Recommened Readings
With starting Cats4Health, there was a lot of information I obtained from many different readings I stumbled across on Google. Since animal therapy is more of a newer therapy option, I wanted to do a decent amount of research on it before I established my business. There were a few readings that stuck out to me when I was in the process of creating my business. I wanted to dedicate a section in my blog to talk about some of those readings that really helped launch the creation of Cats4Health. Not only that, but these readings also allowed me to become more knowledgeable in animal therapy and went into detail about the importance of it.
One of my very first readings I looked at when originally starting Cats4Health was a website named MedicalNewsToday. This website had a specific reading titled, what to know about animal therapy, that really helped me understand the benefits of this type of therapy. This reading is something I truly recommend to anyone if they're interested in reading about the benefits, risks, and how animal therapy works. To start, animal therapy has a few names that people may be calling it. It can also be referred to as pet therapy or animal-assisted therapy. According to MedicalNewsToday, "animals may be able to provide comfort, alert others if someone is in danger, or even perform direct actions to help a person’s condition when they are in need. It is a type of complementary or alternative therapy." It made it clear in the reading that animal therapy should just positively enhance a person's life and not replace other treatments. Sometimes people suffer with more serious mental health issues, and animal therapy may not be enough to fully help someone improve their mental health. Depending on the person, sometimes animal therapy is just a smaller type of therapy that helps calm people down when they are having rough days. However, there are people who fully rely on animal therapy and don't need any other type of therapy. No two people are the same so it's truly just up to the person and what they would prefer to do for their mental health.
In that same article, it had a section that listed the benefits and risks of animal therapy. When looking into a therapy option, I think it's beneficial to acknowledge any risks associated with therapy services. To start off, animal therapy is targeted to help people with a range of health issues. The Pet Partners noted that animal therapy may decrease anxiety, stress, perceptions of pain, and reduce any feelings of fear or worry. It also noted that animal therapy increases feelings of social support, provides motivation, stimulation, and helps people focus. Researchers noted that animal therapy isn't just for specifically one age group. It can vary all the way from an infant to an elderly person. Animal therapy was also said to help autism, schizophrenia, and even depression. Animal therapy is also known to help with epilepsy, heart failure, pain from cancer treatments, and helps a person recover from a major stroke. When I first read about all these benefits, I was stunned. You wouldn't initially think that a tiny animal can have such an impact on a person's life. Now, there are a few risks that were talked about in that same reading. The main reason why animal therapy may not be right for everyone is simply because people can be allergic. Many people are allergic to specific cats and dogs, so in this case animal therapy would not be the best type of therapy option for them. On the other hand, sometimes people may be afraid of the animals or can become extremely attached to the animal which can become unhealthy.
This reading that I just discussed really helped my ideas start to form when I started Cats4Health. I wanted to specifically talk about this article because I felt like the author gave such a good amount of information in a well-structured article. The author got straight to the point and made it easy for people to understand the key aspects to animal therapy. I highly recommend checking that reading out if you want to learn more about that type of therapy. Here is a link to the reading... :)
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/animal-therapy
Another reading I recommend to people who want to know more about therapy is titled, 14 types of therapy. As stated previously, animal therapy may not be for everyone and that’s perfectly fine!! I wanted to recommend a very well written reading that does talk about some of the different types of therapy for a person. The 14 different types of therapy are:
1. Cognitive-behavioral therapy
2. Dialectical behavior therapy
3. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy
4. Exposure therapy
5. Interpersonal therapy
6. Mentalization-based therapy
10. Family therapy
11. Group therapy
14. Play therapy
Obviously, those are a long list of different type of therapy the article recommends, but I highly encourage you to read the descriptions of each of those therapy options and see which one you would like to use. Since you are reading this through Cats4Health, obviously I would hope you would choose animal therapy, but I do realize that everybody is different and needs different types of therapy to meet their mental health goals. Here is the link to read about the descriptions of the different types of therapy!!
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/types-of-therapy#creative
I hope this recommend reading blog page was beneficial to anyone reading this. I know I talked briefly about some of the animal therapy benefits, but I wanted to go more into detail and give the links to the articles so you can be able to read them yourselves. Not only that, but I do hope I opened your eyes to the different types of therapy. When I first started this business, I had no idea how many interesting therapy options there really were! I hope you learned more about animal therapy from these readings, and I hope you become a part of the Cats4Health program!!!! Have the best day ever :)
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