The effective usefull of pet therapy to treat the Post traumatic stress disorder
A series of pet-therapy interventions has been dedicated to the treatment of individuals who have developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is a disorder that the individual usually develops following exposure to events that put his or her physical safety at risk, both apical (due to a single event) and prolonged (due to recurring events over time), but also profoundly disturbing and terrifying experiences, which can configure a traumatic condition and chronic stress.
The symptoms of this disorder include intrusive memories of the traumatic episode, which at the same time are “compartmentalised”, and deposited in an area of consciousness normally detached from the usual one, which makes it more difficult to process such traumatic experiences.
As a result, the person is not able to face memories directly, but tends to relive them through memories, as well as constantly searching for the presence of dangers in the stimuli coming from the environment, resulting in a constant level of alert and, therefore, also symptoms of stress and hyper-arousal.
PTSD, which can affect both adults and adolescents as well as children, determines an increased risk of experiencing health problems, such as somatoform, cardiorespiratory, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal and immunological disorders, as well as being associated with various psychiatric comorbidities.
Given the relationship between the traumatic experience and the alteration of the normal physiological functioning of the body, body-centred protocols are usually used in the treatment of PTSD to help the person cope with the traumatic experience not only in relation to thoughts and emotions, but also to the physiological response to external stimuli. For this reason, as early as the 1980s, some authors proposed to use the principles of pet-therapy for the treatment of this disorder.
In particular, researchers focused on the treatment of two different types of patients with DPTS, namely children and war veterans. As seen in the first chapter, veterans from battles and gunfights tend, already spontaneously, to adopt pets such as dogs and cats, finding in these species a great help from an emotional point of view.
Even for children who have developed PTSD, following situations of stress and chronic trauma due, for example, to maltreatment, abuse or neglect, structured interaction with the animal can be very useful, modulating the symptoms of stress and reducing the hyperactivation of arousal, which causes imbalances in sleep-wake rhythm levels that are also dangerous for the correct development of the child.
Recent studies have reviewed the main research conducted so far on the effects of AAT and AAI on post-traumatic stress symptoms, concluding that these interventions can be particularly effective on these patients, favouring an improvement in symptoms and also playing a crucial role in preventing suicide in this clinical population.
In fact, if the adult with DPTS adopts a dog or any other pet, even after an AAT intervention, he will feel more responsible and stimulated to take care of it and this may modulate both some social symptoms, such as social withdrawal, and the self-harm impulses and suicidal thoughts that may characterize patients with DPTS.
Therefore, pet-therapy is an important option that should be taken into consideration with regard to stress modulation and prevention, both in clinical populations at risk and in people who are going through periods of chronic stress with consequent risks related to their psychophysical health.
Pierangelo Valaperta
Lo Psicologo digitale 