We’ve seen support animals helping people go through therapy or tough times, but usually people just touch or interact with these animals, not take care of them. Israeli psychotherapist Yono Yehuda provides therapy for people with mental health conditions by letting them take care of animals. The Guardian has more details:
“With humans, it’s survivor thinking: if I’m nice to people, they will be nice to me,” says Yoni Yehuda, an Israeli psychotherapist, as his cat Jack Daniels licks water from a jug on his office table.
With animals, he says, there is no apparent quid pro quo. We help them for purer reasons, often with no expectation of a return. “It’s giving from something that is very clean inside.”
This concept is the foundation of the professor’s work – providing therapy for people with mental health conditions by asking them to care for animals. There is healing, he believes, deeply rooted in the animal-human relationship. “The first animal-assisted psychotherapist was God,” he says, as a parrot pecks at the mosquito netting on his office window.
Animals were used in mental health institutions in the late 18th century to encourage socialisation. Today, a patient might be given time to stroke a dog, which has been shown to reduce stress. Practitioners say animals can also motivate patients to stay in treatment, or be used as a metaphor for their own struggles. Some traumatised people prefer not to interact with another person at all.
image via The Guardian
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seems cool
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