Handbook on Animal-Assisted Therapy: Theoretical Foundations and Guidelines for Practice

by Aubrey H. Fine (Editor)

In the 10 years since the first edition of Handbook on Animal-Assisted Therapy published, the field has changed considerably. The third edition of the Handbook highlights advances in the field, with 10 new chapters and over 50% new material. In reading this book, therapists will discover the benefits of incorporating animal assisted therapy into their practice, how to design and implement animal assisted interventions, and the efficacy of animal assisted therapy with different disorders and patient populations. Coverage includes the use of AAT with children, families, and the elderly, in counseling and psychotherapy settings, and for treating a variety of specific disorders.

Genres: Psychology, Animals, Dogs

588 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1999

Reviews

[Melinda]

This book gave me a good perspective on animal assisted therapy. I think it's a great concept, but the book made it clear the ways it can go wrong when enthusiastic therapy animal handlers are not able to clearly judge the stress on the animal. It also opened my eyes to the possibility that the therapy recipients may not always be as positively engaged as the animal handlers.

I may still entertain the idea of doing animal assisted therapy at some point, but with a clearer, more 360 view of the idea.

[EstelleLiterature]

Three chapters worth reading in this mostly theoretical book are 'Animals in the lives of children', 'A 4-year trial of animal-assisted therapy with public school special education students', 'Clinical approaches to assessing and utilizing animal-related experiences in therapeutic interventions with children, adolescents, and their caregivers'. But if you're really looking for a practical book on animal-assisted therapy, please do read the novel 'The Horse Whisperer'. In most animal-assisted therapies, animals are used to treat humans, but in 'The Horse Whisperer', Nicholas Evans places humans and animals at the same level, shows how they should be treated and healed together, an approach that makes more sense because animals aren't there to serve humans.

[Ruby the Wizard]

Textbook. Got a lot out of the sections I read, learned about myself as well. The formatting could be better, there are so many citations that it would really be much more readable with the use of bold/italics rather than solely needing to mentally skip over countless parentheses.

[Rebecca]

Brilliant introduction to the emerging field of animal assisted therapy.

[Deyanira Villalta]

Great resource and reference material for the scientific study of Human-Animal Interactions (HAI), also known as Human-Animal Bond (HAB) and Anthrozoology.