Emotional Support Animals: Part Two

Live where you want, keep your best friend!

Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

We’ve come along way with advocating and legitimizing mental health. Besides people realizing it’s something real and tangible, people with mental health are able to more easily find the help they need without as much negative backlash. Emotional Support Animals are a great part of that move forward in society’s thinking. However, there is some complications with drawing the line between pet and ESA.

So, today, I will be talking about the benefits of having a ESA and what people are talking about when it comes to the line and how to decide whether there’s a legitimate need for the person or not.

Emotional Support Animal Benefits

Anyone who has ever had a pet would know how much life is improved with them around, so it may seem obvious why these animals would help people with mental illness. The Financial Education Benefits Center agrees with various experts that having an emotional support animal may help:

• Reduce stress
• Decrease loneliness
• Increase happiness
• Possibly increase exercise
• Lower blood pressure

The ESA Doctors also report that patients with mental illnesses who have gotten an emotional support animal have improved on various levels like:

• Gaining sense of purpose
• Growing motivation
• Lowering symptoms of diagnosed illness

The idea of animals as offering emotional support is not a new one (the ESA Doctors article mentions Sigmund Freud bringing his pet into sessions for his patients), but it is becoming more and more popular. And with popularity comes the need to start adding legal precedence to take care of the people who need it and calling out the illegitimate claims.

Where to Draw the Line

There have been immense strides in advocating for people with emotional support animals, but with every new trend, there comes a time when there will be people try to get away with bending the definitions. With ESA, this comes in the form of people claiming to need an ESA because of a mental illness, but in reality, not having a legitimate case.

Because of the growing cost of living, the pet deposits for rentals have also gone up. So, the temptation to finagle this arrangement is quite great. People are also blurring the line between Service Animal and Emotional Support Animal, which can make it difficult for public places.

Hal Herzog, in an article on Psychology Today, writes:

I spotted a family with three young kids and a handsome German shepherd wearing bright red Service Dog vest. I…naively asked the dad, “I see she’s a service dog. What service does she provide?” He suddenly got the deer-in-the-headlights look…and finally said, “Errrr…she’s not really an official service dog. She just helps keep the kids together when we go for walks.” It turns out that he had purchased the nifty service dog vest from Amazon.

Service Animal Scams: A Growing Problem
–Hal Herzog, Ph.D.

Yes, there are many places online that do not require certification for getting service animal equipment. Likewise, there are places online that will give you certification for you ESA for a fee, rather than getting a proper diagnosis and prescription for the animal.

With ESAs, most places will now follow up with the person writing the letter to make sure they are legitimate. When I turned in my letter to keep my kitten, Kisa, they got in contact directly with my therapist to make sure she was a real person and was in fact qualified to give me permission to have this animal despite pet regulations at the house I was living.

Emotional Support Animals are wonderful options for people with mental illnesses, in a lot of cases. I hope everyone can get one if they need one, and be able to get the help they need regardless.

Join me next time with the debate around medication in the mental health field.