Animal-assisted dyadic therapy: A therapy model promoting development of the reflective function in the parent–child bond

Abstract

Animal-assisted psychotherapy (AAP) inherently incorporates standpoints, interventions, and ways of action promoting the development of the reflective function and mentalization, and thus has special value for parent–child psychotherapy. Two central tools in AAP contribute to this process. The first is the ethical stance of the therapist, who sees the animals as full partners in the therapy situation, respecting them as subjects with needs, desires, and thoughts of their own. The second tool combines nonverbal communication with animals together with the relating, in the here and now, to the understanding and decoding of body language of everyone in the setting. Nonverbal communication in AAP enables access to implicit communication patterns occurring between parent and child. This article provides a survey of theoretical development and research constituting a basis for the development of therapeutic approaches for the improvement of parent–children dynamics, followed by a description of a dyadic therapy model of a mentalization-based treatment originating from a psychoanalytic-relational orientation. Clinical examples are provided to illustrate AAP processes in parent–child psychotherapy (consent was received for examples that were not aggregated).