Event Title

Social Work, Animals, and Language

Abstract

Working Title: Social Work, animals, and language

Animal assisted interventions are used today in private clinical psychotherapy and counseling settings, as well as some hospital critical care units, prisons, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, psychiatric institutions, hospice facilities, and youth detention centers (Horowitz, 2010). Such services, however, are unevenly distributed across health care settings, and are often subject to the precariousness of operating budgets and, in particular, to the vicissitudes of the individual personalities of clinical directors and other health programs/services management personnel. This is due in large part to the epistemic limitations of social work’s most influential theoretical practice paradigm, the person-in-environment (PIE) and related systems theory.

Despite this, substantial research across the health sciences and professions provides evidence of the health benefits of human-animal interactions across the life cycle regarding many issues. However, a striking ethical dilemma characterizes the literature on animal assisted social work by practitioners who advocate for a role for animals in social work. The dichotomous framing of AAI among other topics, such as the link between animal cruelty and other forms of human violence, typically positions animal welfare second to human welfare. In AAT animals are commonly referred to as therapeutic tools, and in family system theory, as indicators of violence. Human health benefits are routinely emphasized while benefits to animals are seldom assessed. Although animal welfare and exploitation are gaining popularity in discussions about the design and implementation of animal-assisted interventions, the author argues that the language of proprietorship and utilitarianism surprisingly continues to inform animal-assisted social work – animals are “used”, rather than “working with” – despite being ascribed as partners.

This presentation explores the enduring use of anthropocentric language in animal-assisted social work and how it limits the transformative scope of this approach by maintaining conventional relations of power that construct the self in opposition to a devalued other. Using an anti-oppressive lens and discourse analysis, the author argues that an ‘add-animals and mix’ approach fails to address the inherent speciesism and anthropocentrism of mainstream social work (Hanrahan; Wolf, 2000), and the language that shapes it, fundamentally restricts the potential role for social work in animal care and welfare.

Track

Ethical dilemmas in social work and animals

Preferred Presentation Format

Podium: 30-minute podium presentation

Speaker Bio

Sole/primary presenter:

Cassandra Hanrahan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work, Faculty of Health Professions, Dalhousie University, where she teaches critical anti-oppressive social, cultural and social work theory, and policy analysis. She teaches in the BSW and MSW programs both on campus and distance delivery. Her research interests include human animal bonds, ecology, and spirituality in social work. Her present focus is on re-theorizing the scope of social work theory and practice, such that human and animal interactions and relationships, and the natural environment are integrated into a sustainable and holistic understanding of individual and public health. Dr. Harahan draws together the fields of social work, human- animal bonds, critical animal studies, and critical social sciences, and is unique within Nova Scotia, indeed Canada, leading the way for the development and growth of a new field of Canadian health research. Other areas of interest include narrative theory and practice.

Location

SUMMIT ROOM

Start Date

11-4-2013 11:15 AM

End Date

11-4-2013 11:45 AM

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Apr 11th, 11:15 AM Apr 11th, 11:45 AM

Social Work, Animals, and Language

SUMMIT ROOM

Working Title: Social Work, animals, and language

Animal assisted interventions are used today in private clinical psychotherapy and counseling settings, as well as some hospital critical care units, prisons, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, psychiatric institutions, hospice facilities, and youth detention centers (Horowitz, 2010). Such services, however, are unevenly distributed across health care settings, and are often subject to the precariousness of operating budgets and, in particular, to the vicissitudes of the individual personalities of clinical directors and other health programs/services management personnel. This is due in large part to the epistemic limitations of social work’s most influential theoretical practice paradigm, the person-in-environment (PIE) and related systems theory.

Despite this, substantial research across the health sciences and professions provides evidence of the health benefits of human-animal interactions across the life cycle regarding many issues. However, a striking ethical dilemma characterizes the literature on animal assisted social work by practitioners who advocate for a role for animals in social work. The dichotomous framing of AAI among other topics, such as the link between animal cruelty and other forms of human violence, typically positions animal welfare second to human welfare. In AAT animals are commonly referred to as therapeutic tools, and in family system theory, as indicators of violence. Human health benefits are routinely emphasized while benefits to animals are seldom assessed. Although animal welfare and exploitation are gaining popularity in discussions about the design and implementation of animal-assisted interventions, the author argues that the language of proprietorship and utilitarianism surprisingly continues to inform animal-assisted social work – animals are “used”, rather than “working with” – despite being ascribed as partners.

This presentation explores the enduring use of anthropocentric language in animal-assisted social work and how it limits the transformative scope of this approach by maintaining conventional relations of power that construct the self in opposition to a devalued other. Using an anti-oppressive lens and discourse analysis, the author argues that an ‘add-animals and mix’ approach fails to address the inherent speciesism and anthropocentrism of mainstream social work (Hanrahan; Wolf, 2000), and the language that shapes it, fundamentally restricts the potential role for social work in animal care and welfare.