Karin Hediger

Humans are social animals. We need other people to feel good. Not just people, also animals help us stay healthy and social. Being a psychologist means finding a connection with another person and trying to find solutions together. But sometimes this does not work very well. Some patients refuse to talk about their problems, some children don't want to go to therapy.  Having an animal in therapy means there is a triangle, the patient, the animal and the therapist. This triangle also adds more layers of relationships and offers huge opportunities.  
 

Karin Hediger is an endowed professor of Anthrozoology at the Open Universiteit and a full professor of Child and Adolescent Psychology at the University of Lucerne, 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.