Conversations about Companion Animals in Clinical Settings

This book examines the clinical significance of the human–animal bond (HAB) and its implications for contemporary mental health practice. Drawing on interdisciplinary research in human–animal interactions and clinical psychology, it introduces a pet-informed approach that integrates clients’ relationships with companion animals into assessment, case formulation, and therapeutic dialogue. Rather than focusing on animal-assisted interventions, the volume explores how pet-related themes emerge organically in clinical encounters and how they may illuminate processes such as attachment, emotion regulation, coping, and identity formation. Grounded in the biopsychosocial model and informed by the concept of multispecies families, the book situates companion animals as relational partners embedded in clients’ social and emotional worlds. Chapters address cultural, legal, and religious constructions of human–animal boundaries; the role of pets in everyday routines and relational safety; and complex clinical contexts including pet loss, animal maltreatment, and caregiving burden. Attention is also given to diversity and inequality, including housing insecurity and access to service and emotional support animals, as well as developmental considerations in childhood and adolescence. By integrating empirical evidence with clinically grounded scenarios, reflective prompts, and discussion of established assessment instruments, Conversations about Companion Animals in Clinical Settings: An Integrative, Pet-Informed Approach for Clinicians offers a structured yet flexible framework for engaging with pet-related content. Its central contribution lies in bridging a gap between the growing evidence base on the HAB and its systematic application in clinical practice, advancing a relational and context-sensitive understanding of mental health within increasingly multispecies lives.