Dr. Dog, a dog as co-therapist

In this paper, I mainly use the more general term animal-assisted intervention, which includes animal-assisted therapy, and I capitalise it because these terms are to be understood as proper nouns in this context. Studies in the fields of psychology and neuroscience reveal why animals can be so important to humans and why they do not have the same relevance for everyone. How can we explain that every person reacts differently? Findings from attachment research and self-psychology show that the use of animals makes it possible to access people who would not be accessible without animals, or at least not as quickly.