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Aug 295 min read

How effective is animal-assisted therapy?

An Emotional Regulation and Attachment Perspective 



Animal-assisted therapy is, like other forms of therapy, controversial in its usefulness and effectiveness. Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) describes a therapeutic process in which a pet is present in the room in any capacity. It could be that a pet is present in a private practice office, or is used in a residential setting to soothe a kid having a meltdown.


Although it may be true that the presence of a pet alone is not enough to create therapeutic change, we can consider its helpfulness in the therapy process by examining it from an emotional regulation lens and an attachment lens.


How are emotional regulation and attachment related?

When we examine attachment styles, we look back to individuals’ early caregiver experiences. A big part of the way individuals form their attachment style is based on their caregivers’ abilities to regulate themselves. From a psychological perspective, the infant mind is a blank canvas. It gathers early experiences to form a map of how the world works, and utilizes their caregivers’ schemas, reactions, and emotional regulation to create their own map.


Part of this map is the way an infant or young child conceptualizes attachment. When a parent cannot properly attune to their child, it disrupts the map the child is forming and causes emotional dysregulation in the child. 


The ways in which a parent attunes or misattunes to a child can include:

  • the parent not responding to the child's needs (neglect),

  • displaying emotionally volatile reactions to the child's needs,

  • and responding to needs promptly on a inconsistent basis


You might also see a mix of ability to attune, which results in inconsistent attunement between a parent and child and creates inconsistency in a child’s needs being met. When an infant has a need, their limbic system becomes activated which causes emotional dysregulation - the child does not know how to meet the need for themselves. We often see this on the outside as the child crying.


When a parent can respond to the child's cries, thus regulating the infant’s emotions, the infant trusts that people in their lives are there for them and that their emotions do not have to remain dysregulated. 


Attachment and dysregulation relate to each other in that a securely attached person has been taught that relationships are consistent and non-threatening. The individual has learned that they have the ability to regulate their emotions. An anxiously attached person, avoidantly attached person, or anxious-avoidant person struggles to believe relationships are consistent and safe, and therefore struggles to regulate their emotions.


The use of pets for emotional regulation

Because pets require care and love from us, humans must attune to the emotional needs of pets. When we have to attune to another being, it forces us to notice our own state of emotional arousal and how it is impacting the animal and ourselves in the moment. This in turn helps us regulate.


For individuals that struggle to regulate to the extent that they cannot notice their own body's reactions under stress, taking care of an animal allows them to learn self-regulation over time. Additionally, interacting with pets releases oxytocin in the same way that human to human interaction does.


Oxytocin plays a role in regulating us when needed. Many pets sense when their caretakers may need regulation - they will respond by laying on you, asking to be pet, or another behavior along those lines. This offers the human caretaker oxytocin and therefore emotional regulation.


Pets can also allow us to sit with painful emotions, due to the pet's regulating presence. Your pet might also make you laugh or smile, which is a regulating experience.




Pets as attachment aids 

The biggest consideration in the use of pets as attachment aids is that healthy and predictable relationships offer positive attachments and the potential for healing of attachment wounds.


Pets tend to be stable and predictable. Pets even benefit from your own stability and predictability. They might be fed at the same time, walked consistently, or have favorite and consistent ways of showing love and affection to their humans. They also tend to offer simpler relationships.


With humans, both parties bring their own attachment experiences and wounds. While some animals have suffered attachment wounds, many animals have not, and therefore the relationship is simpler than human-to-human relationships. 


Pets may also provide a source of unconditional positive regard. For a person who might not be relationally ready for therapy, a pet can provide corrective experiences. This does not heal the persons’ attachment wounds necessarily, but in many cases it can bring clients to the point where they are ready to receive and participate in a therapeutic relationship. It can provide corrective experiences in a way that allows avoiding old and unhelpful attachment patterns.


Animal-assisted therapy 

From these perspectives, animal-assisted therapy has been utilized. Pets can be trained to emphasize emotional regulation, initiate secure attachment, and assist with other skills.


An animal in a therapy environment might be trained to notice and cue you when you are dysregulated. A pet in this environment is also one that the client is not tasked to care for, but can still provide a stable and simple relationship. Knowing the pet will be present in therapy every week gives a sense of consistency and reliability, providing the opportunity for humans to have experiences with animals that disconfirm their old beliefs around attachment without the responsibility of caring for a pet. 


A book by Lowe and Weiner speaks to the way animal-assisted therapy can be beneficial in the book Animal Assisted Therapy in Counseling (2010). They give insight into different environments in which animals have been utilized in therapy. One example is with the use of pets in conflict-driven situations.


Lowe and Weiner detail how just being with a pet may provide enough regulation after or during a conflict to make the situation easier to address and increase rational thought. They also detail how pets can be helpful in private practice and one-on-one therapy environments. In this type of therapy, we ask clients to be vulnerable and sit with or process intense feelings. Animals in this environment can be trained to soothe clients feeling intense emotions, helping to hold some of a client's big emotions.


In the therapy environment, no form of alternative therapy is all-powerful, and numerous examples show us that pets have the capacity to help humans regulate emotions and address existing attachment difficulties. When used in conjunction with other forms of therapy, animal assisted therapy can be a powerful healing tool. 



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