A place to express love, affection, and
tenderness. Pets are very important to
trauma survivors for a variety of reasons by Kathy Broady LCSW of Abuse
Consultants.Many abuse survivors have difficulties with attachment issues due
their extensive histories of trauma, abuse, and neglect.Because people were the perpetrators, trauma
survivors frequently find it difficult and complicated to express caring and
affection to other people. And yet, many survivors can still feel loving
connections, and they have the desire to appropriately express that.Animals and pets feel safer for bonding than people, and because of that added
safety, animals can become the positive target audience for the survivor’s
feelings of love, affection, and tenderness. Sometimes it just feels good
to be able to hug a cat!
- An Acceptable Substitution for Maternal Instincts
Many trauma survivors do not have children, or
are not with their children, or do not want to have children, or cannot have
children, are not ready for children, etc. However, being away from
children does not eliminate maternal feelings and maternal instincts (or
paternal feelings and paternal instincts).Many survivors purposefully
choose to have a variety of pets and animals as an appropriate substitution for
children. Some survivors will purposefully get pets to learn how to
nurture and care for others prior to having children. If you can’t manage
taking care of animals, you won’t be able to tend properly to children.
