Kathy Egan
news@greenepublishing.com
Emotional Support Animals (ESAs) are animals that provide comfort and emotional support to people who have disabilities. They are recognized for their abilities to alleviate symptoms of anxiety, depression or other mental health conditions. Although they are not required to have specific skills such as retrieving dropped items or guiding the visually impaired, they have been shown to improve the mental and emotional well-being of their companions.
Different from pets and service animals, ESAs are becoming increasingly common and are being recognized for their helpfulness. People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), for example, can benefit in several ways by having an ESA.
People, including children, often receive comfort and a sense of unconditional love from an ESA, which, in turn, can reduce their stress or anxiety. Another difficulty for many people with autism is knowing how to interact socially. Animals can serve as a connection between those with autism and others. Anyone who has walked a dog in the park knows a cute pooch can help initiate conversations and help build social interaction.
It's not just people with autism who can benefit from an emotional support animal, though. For those who live alone or suffer from social anxiety, ESAs can be especially beneficial by helping to reduce anxiety and feelings of isolation. Further, those who have suffered trauma in the past have found themselves better able to deal with feelings related to the trauma or even current challenges or difficult situations such as divorce or death of a loved one. Because ESAs are also known to lower blood pressure and heart rate, they likely have a positive effect not only on emotional health but also physical health. They have even been known to alleviate or reduce the likelihood of panic attacks.
The Fair Housing Act considers ESAs to be important to people's health, so generally, landlords cannot deny housing to someone solely because they have an ESA. This is true even if the property owner or manager has a no pet policy in place. Not just any dog an be considered an ESA, even though we surely all feel comforted by our furry family members. In order for your dog to qualify as an ESA, you need an ESA letter from a qualified, licensed mental health practitioner. The letter must document specific information and may need to be renewed periodically.
If you or a loved one suffers from mental or emotional health concerns, you might consider getting a dog (or some other animal) to serve as an emotional support animal. It can be any dog, even one who is rescued from a shelter. If you adopt from our local shelter, perhaps your new four-legged friend will even consider you his emotional support human.