Mental Illness in Adolescence can be Improved by Pets, Animal-Assisted Therapies

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Animal-assisted therapy has been a crucial tool in helping children and cancer patients during their healing process. The American Humane Association has employed service dogs for this purpose for years, but a new study is shedding light on how animal-assisted therapy can also help adolescents with mental illness.

The study, which was published in the Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, explored the impact of animal-assisted therapy in teenagers with severe mental disorders and took note of the how the service animals helped in the patient's recovery.

The researchers did a controlled trial of 34 patients and divided the groups into two. These patients have been diagnosed with mood disorders, eating problems and schizophrenia, per Pacific Standard. Excluded in the study were patients who had dog phobia allergies. While both groups received the usual psychiatric treatment, one group also had animal-assisted therapy intervention.

Once a week, the intervention group would undergo 45-minute outdoor sessions individually or in groups with the dogs. These sessions involved dog handling, agility training, cleaning and grooming, as well as basic obedience activities. These sessions were also recorded so that researchers can further study the patient's behavior and development.

The researchers saw bigger improvements with the intervention group as opposed to the patients who received no animal-assisted therapy. They did in school better and were more socially adjusted. They also tend to withdraw less from social activities.

"One possible explanation for this success is the role of the animal as a catalyst in the therapeutic process," the researchers explained in the Pacific Standard report. "Animals may represent a valid help in therapeutic contexts thanks to their ability to catalyze social interactions and to create a more relaxed environment."

The study also acknowledged that countless of animal-assisted therapy studies have been done in the past, but none involved a controlled trial like this. More research is still needed in understanding the animal-assisted therapy. However, the researchers pointed out the advantage especially with young patients when they become caretakers of animals.

 "The young patients who feel fragile, needy and dependent on others in the hospital context can experience themselves as caretakers of someone else in the [animal-assisted therapy] environment," noted the researchers, per Medical Daily. "This experience can improve their sense of self-agency and self-cure, and these positive effects are not only limited to the human-animal bond, but can be extended to the patient's global functioning and to the entire process of care."