As I read the article, I became more aware of the animals’ presence in therapy and inspired to connect the animals more to my practice through play. In my practice, I primarily work with traumatized children and children with connection disorders. In my practice, I use Theraplay® treatment method which is a relationship-based psychotherapy involving play.
I find that this article has high professionalism and even though this article has been published in xxxx, it remains highly relevant. The article is based on the connection theory and object relations theory. The first article describes how our upbringing affects our parenting. Children Suffering from Insecure Attachment Due to Abuse and Neglect are at high risk of transferring this connection pattern to their children. Therefore, treatment in relation to these children is extremely important for breaking the social heritage.
Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT), a type of psychotherapy employing the presence of animals within the therapy setting, addresses these issues and provides avenues for circumventing these difficulties, as well as providing additional tools for reaching the inner world of the client.
AAT takes place in that twilight area between reality and play. It has aspects of both and therefore allows the child to navigate between the two according to his/her needs and inner processes. This flexibility to pass between play and reality is especially important for maltreated children whose levels of anxiety tend to be so high and who often have a lower ability to use symbolization in play in order to work through their issues.
The article does not mention anything about the harmful effects of intrauterine stress that both mother and child are exposed to during pregnancy. This new knowledge has come to light in recent years, and there is still much we do not know yet in this area.
The article is supported practices from the following major theorists of attachment theory: Bowlby, Fonagy, Crittenden, Winnicott, Bretherton et al
In the context of these theoretical frameworks, AAT allows for more opportunities for change in the maltreated child in the therapy setting that will hopefully minimize the intergenerational transmission of abuse and neglect. This article has brought forth theoretical as well as clinical evidence that might lead to the justification for the introduction of animals into psychotherapy with children with insecure patterns of attachment.
My comments:
The article describes working with attachment theory. In this article, the children are without parents, which makes the therapist and animals very important.
The therapists themselves describe what results they have in their therapy, which is an uncertain measurement of the effect of treatment. There is no control group.
I found that the intervention was described in detail and clearly by a practitioner. (NANCY PARISH-PLASS received a BA in psychology from Smith College (USA) in 1972. She has working with high risk children for many years After graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana,she immigrated to Israel in 1982 and worked in kibbutz early childhood education for 18 years. She then completed a 3-year academic clinical program in Animal-Assisted Therapy at Oranim College and later Hebrew University’s Machon Magid School of Psychotherapy.)
The state of limitations is that this progression / treatment experience is simply written in an article but there is none academic research in the field that will in turn help us better understand the possibilities afforded by AAT.
