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Lawrence Keating LCSW CASC Psychotherapist Family Therapist |
| Stress takes on many forms and is instrumental in the development of anxiety and depression. There are physical manifestations of stress and a number of pharmaceuticals used to address the symptoms. This article is going to focus on the use of dogs as a psychological combatant to relieve stress and anxiety. Many people today use dogs to address PTSD and other psychological or mental health disorders. Dogs present unconditional love, comfort, security, and nonjudgmental companionship. This gives the person receiving the love a sense of self-worth. The decline of depression and anxieties in the presence of a therapy dog can be measured in biological feed back and brain scans. According to the American Heart Association, “owning a dog may lower blood pressure, and the risk of heart disease.” A dog that becomes part of the family system often maintains a slot as a family member. When a patient is requested to construct a genogram– which is a graph representation of a family tree– more often than not, you will find their dog in the inner family circle. Many times, the passing of the family dog is not recognized by society as a great loss to the entire family system. Most clinicians realize that the passing of a dog needs to be treated as grief, and a loss for the patient. Dogs give unconditional love, they process the innate ability to express to a person random acts of kindness and affection. It affects the young and aging, and it affects everyone who witnesses these random acts of kindness. They don’t harbor resentments, and are able to give and receive love in the moment. They seem to possess an understanding of human emotions that few adults have the ability to recognize. With the chaos in the world today we could all learn from the behaviors of most dogs, and wouldn’t it be a better world if it were a dogs world. |
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