Review of the literature regarding animal-assisted therapy as a beneficial health service psychological interventio

Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) has become increasingly utilized as a health service psychological intervention since it was first introduced by child psychologists Boris Levinson and Gerald Mallon in the 1960s. As a result, an increasing amount of research has been conducted to examine the efficacy of AAT as a therapeutic intervention for treatment of mental health issues with child, adolescent, adult and elderly populations within educational, medical, residential, and outpatient treatment settings. It also prompted exploration of the conceptual underpinnings of AAT and motivated development of various theoretical frameworks to guide implementation of AAT in therapeutic practice. The purpose of the present paper was to examine the current body of research on AAT in order to (a) ascertain its effectiveness as a health service psychological intervention in treatment of neurodevelopmental, neurocognitive, trauma and stress-related, mood, and substance-related disorders; and (b) to explore the conceptual, theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of AAT.