting thing to note, is that animals do not judge or discriminate against these individuals, therefore making this therapy a satisfactory option for helping an individual. Animals will be there for these individuals, and act as someone for these people to talk to; which is exactly want an individual with mental health needs. They need someone to be there, listen, and love them unconditionally. Not judge them, and/or tell them what they should or should not do. There are many different types of animals that will do just that, and therefore, ATT is not just limited to cats and dogs; ATT can be horses or rabbits as well. The article, “Effectiveness of animal-assisted therapy: A systematic review of randomized controlled trails”, compared a group of inpatients that have schizophrenia, and found the dog treatment groups, helped significantly improve the individual’s positive and negative symptoms associated with schizophrenia, improved these individuals living skills, and improved their social contact (Kamioka et al., 2014). These animals, whether, it is dogs, cats, or horses have an element of spirituality that is difficult for a therapist to sometimes to delve into because of boundaries or walls that are difficult to get passed, therefore resulting in a barrier for improving these patient’s overall health. A nurse, J.B., who uses horses as a form of ATT for individuals with mental illness, has noticed many interesting things that occur with
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