Animal Assisted Therapy Essay

The field of psychology includes many different organizations in the fields of psychology. The American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association help promote professional research and resources for counselors in the field. Degrees are available through the doctorate level and two types of programs tend to be offered. Both Clinical and Counseling psychology programs are common, though they offer different theoretical models of instruction and practice.

Clinical psychology programs offer training in the approach that emphasizes diagnosis and treatment. World War II showed the need for effective assessment and interventions with the soldiers returning from war. This tends to be a medical model and most job placements are in a medical setting such as a hospital or medical center. Clinical psychologists tend to have behavioral or psychoanalytic orientations. Working in a medical setting allows clinical

I would also like to utilize some sort of Animal Assisted Therapy, AAT, in a community setting. Animal assisted therapy is underutilized and could be very beneficial for stress management and overcoming barriers. AAT is an intervention designed to “improve the physical, social, and emotional function of patients via specific and time-delimited objectives (González-Ramírez, M. T., Ortiz-Jiménez, X. A., & Landero-Hernández, R, 2013).” Trained animals usually include dogs, cats, and horses.

There is a therapy dog group in my area that visits hospitals, nursing homes, and home bound individuals. AAT has been shown to improve anxiety and reduce fear in hospitalized children. It has also been shown that by simply having dogs present, client’s levels of stress were reduced. It may also motivate clients to return to treatment and help clients adhere to treatment. (Marcus, Bernstein, Constantin, Kunkel, Breuer, & Hanlon,