Use of animal-assisted therapy and service animals with Borderline personality disorder patients: a narrative review

Abstract

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects and marked impulsivity. These patients usually develop attachment to transitional objects, like pets. Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is a goal directed intervention and is designed to promote improvement in human physical, social, emotional, or cognitive function. Service animals (SA) are trained to assist people with disabilities in the activities of normal living. This narrative review aims to investigate the efficacy of AAT and SA in BPD patients, believing that they could have a beneficial effect, especially in the creation of a therapeutic alliance and in improving functionality. A literature review was made searching 4 databases (PsycINFO through EBSCO interface; WebOfScience; Pubmed and Scopus). 5 articles were identified. Although the literature is very scarce, the results available show some potential benefits of these approaches in decreasing the severity of the symptoms and improving quality of life, interpersonal relationships, stress levels and functionality. An important aspect of these approaches is that they might have beneficial effects on the core features of BPD, such as impulsivity and instability. However, more studies are needed to effectively assess AAT's and SA's efficacy in these patients and to validate these kinds of approaches.