Pet therapy & the trauma link

Last week, like hundreds of other Arlesey residents, I was horrified to see that two local pet dogs had been viciously mauled by an out-of-control Staffy. My limited understanding is that this breed can make for extremely loving animals where there is a healthy history and, or, a competent handler.

In this case, the absence of a responsible handler meant this dog posed a serious risk. I sincerely hope that the dogs subjected to these attacks are recovering well. Ditto their owners. What shocking, horrifying experiences. As all of us animal lovers know, out pets are family.

I equally hope that the humans responsible have been held to account with the dog being restrained to prevent re-occurrences.

On the therapeutic benefits of our pets, it is not new that the wordless, unconditional love of our animals can be hugely healing for our human hearts. We live in a culture that encourages us to over think everything while not equipping us to manage the at times overwhelming emotions of our hearts. Much less to understand the connection between the heart, mind and body.

There is new research being undertaken all the time to help us understand how our bodily systems work especially in response to stress and trauma. Trauma is a big buzz word right now and like most things in life, comes in all shapes and sizes.

Trauma is basically any experience that overwhelms our ability to manage it in the moment. This may manifest via losing our shit in anger, having a monumental meltdown, or becoming paralysed by anxiety and ultimately shutting down. In more clinical terms this may be referred to as becoming dysregulated.

The way we respond to trauma is based upon how those around us responded to us when we were traumatised in our early years. That becomes a template for how we then respond to any current trauma. At least until we take the time to learn what is going on in our bodies at a deep and unconscious level so that we can then learn healthier, more helpful ways if necessary.

For example, if we experience a situation that bears some resemblance to an earlier experience, this effectively raises the alarm in our system. The system recognises it has experienced something similar so instantly responds in whatever way it originally learned to do so. This process happens so automatically that it bypasses intellectual awareness or a present-day risk assessment.

This means that the system does not recognise that the old response may have been learned during an unsafe early experience. The new situation may be frightening or stressful but not necessarily life threatening, (sometimes it may be) but our body responds as if it is still back then.

When we understand this is a deep, bodily level, instinctive, learned response to stressful stimulus in our early life, we can start to reprogram the bodily response to be appropriate to the current source of stress. It helps if we first learn to recognise what effectively presses our ‘stress/trauma response’ button.

Then we can start to teach our system when it’s auto generated response is not needed. We do this by recognising what set our alarm off, assessing the risk in the present moment and if we are safe, re-grounding ourselves in the now and not the back then. By recognising what our body is doing and why, we can work with it by reminding ourselves this is now, not then and we are safe (if we are.) We can then start to learn what switches the trauma response back off when it is not needed.

In the simplest of terms, we hopefully live most of our lives in our, ‘life is challenging but we are managing’ mode. When something stressful happens, we may move in to the next level of overwhelm where anxiety may paralyse, or anger may cause us to act/lash out. If this continues longer than our ability to manage it, we may collapse in to the final level of shutdown, defeat, helpless, feeling like a victim mode. This is because our nervous system has been activated to move through these levels to ensure our physical and psychological survival. It needs updating to recognise the response that was necessary in early life may be hindering us in adult life.

When our nervous systems gets activated in these ways, which they do during an ordinary day, we often naturally move from the stress level of anger/anxiety back to the calm level without necessarily being consciously aware that this has happened. It is the nervous system that fires up the stress response and the parasympathetic system that brings the body back to a calm state where life feels manageable again. If we get activated to a stress response too frequently or if this doesn’t ease up, we may get stuck in survival rather than living mode. We may then need to be more proactive in how we restore our system to a calm manageable state.

We are each utterly unique in our history, our experiences and the way our bodys’ have learned to react to stress and trauma. We each need to recognise what supports our parasympathetic system to restore us to a manageable mode.

There are numerous ways we can move from a stress response to a calm state. There is not a one size fits all although there may be ways that work for many. For some, slowing down and deepening the breathing is enough to re-set and rebalance the system. For others, this can exacerbate the stress response. For some, removing shoes and standing on the ground, especially outside, can reconnect us with the solidity and safety of the now. For others the act of walking sooths the system. Or it could be nature or music or prayer or various other things.

There are many ways to restore our systems ability to stay connected to ourselves and our experiences in ways that feel manageable. It is essential that we each learn what does and does not work for us. And when necessary, that we seek professional support to do so. It is not a sign of weakness or failing to need professional input to understand our systems in ways that allow us to live rather than settle for existing in a survival only mode. I have utilised trauma therapists in three different country’s’ so far! I love to learn and utilise new approaches as they appear.

One way that works for many of us when it comes to comfort, is through the special bond we form with our pets. The animals that we share our homes and hearts with are instinctive, body led creatures. I don’t believe they sit ruminating or suffer analysis paralysis – when we love them, they know it and they love us back. We cannot force a pet to love us with words alone, they know in their body when we love them. And it is a fact that the presence of a beloved pet can activate the calm restoring properties of our systems. It is shown to sooth the pet too … a two-way win!

Furthermore, the instinctive nature of animals shows us that they can freeze in the face of threat / play dead, before shaking out the fear response from their systems so they can carry on living. We need to move to do this more too!

Anyway, as a lover of the feline of the species, last night at around 3am, as I lay in a sweaty, perimenopausal heap, tossing, turning, wondering why the bedside fan wasn’t helping and worrying about all that I am currently wrestling with, I wished that my gorgeous ginger rescue cat would come to me. It wasn’t long before he did! He loves to snuggle right into me so I can put my arm around him and lay my head on his back. And in this position, I stopped ruminating, and the presence of my felines body restored my calm so I could return to sleep.

What wonderful gifts these precious pets of ours, are.  And they don’t have to have four legs to qualify. I have a friend who has a quail who loves to hang out with their German shepherd as well as the rest of her family!

Thank God for pets!