“AAI has been shown to decrease levels of general anxiety, symptoms of depression, [and] assist in formalized mental health treatment… [AAIs] enhance object recognition and categorization, mitigate stress levels, [and] provide a source of motivation, stimulation, and focus in learning.”
— Pet Partners
“Animal Assisted Play Therapy [is] the involvement of animals in the context of play therapy, in which appropriately trained therapists and animals engage with children through systematic play interventions, with the goal of improving children’s developmental and psychosocial health.”
—Risë VanFleet
“The effects of oxytocin and of human-animal interactions largely correspond. Both, HAI and OT, were found to promote social interaction, to reduce stress and anxiety, and to enhance human health.”
— Beetz, Uvnäs-Moberg, Julius, and Kotrschal (2012)
“There are many potential benefits…includ[ing] (a) helping children open up quickly, reducing resistance, and engaging them in the therapy process, (b) facilitating healthy attachment relationships, (c) enhancing children's empathy and care-giving, (d) building children's skills and confidence, (e) providing children with another experience of unconditional acceptance, (f) strengthening children's sense of emotional/physical safety, (g) teaching children appropriate behaviors… (h) reducing fears/anxieties, (i) helping children learn physiological self-calming, and (j) increasing children's motivation for a variety of tasks."
—Risë VanFleet
