Till not very long ago, the idea of having a functioning daily routine was unthinkable for a lot of people with anxiety issues and mental health problems.
But with the help of emotional support animals, this situation is changing rapidly. This is our top 10 Questions about Emotional Support Dogs Covered in detail below!
#1 What Is an Emotional Support Animal?
An emotional support animal can be any of the commonly used animal companions to help people with physical and psychological disabilities in managing their day to day routines.
While it’s not unreasonable to compare emotional support animals to service animals, there are very clear distinctions between the two. Emotional support animals provide companionship and serve as a medium to combat anxiety in patients.
In contrast to this, service animals are animals that have received training in order to support a person who has a specific disability. This can range from being seeing eye dogs for the visually handicapped, to helping people with more intricate psychiatric disabilities or intellectual disabilities in navigating the world around them. This can include everything between reminding patients to take the medicine. and helping them cross the street or find their way home.
Emotional support animals do not necessarily receive this kind of training. Service animals on the other hand, often undergo extensive training before they are released into service. Emotional support animals and service animals are also available to patients under different laws.
#2 How Well Do We Know Emotional Support Animals?
The idea of emotional support animals is not entirely new. Assistance animals such as seeing eye dogs and helper animals for the physically handicapped have been around for decades. Right from back when the good doctor Sigmund Freud was still in practice, the benefits of animals’ presence was already known. His pet Chow Jofi was famously a ‘therapy helper’.
But the use of animals in therapy has also recently spiked. A study conducted recently with over 400 participants showed that in 83% of the cases, children undergoing therapy had more positive improvements as compared to children who didn’t have access to animals during the therapy sessions.
The use of animals in therapy has been backed by documented effects on mental as well as physical health. This extends across the horizon from people recovering from disease to people in management phases. In both cases, the presence of animals shows vastly improved responses. People suffering from a spectrum of disorders can benefit from emotional support animals. So if you are looking into one for yourself, here is what you should know.
#3 In What Conditions Can Emotional Support Animals Help?
Extensive studies are in place showing the effects of emotional support animals on their handlers. The two major conditions in which emotional support animals help are depression and anxiety. But these are only the two most well known in a very long list of conditions.
Additionally, in unusually stressful situations such as in peop