~Why I do Animal Assisted Therapy~

I have been a therapist for over 35 years. Actually I have been a therapist many more years than that because I lovingly say that I became a family therapist at the age of 2 and you may read in to this whatever you like. 😉

But back to the article about Animal Assisted Therapy( AAT); there are many reasons I think AAT is one of the most effective therapies but here are three reasons:

NO DIAGNOSIS REQUIRED

1. In this day and age, in order for a therapist to use someone’s insurance for payment, the therapist must come up with a diagnosis. This means the therapist must come up with a diagnostic code from the latest version of the DSM that spells out exactly what the client’s problem is. And, this diagnosis may stay with one their entire life. Even if a person has only ever tried an anti-depressant for a very short time, say following a job loss or divorce, the person’s records may reflect that the person has a history of depression. I am not kidding about this. And this diagnosis is often just a guess based on what the therapist sees and another therapist or MD or Psychiatrist may seen something different. And, often the diagnosis of depression, for example is really masquerading as sadness. So, the first reason I love AAT is that I don’t have to put a label on my client. The animal certainly does not and actually, I don’t do this in my regular practice as well; this is the main reason I do not take insurance.
2. NO THEORY REQUIRED
3. However, when a therapist is truly trained in the art and the science of AAT, the therapist does not need a diagnosis to facilitate AAT. True AAT is about the relationship between the Animal and the client. Now I have seen many, many therapists act as if they are sitting in their therapist’s chair during AAT and giving the person advice even while the animal is present. This is NOT AAT.
4. The Second reason I love Animal Assisted Therapy is the therapy is not dependent on my theories or areas of expertise. The therapy is dependent on my willingness to be fully and I mean fully present in mind, body, emotions and spirit to what is going on for the client and the animal. It is only with this commitment that one can facilitate a true AAT-session. Thus an AAT session will always look different for any two people and it will always look different on any given day because the person and the animal are not static beings but are always reflecting their own current state of mind, body and emotions. As a certified Equine Assisted Psychotherapist (EAP) with EAGALA.org, I have learned the nuts and bolts of EAP mainly from EAGALA. They suggest that the therapist and Horse Specialist must always be willing to get their “stuff” out of the session. If the team of people facilitating the EAP session is not emotionally and mentally present (meaning not projecting their own issues onto the client and the horse), the EAP session becomes about the therapist’s or horse specialist’s issues. For example, my horse has a severe addiction. She does what the horse world calls, “Wind-sucking”. When she was 9 years old, she was preparing to give birth to her 3 baby and her baby died at birth. Her owner was very grief stricken and gave her away and thus she lost her owner and her baby. Plus, she was put in a stall for the first time in her entire life. Though, some may not agree, I would say that her losses caused severe distress or grief. Wind-sucking is one of many “stall vices” that horses pick up to console their boredom and loneliness when they have to live in a stall. (Think if you had to live in a bathroom ;( ………..).
5. Wind-sucking happens when a horse anchors it’s teeth on a horizontal piece of wood and then they do a deep inhalation. The result is that proverbial “runner’s high”, or the stimulation of endorphins. Harmony gets a “high” when she does this. Though my hope is that she will be able to heal from this, she does help a lot of people who are dealing with addictions. So, I have clients come out and work with her who have addictions, or I have parents come out to work with her if their children have addictions. The beautiful part of the work is that I must keep my own thoughts and feelings out of the therapy arena because what I think about someone’s addiction in the AAT session is really none of my business. They are coming to work with Harmony who is mirroring their addictive self. One time, I had a client (names and details changed), who, in a session with Harmony, said he just wanted to walk away from her as he watched her doing her thing. My “office-therapist-brain”, thought, well, you can’t just abandon yourself, but my AAT-brain, knew to just be present and so I asked him where in the large pasture we were in did he want to walk. We began walking in that direction and my “office-therapist-brain”, was saying, well we will have to go get her in a minute. But my AAT-brain was being present to the client as we walked and within 30 seconds, Harmony was walking beside my client. I was shocked, and the client was delighted for he got instant feedback that not always focusing on her addictive self but rather focusing on moving forward was her next step on her recovery journey.

Thus, AAT is a therapy that one gets better and better at by being willing to deal with their own issues. This type of therapy invites the practitioners to do their own work.

TRUE ONENESS

1. The third reason I love AAT so much is that there is an Art and a Science to AAT. Certainly, one can go trainings and learn ways to set sessions up. One can read very good books on understanding AAT, and one can learn by doing. This is the science of AAT. The Art of AAT is to truly be willing to be fully present to the client, the animal and the whole environment and in this willingness to be present (another form of mindfulness), the therapist can hold the session in a sacred space. The relationship between the client and the animal has the possibility of revealing for the client their next step on their own healing journey if the therapist can be present but not directive. Thus, AAT sessions can be filled with miracles, mystery and true oneness.

This is why I do Animal Assisted therapy.