The, Man, By Nature, Is A Social Animal

The “father of psychoanalysis”, Sigmund Freud, was next to reveal the amazing discovery during the early 1930s throughout psychotherapy sessions. Although his view on the therapeutic benefits of human-animal interactions were not recognized for over two decades after the time of his death in 1939-- he is also a component to the beginning of animal-assisted therapy in mental health treatments. Freud believed that his dog—Jofi-- could “sense” tension from the patients and used distance as a method of signaling the occurrence. The farther away that Jofi would stand from the patient indicated the amount of tension that he felt from them and vice versa.

Emotional support animals can take on a multitude of jobs that “may include reminding the handler to take medicine, providing safety checks or room searches, or turning on lights for persons with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, interrupting self-mutilation by persons with dissociative identity disorders, and keeping disoriented individuals from danger,” (Brennan). These animals are often considered pets but are actually so much more than that, emotional support animals have a very important role in protecting the mental health of their owners and keep them safe. Not only do these animals protect people’s mental health but they also give people a purpose. Taking care of one of these dogs or other animals gives people something to take care of and focus on. Knowing that there is another living thing that relies on them can be very grounding and keep people connected to something outside of themselves.

7. Monasticism- The way of life characteristic of monks or nuns, in which they withdraw entirely or in part from society to devote themselves to prayer, solitude, and contemplation.

I think every single day we are personally connected with animals. We eat animals for food, wear animal skins for clothes, own animals as pets, use animals for recreation, and experiment on animals to test drugs and consumer products. We are aware of this, yet we naturally give little thought to the overwhelming number of animals that we use in these ways, and what the animals themselves might be suffering as we use them for our purposes. While no non-human animal on this planet has the cultured rational abilities that we do, many, however, have mental capacities that enable them to experience pain, suffering, and anxiety

The article “A Change of Heart About Animals” written by Jeremy Rifkin informs readers that animals feel emotions very much similar to humans and should be given more rights. I agree with Rifkin’s statement, but to a certain extent.

Like us humans, animals do become depressed when they are isolated and separated from others. Studies have shown that pig’s crave affection and are easily depressed when denied playtime. Animals like pigs can feel emotionally and physically but I am still unsure if they are fully aware why they do some things. People

Jeremy Rifkin had made such impact on readers through his article “A Change of Heart about Animals”. Not only did he inform us the reality that animals do have feelings, he also unbounded the label we had long given to the animals, thus fully altered our perspectives about these fellow creatures. In regard to the influence, I myself am not excluded. As a matter of fact, since I was a kid, I have started raising pets. As long as it seems, I have built myself an assumption about these domestic animals as they don’t differ much from humans’ natural behavior in life. They have feelings, family and awareness of surroundings.

Animals can show emotion just like humans do. The Purdue University studied on pigs and “found that they crave affection and are easily depressed if isolated or denied playtime with each other. The lack of mental and physical stimuli can result in deterioration of health.” (Rifkin 4) This quote shows that the pigs have their emotions and they can have bad health problems, and that’s something that we humans have to.

The use of alcohol in adolescents is unfortunately a huge part of young people’s lives all over the world. In their minds, alcohol plays an important role in socializing and is often times associated with determining popularity. It has been found that alcohol use and depressive feelings often occur among adolescents, and the prevalence rate of depressive symptoms increases from early adolescents, especially among women (Kleinjan, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of pet therapy on depressive symptoms among adolescents who use alcohol. From the findings of theses studies it appears that animal assisted interventions may potentially have beneficial effects on reducing anxiety and depression symptoms. All interventions used a variety of dogs in each AAT sessions. The interventions setting were grouped based and took place in mental health hospital, treatment facilities and advocacy centers. The sessions begins in a light animal assisted activity (AAA) and AAT and gradually increases to moderate. Each study session length and time varied from 1 month - 1 year and lasted 8 minutes to 1 hour long. Although our study focuses on adolescents, we

As explained by the Jeremy Rifkin opinion piece, animals are capable of emotions in relation to time spent with others of their kind. A pig kept in isolations’ health deteriorates much faster than that of a pig kept in communal spaces with other pigs. Animals crave the same joys that we as human beings crave, such as community and playtime. By removing these stimuli, animal health, physically and mentally is hindered.

For centuries people have known that animal companionship has brought many benefits to people’s lives. According to Kathryn Heimlich, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the first known time a companion animal was used to aid in a therapy program was “York Retreat in England, an establishment founded by the Quakers for persons with mental illness” (Heimlich, 2001, p. 48). As stated by Heimlich, the first published reports of the benefits of animal-assisted therapy come from Psychologist Boris Levinson. Levinson “discovered that he could reach a disturbed child during therapy

Dogs can help us humans with mental health. Many service dogs are used to help people who are deaf or people that are blind. How about people with mental issues? Dogs not only help us with physical problems but also with mental problems like depression. In the article “Therapy pets and humans with mental health issues” the author “ dog time” starts to state in the 3 paragraph “Trained animals [iii] are used to benefit patients suffering with emotional and behavioral disorders, depression, autism, substance abuse, and dementia.” (2010) This can show how animals can help us with mental issues because animals can understand many struggles us humans have, because after their trained they can not only understand us but also

Unlike canines who tangle themselves in our legs, plant their heads on the nearest human lap, and snuggle between our feet in bed, we tend to isolate. Depression worsens even as we hide.

One anxiety disorder that contains trauma related thoughts, negative moods, and alterations in arousal such as anger or hypervigilance is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This disorder has been classified to have high rates of depression and substances abuse. According to Glintborg and Hansen (2017), Adults experiencing PTSD are one of the most difficult populations to treat and have up to a 50 percent chance of dropping out of treatment. However, a new therapeutic approach researchers are now exploring is animal treatment. Professionals are establishing goal-directed therapeutic intervention for this population with Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT). When being exposed to an animal, studies have shown positive effects in an individual’s

The practice of using animals as therapy tools is becoming ever more popular and common place in the mental health field. Animal assisted therapy (AAT) was formally defined by the Delta Society as “a goal-directed intervention in which an animal that meets specific criteria is an integral part of the treatment process” (Kruger, Trachtenberg, & Serpell, 2004). The hope is that the specially trained animal will help facilitate conversation, and subsequently healing, between the therapist and the client. AAT is focused on improving the humans physical, mental, emotional, and social functioning. Animal assisted therapy is not to be confused with service animals: service animals fall under the category of animal-assisted activities