An Integrative View of Human-Animal Relationships with Implications for Therapeutic Practice
E-Book, Englisch, 206 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-61676-442-5
Verlag: Hogrefe Publishing
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark
"A comprehensive, scientific foundation for human-animal therapy". (Judith Solomon)
In recent years, the ancient symbiosis between humans and their pets has entered a new phase, marked by the burgeoning clinical specialty of human-animal therapy. This approach uses the relationship between humans and their (mainly) mammalian pets to support the growth of emotion regulation, social skills, and mental health in children, adolescents, and adults.
But how are humans and animals able to develop close bonds at all? What makes it possible for animals to have a therapeutic effect on humans? And how can we best use this understanding in animal-assisted therapy?
In this unique book, a team of expert biologists and psychologists integrate and combine sophisticated biological and psychological knowledge to answer these questions. Together they have created a comprehensive, scientific foundation for human-animal therapy, a foundation that will facilitate the development, implementation, and evaluation of effective new interventions.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
- Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizinische Fachgebiete Psychiatrie, Sozialpsychiatrie, Suchttherapie
- Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizinische Fachgebiete Kinder- & Jugendpsychiatrie
- Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychotherapie / Klinische Psychologie Kinder- und Jugendlichenpsychotherapie
Weitere Infos & Material
From the contents:
• The mysterious relationship between humans and animals
• Why humans are willing and able to relate to animals: The evolutionary biology perspective
• Effects of human-animal interaction on health, social interaction, mood, autonomous nervous system, and hormones
• The physiology of relationships: The integrative function of oxytocin
• Interpersonal human relationships: Attachment and caregiving
• Connecting attachment and caregiving with their physiological basis
• Human-animal relationships: Attachment and caregiving
• Bringing the strands together: Physiology of attachment and caregiving in human-animal relationships
• Practical implications for therapy
The most important factor for the quality of a child’s attachment is the caregiving behavior of his or her attachment figure, including maintaining proximity through retrieval, calling, seeking eye contact, smiling, comforting, and body contact (e.g., carrying, stroking). The quality of caregiving can be measured along the dimensions of sensitivity and responsivity. Sensitivity refers to the caregiver’s ability to correctly perceive and interpret the child’s signals for proximity. Responsivity describes the degree to which the caregiver responds adequately to these signals. Four model types of caregiving have been identified that correspond to children’s secure and insecure attachment patterns. Considerable evidence supports a connection between the oxytocin system and attachment and caregiving. This link is the topic of chapter 6. Here, we discuss the fact that close contact between mother and infant is associated with oxytocin release and the expression of oxytocin-related effect patterns in both mother and infant. Thereby, social interaction is facilitated and anxiety and stress levels are reduced. We assume that later in the child’s development, oxytocin is released not only in the presence of the mother but also in the presence of other caregivers. Since the down-regulation of stress is one of the central functions of the attachment system, securely attached children seem to have developed a good tone or function in their oxytocin system from their relationships with their primary and subsequent caregivers. Complementary to that, a mother or father who displays adequate caregiving probably also has a good tone or function in the oxytocin system, while maladaptive caregiving is likely to be associated with an imbalance in the oxytocin system.
In insecurely attached children the attachment figure does not trigger an adequate oxytocin release and, hence, will fail to calm the child and reduce its stress. Primary caregivers of children with attachment disorganization – who often have experienced domestic violence or neglect – may even activate the children’s flight-or-fight system, which is triggered by stress and associated hormones. Thus, these caregivers are not only incapable of relieving fear, anxiety, and stress in the children, but rather activate the opposite neurobiological systems. This is adaptive, as it alerts the child and readies the organism for potential danger. It also makes sense that these children do not trust their caregivers anymore – their attachment system has adapted to pathogenic conditions and this adaptation ensures their prevailing psychic survival, the children thereby make the best of a bad situation. This is, however, a dearly purchased adaptation because children who associate their primary caregiver with rejection or even danger will have learned not to turn to alternative sensitive, supportive, and trustworthy caregivers or social partners in emotionally stressful situations. This severely jeopardizes the further social development of such children. Since attachment and caregiving are closely linked with the oxytocin system and since the positive effects of oxytocin overlap with the positive effects of human–animal relationships, we ask in chapter 7 whether human–animal relationships may be conceptualized as attachment or caregiving relationships. Empirical evidence suggests that humans establish attachment as well as caregiving relationships with animals. Research also suggests that insecure attachment and caregiving patterns, rooted in human–human relationships, do not correspond to the attachment and caregiving patterns humans develop with their pets. In groups at risk for developmental and psychological disorders, the prevalence of secure attachment and flexible caregiving to pets is four times higher than that of secure attachment and flexible caregiving to humans! This indicates that disadvantageous attachment and caregiving patterns established in human–human relationships may not be transmitted to relationships with pets. Such results are of great interest because attachment or caregiving patterns are normally transferred to all other close human–human relationships. This is particularly tragic for children with a disorganized attachment pattern, since this puts their further development at great risk.
If humans can form secure attachment and flexible caregiving relationships with companion animals, independently of their attachment pattern to humans, then it can be assumed that such relationships will be mirrored in a good tone or function of the oxytocin system, including its positive effects. Thus, the human–animal relationship could promote an adaptive and healthy social development. Evidence in support of this hypothesis is introduced and discussed in chapter 8.
If animals are indeed suitable agents for bypassing insecure and disorganized attachment and caregiving experiences, this can provide great therapeutic potential for human therapists or other health care professionals to slip into the relationship with the individual while the animal is close by. This therapeutic gain is discussed in chapter 9. We assume that the positive neurobiological effects facilitate the development of adaptive relationships to humans. The neuroendocrinological effects triggered by a close relationship to an animal seem to promote approach behavior and trust in others and to minimize aloofness. Thereby, forming relationships to other humans may be facilitated. Under such conditions, the insecure child’s, adolescent’s, or adult’s attachment system can be confronted with new experiences in human–human relations, allowing the attachment system to adapt to conditions that support the development of mental and physical health. This is particularly important, since an insecure or disorganized attachment toward humans is a risk factor with regard to mental health.
The book closes with a summary and an outlook containing practical applications of the model presented. Since this book integrates psychology, behavioral biology, physiology, and neuroendocrinology, we provide boxes in each chapter that define or explain central concepts of these disciplines.
2Why Humans Are Willing and Able to Relate to Animals: The Perspective of Evolutionary Biology
This chapter provides an evolutionary framework for the question of why humans are generally interested and able to engage in relationships with companion animals. Comparative biology reveals that there is a series of fundamental structures and mechanisms at different levels of behavior, physiology, and the brain that are relevant in a social context and are shared between humans and animals, either because these were conservatively maintained during evolution or because they evolved in parallel. This catalogue includes an evolutionary ancient “social network in the brain,” comprising a series of nuclear areas that host, for example, the bonding mechanism, emotional systems, and probably even the neural base for empathy and altruistic impulses. Decisions for behavioral output are reached by crosstalk between these basic systems and higher cognitive centers, such as the mammalian prefrontal cortex. Further, important biological faculties influencing communication and socializing between species include stress systems, which are shared over much of the vertebrate pedigree, as well as similar principles of variation of personalities in the different species. Hence, the base for eminently psychological phenomena such as bonding, attachment, caregiving, and the management of social relationships in general is profoundly biological. These biopsychological and behavioral systems are evolved to function within a certain social context, but are inherently flexible to adapt to varying conditions that an individual might encounter.
The Comparative Biologist Approach
The case stories at the beginning of this book convey the message that humans are capable of and willing to relate to nonhuman animals in a similar way as to human social partners. However, there is not simply a superficial resemblance of animal companionship and interpersonal relationships in humans. In fact, the same basic behavioral, neurological, and physiological mechanisms that are active in interactions between humans seem to also be involved in interactions with animals. Particularly relationships with our major companion animals – dogs, cats, horses, etc. – are seemingly not one-way interactions. Usually, the animals involved are not merely passive receivers of human social attention, but are responsive and can act as social partners if prepared by their genetic background and by proper socialization.
