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Construct Validity Of Animal-Assisted Therapy And Activities: How Important Is The Animal In Aat?, Lori Marino

Lori Marino, PhD

Animal-assisted therapy and animal-assisted activities involve a nonhuman animal as a key therapeutic agent in some kind of intervention that may range from highly specified, as in AAT, to more casual, as in AAA. In this review I address the question: How important is the animal in animal therapy? In other words, does the recent literature strongly support the notion that a live animal, as opposed to another novel stimulating component, is specifically necessary for therapeutic success. Two meta-analyses and 28 single empirical studies were reviewed in order to address this issue. I conclude that the effects of AAT and …

Construct Validity Of Animal-Assisted Therapy And Activities: How Important Is The Animal In Aat?, Lori Marino

Animal-Assisted Therapy Collection

Animal-assisted therapy and animal-assisted activities involve a nonhuman animal as a key therapeutic agent in some kind of intervention that may range from highly specified, as in AAT, to more casual, as in AAA. In this review I address the question: How important is the animal in animal therapy? In other words, does the recent literature strongly support the notion that a live animal, as opposed to another novel stimulating component, is specifically necessary for therapeutic success. Two meta-analyses and 28 single empirical studies were reviewed in order to address this issue. I conclude that the effects of AAT and …

Human/Animal Communication: Cetacean Roles In Human Therapeutic Situations, M. Patricia Hindley

Animal-Assisted Therapy Collection

A review of the literature on the relationship between animal and human indicates that whales and dolphins may have a mutually beneficial role to play in human therapeutic situations. Florida researchers have discovered that interaction with dolphins has favourably altered the behaviour of neurologically impaired people, and of autistic children who are usually withdrawn and uncommunicative.

Explorations with both wild and captive cetaceans may find suggestive direction from extensive research currently being done with pets and domestic animals. Growing scientific evidence suggests that animals can benefit not only the physically and mentally ill, the lonely and the incarcerated, but also …

Some Rights For Animal Therapists: Better Science And Better Welfare, Dana H. Murphy

International Journal for the Study of Animal Problems

"Animal-facilitated therapy" is a phrase with a friendly, solid ring to it. It also sounds like an idea that nearly everyone could agree to endorse, like democracy and vacations. However, there are some real problems in two areas: the low level of scientific rigor in some of the reports on animal-facilitated therapy, and the scant consideration is given to the animal therapists' welfare.

Some Rights For Animal Therapists: Better Science And Better Welfare, Dana H. Murphy

Animal-Assisted Therapy Collection

"Animal-facilitated therapy." The phrase has a nice, solid ring to it, doesn't it? And it also sounds like an idea that nearly everyone could agree to endorse, like democracy and vacations. But a closer scrutiny of some of the available literature on the use of animals as adjuncts in situations like nursing homes and outpatient psychotherapy reveals a number of deficiencies. While there is probably nothing wrong with the fundamental concept- ideally, people and animals are helping each other to become more useful and independentthere are some real problems in two areas: the dubious level of scientific rigor in many …