Solution-Focused Animal-Assisted Brief Therapy

Paws for Healing: A Surprising Odyssey from Dream Dog to Therapy Pioneer

Working with dogs as part of my career was not a planned thing, but when my life-long dream of getting a rough coat collie came true, that all changed.

Because Rockefeller was a big dog, I knew that he needed to be well-trained. One day as we practiced our obedience work in my local community, I saw the excitement and joy he brought to a group of children and an exhausted mother. After a short interaction, the mother was smiling again as she watched her children laughing and petting the fluffy dog. This was the moment that I started thinking about submitting a proposal to have him work with me in my actual therapy work running an outpatient treatment center for substance misuse. It was a LOT more work than I ever expected, and it was also tremendously more rewarding than I ever dreamed!

Having Rocky in the workplace brought joy to clients and employees alike. He was able to connect with clients in a way that I could never do. It also opened my eyes to the importance of advocating for animals in the workplace. It is so much more than bringing your dog to work. Ethical and safety issues for both Rocky as well as clients had to be constantly noticed and addressed. I learned that we must not just think about how we are benefiting from having animals around us, but how the animals are also benefiting from being included. This lesson of empathy and mutuality held a very important clinical lesson in our work. Having my best friend in the workplace was an incredibly rewarding, and life changing experience. I can't imagine my life without a dog. I share some of my experiences in my books, "Solution-Focused Animal-Assisted Brief Therapy," and "Transformation of the Heart."

Even if you don't have or are unable to work with an actual dog in your work, this class is still for you!

Just the topic of animals can be therapeutic and engaging for clients. Solution-Focused Relationship and Difference Questions are the ideal tools for tapping into your client's love of animals. Learn how to include animals (both physically and/or just in conversation) in a way that brings joy and connection unlike anything you have ever previously experienced!

Join Tessa and me for this one-day, interactive, online workshop and begin your journey.

This is the ideal workshop for professionals who:

• Want to learn to use their own pets in their work in a responsible and effective way
• Work in a setting in which pets are not allowed, but work with clients of all ages who have or love animals
• Do in-home work with clients who frequently have their own pets in the environment during sessions
• Want to learn how to use Relationship Questions and systemic thinking in an engaging way with some of the most challenging clients
• Want to learn about how to incorporate animals into your work, but can't travel to an in-person class

The Human-Animal Bond

This course is designed to introduce professionals of all kinds to the concept of the human-animal bond and teach how animal-related conversations and interactions can help create positive change in their clients. Professionals will understand how the physiological and psychological changes that an animal’s presence (including the thought of a family pet) brings can be used in motivating, calming, and teaching clients. Professionals will learn how to incorporate their clients’ family pets into conversations and homework assignments that will bring the concepts to life. Standards of practice for training and using a therapy dog in client sessions will be reviewed as well.

Upon completion of this course, professionals will be able to:

1. Recognize the client traits that would make the client likely to benefit from animal-related interventions in the clinical setting.
2. Describe five physiological and/or psychological benefits animals can have on humans.
3. Identify three ways in which animal-assisted conversations and interventions would be most effective in their work setting.
4. Gain the ability to effectively implement the strategies identified in number three above with their clients.

Here are just a few of the things you will walk away with:

• Creative ways to bring the client’s love of animals into the therapeutic conversation
• Specific tools and methods that are consistent with your therapeutic model that bring the power of animals (either physically or through conversation) into the session
• A clear understanding of what needs to be considered in order to use animals (your own or the client’s) in a safe and therapeutic way
• Confidence in wording questions and ideas of ways to better engage and energize clients of all ages
• Examples and ideas of how to use these animal-related conversations immediately with your clientele

Register Today!
Classes fill up fast because we keep class sizes small.