The systemic approach to companion animal
problem behaviour (abstract)
©Dr Joël Dehasse
3 avenue du Cosmonaute,
1150 Brussels, Belgium
joel.dehasse@skynet.be
Ref.: Dehasse J. The systemic approach to companion animal
behaviour. In Mills, Heath & Harrington: Proceedings of
the First International Conference on Veterinary Behavioural
Medicine. UFAW, 1997: 223.
www.joeldehasse.com
There are different models to approach the
understanding and resolution of companion animal behaviour
problems, for example behaviourism, clinical ethology, and
systemic therapy. In the systemic model, the animal is
analysed in the context of its environment as supporting a
specific function or as a catalyst for an auto-organisation
of the family-pack. The family asks the animal to play a
role. This demand is frequently unconscious for the human
members of the family. This role may be the origin of a
behavioural pathology: anxiety, depression, hyperattachment,
etc. This role (by a behaviourally normal or pathologic dog)
may be the opportunity for a family-pack to organise or
reorganise itself (sometimes at the expense of the animal
behavioural and emotional health). I will give several
examples of these situations.
The dynamics of a system may be stable or
unstable. Hyperattachment, a process that is at the root of
separation anxiety in young dogs, may be something
indispensable for the owner's mental health or for the
alleviation of his or her emotional or mood disorder
(anxiety or depression). The recognition of these dynamics
is obligatory to propose some realistic objectives in the
therapy or to use some sophisticated cognitive or
behavioural therapy as strategic family therapy.
A change inside the family dynamic
organisation may lead the owners to change their expectancy
of the role the pet animal has to play inside the group. An
individual emotional or mood evolution in a member of a
family may lead to stop the animal therapy or to its
euthanasia.
A systemic approach may be an Ethical way
to treat animals inside their family without disrupting the
family dynamic organisation. Several techniques or models of
approaches to understand this problematic can be
extrapolated from human family therapy. These models will
help manage several systemic pathologies as hierarchic
instability (dominance aggression), separation anxiety, or
replacement dog syndrome, etc.
Dr Joël Dehasse
Behaviorist veterinarian
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