I am pleased to share this treatment guide, “impACT: Animal-Assisted Therapy Manual”, which can be used in conjunction with “impACT: An MI/ACT Trans-Diagnostic Manual for Substance Use and Co-occurring Problems.” Both are yours, free for the download.
About Animal-Assisted Therapy
The use of Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) will help clients reduce anxiety, and encourage them to open up in session and reduce resistance in treatment as they explore self-soothing techniques and work towards increasing their interpersonal effectiveness, self-esteem, emotional regulation skills, distress tolerance, problem-solving abilities, anger management, and their motivation. AAT also promotes comfort, reinforces activities of daily living, and encourages communication and self-care. (Reference: Amiot CE & Bastian B (2015), Toward a new psychology of human-animal relations. Psychological Bulletin 141:6-47)
Though these are training resources for therapists, impACT could help a wide array of people wanting to support and treat youth and families struggling with adolescent substance use. ImpACT was developed by clinicians and researchers who worked with significant input from adolescents. Such collaboration is extraordinary — and also makes it much more feasible to implement ImpACT in real-world settings, such as the hospitals and school-based clinics where I work. And that’s what we need: effective treatments rooted in sound science that can be applied in the real world.
I invite you to review frequently asked questions about impACT.
I hope you find this manual as helpful as my team members and I have. Please contact me with your feedback.
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