ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Depression, anxiety, and stress reduce the functions of people and lead to inconvenience in life. These symptoms were proved to be successfully alleviated through equine assisted therapy (EAT) which requires physical involvement. Unfortunately, in some circumstances where physical activities are restricted, such therapy is not possible. To overcome such shortfall, this paper attempted to compare the similarity of the traditional EAT with newly developed online equine assisted therapy (iEAT) implementing imagery techniques. A website was designed, represented the virtual (iEAT). Fifty non-clinical participants volunteer to participate and attended three different conditions, i.e., online, traditional and relaxation (control). Depression, anxiety, and stress - 21 (DASS-21) was used to measure the level of depression, anxiety, and stress for pre- and post-treatment. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that iEAT and EAT can be used to reduce the symptoms similarly. iEAT could represent the alternative to traditional EAT reduce the depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. Such alternative is important, especially during certain circumstances such as the pandemic today and cost-effective selection.
References
[1] Mueller MK, & McCullough L (2017). Effects of Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy on Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Youth. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26(4), 1164–1172. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-016-0648-6
[2] Thapar A, Collishaw S, Pine DS, & Thapar AK (2012). Depression in adolescence. The Lancet, 379(9820), 1056–1067. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60871-4
[3] Shao R, He P, Ling B et al. (2020). Prevalence of depression and anxiety and correlations between depression, anxiety, family functioning, social support and coping styles among Chinese medical students. BMC Psychology, 8(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-020-00402-8
[4] Kious BM, Kondo DG & Renshaw PF (2018). Living high and feeling low: Altitude, suicide, and depression. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 26(2), 43–56. https://doi.org/10.1097/HRP.0000000000000158
[5] Landi G, Furlani A, Boccolini G, Mikulincer M, Grandi S & Tossani E (2020). Tolerance for Mental Pain Scale (TMPS): Italian validation and evaluation of its protective role in depression and suicidal ideation. Psychiatry Research, 291(March), 113263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113263
[6] All AC & Loving GL (1999). Animals, Horseback Riding, and Implications for Rehabilitation Therapy. Journal of Rehabilitation, 65(3).
[7] Hausberger M, Roche H, Henry S & Visser EK (2008). A review of the human-horse relationship. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 109(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2007.04.015
[8] McConnell PJ (2010). National survey on equine assisted therapy: An exploratory study of current practitioners and programs. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 168. http://search.proquest.com/docview/756758988?accountid=14553%5Cnhttp://openurl.library.uiuc.edu/sfxlcl3?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&genre=dissertations+&+theses&sid=ProQ:ProQuest+Dissertations+&+Theses+Full+Text&atitl
[9] Karol J (2007). Applying a traditional individual psychotherapy model to Equine-facilitated Psychotherapy (EFP): Theory and method. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 12(1), 77–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359104507071057
[10] Brandt A (2019). The Impact of Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapy (EAAT) on The Impact of Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapy (EAAT) on Depression Depression. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/creativecomponents
[11] Dayton T (1994). The drama within: Psychodrama and experiential therapy. (F. Deerfield Beach & I. Health Communications (eds.)), pp 12.
[12] Klontz BT (2004). Ethical practice of group experiential psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, 41(2), 172–179. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-3204.41.2.172
[13] Holmes CMP, Goodwin D, Redhead ES & Goymour KL (2012). The Benefits of Equine-Assisted Activities: An Exploratory Study. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 29(2), 111–122. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-011-0251-z
[14] Anderson F, Annett M, Bischof WF & Boulanger P (2010). Virtual equine assisted therapy. Proceedings - IEEE Virtual Reality, May 2014, 255–256. https://doi.org/10.1109/VR.2010.5444776
[15] Chaudhury P & Banerjee D (2020). “Recovering With Nature”: A Review of Ecotherapy and Implications for the COVID-19 Pandemic. Frontiers in Public Health, 8(December). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.604440
[16] Decety J (1996). Do imagined and executed actions share the same neural substrate? Cognitive Brain Research, 3, 87–93.
[17] Finke RA (1980). Levels of equivalence in imagery and perception. Psychological Review, 87(2), 113–132. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-295x.87.2.113
[18] Weßlau C, Cloos M, Höfling V & Steil R (2015). Visual mental imagery and symptoms of depression - results from a large-scale web-based study. BMC Psychiatry, 15(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-015-0689-1
[19] Johnson P (1982). The functional equivalence of imagery and movement. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 34(3), 349–365. https://doi.org/10.1080/14640748208400848
[20] Holmes EA, Blackwell SE, Burnett Heyes S, Renner F & Raes F (2016). Mental Imagery in Depression: Phenomenology, Potential Mechanisms, and Treatment Implications. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 12, 249–280. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-021815-092925
[21] Tallon K, Ovanessian MM, Koerner N & Dugas MJ (2020). Mental imagery in generalized anxiety disorder: A comparison with healthy control participants. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 127(December 2019), 103571. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2020.103571
[22] Nguyen J & Brymer E (2018). Nature-based guided imagery as an intervention for state anxiety. Frontiers in Psychology, 9(OCT), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01858
[23] Görgen SM, Joormann J, Hiller W & Witthöft M (2015). The role of mental imagery in depression: Negative mental imagery induces strong implicit and explicit affect in depression. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 6(JUL), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00094
[24] Holmes EA & Mathews A (2005). Mental imagery and emotion: A special relationship? Emotion, 5(4), 489–497. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.5.4.489
[25] Lakens, D. (2021). Sample Size Justification. Unpublished, 1–31.
https://psyarxiv.com/9d3yf/
[26] Babbie E (2010). The practice of social research. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
[27] Lovibond PF & Lovibond SH (1995). The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33(3), 335–343.
[28] R Core Team (2021). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://www.r-project.org/
[29] Earles JL, Vernon LL & Yetz JP (2015). Equine-Assisted Therapy for Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Julie. 28(2), 1–4. https://doi.org/doi:10.1002/jts.21990
[30] Klontz BT, Bivens A, Leinart D & Klontz T (2007). The effectiveness of equine-assisted experiential therapy: Results of an open clinical trial. Society and Animals, 15(3), 257–267. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853007X217195
[31] Lee WJ, Choi SH, Shin JE et al.(2018). Effects of an online imagery-based treatment program in patients with workplace-related posttraumatic stress disorder: A pilot study. Psychiatry Investigation, 15(11), 1071–1078. https://doi.org/10.30773/pi.2018.09.28
In-Text Citation: (Sulaiman et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Sulaiman, N. binti, Anuar, N. A. binti, & Yunos, H. (2022). Virtual Equine-assisted Therapy (iEAT) to Reduce Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Symptoms. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(11), 1569 – 1579.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non0-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode