Karin Hediger

Karin Hediger is an endowed professor of Anthrozoology at the Open Universiteit and a full professor at the University of Basel, Switzerland. She is a licensed psychotherapist and child and adolescent psychologist, has a certificate in animal-assisted therapy, a diploma in equine-assisted therapy, and founded a center for animal-assisted psychotherapy. She is passionate about developing and evaluating interventions for children, adolescents and adults with a wide range of disorders who find it difficult to engage with conventional therapy programs. She is particularly interested in how the human-animal relationship can be used therapeutically and how we can learn from this relationship to improve interpersonal relationships. Her aim is to apply and research new animal-assisted interventions and to learn what the human-animal bond means for people.