How do animals help treat depression?

The problem of depression is spreading around the world at an alarming rate. In the US alone, the number of patients with this diagnosis has increased by 33% since 2013. It is also scary that severe depression is quite difficult to cure. That is why, in search of alternative ways to help such patients, doctors came to the conclusion that animals can become an addition to traditional psychotherapy.

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In an article published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, scientists said that pets help to cope with the symptoms of severe depression.

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The study involved 80 people, 33 of whom agreed to take the animals home. 19 patients got a dog, 7 got two dogs and 7 got one cat each. All people participating in the experiment did not show any progress in the fight against depression for 9 to 15 months of regular sessions with a psychotherapist and taking antidepressants.

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Of the 47 people who refused to have a pet, 33 formed the control group. During the 12-week experiment, all patients, as before, took medication and attended therapy sessions.

During the experiment, all participants underwent psychological testing to assess their condition. It took 12 weeks to notice a big difference between the experimental and control group.

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All people who followed the recommendation to get a pet showed an obvious improvement in their condition and a decrease in symptoms. More than one-third are completely free of depression.

However, none of the patients who abandoned their four-legged friend showed significant improvement.

“The explanation for this result may be that the animal in the house helps to cope with anhedonia, a constant companion of depression,” said one of the authors of the experiment.  

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Anhedonia is manifested in the fact that the patient does not get pleasure from what he used to like, for example, from playing sports, hobbies, or communicating with people. A pet forces a person to interact with the outside world, do something new and go outside.

Of course, one should not hope for a cure only with the help of animals. During this experience, patients continued the course of psychotherapy.

Of course, research is not flawless. One of the shortcomings of the experiment is that the sample was not random. Therefore, the effect here can only be observed on people who love animals and agreed to have them themselves, and also had the time and financial resources to do this.