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Animal madness : how anxious dogs, compulsive parrots, and elephants in recovery help us understand ourselves
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Animal madness : how anxious dogs, compulsive parrots, and elephants in recovery help us understand ourselves

by Laurel Braitman

This study analyses the psychological parallels between humans and other animals, focusing on the manifestation of mental illness across species. It explores how animals recover from emotional distress and what these similarities reveal about human mental health.

Accession 12046 ISBN 9781451627008 Publisher Simon & Schuster
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Curated Derived
Animals Emotion Geography Life Sciences Madness Psychology Science Social Sciences The Mind
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Identity

name→ title
Animal madness : how anxious dogs, compulsive parrots, and elephants in recovery help us understand ourselves
vernon_id
16170
accession_no→ accession_number
12046
vernon_slug
animal-madness-how-anxious-dogs-compulsive-parrots-and-elephants-in-recovery-help-us-understand-ourselves-laurel-braitman

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Descriptive

production_date
2014
object_type
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object_status
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brief_description
For the first time, a historian of science draws evidence from across the world to show how humans and other animals are astonishingly similar when it comes to their feelings and the ways in which they lose their minds. Charles Darwin developed his evolutionary theories by looking at physical differences in Galapagos finches and fancy pigeons. Alfred Russell Wallace investigated a range of creatures in the Malay Archipelago. Laurel Braitman got her lessons closer to home--by watching her dog. Oliver snapped at flies that only he could see, ate Ziploc bags, towels, and cartons of eggs. He suffered debilitating separation anxiety, was prone to aggression, and may even have attempted suicide. Her experience with Oliver forced Laurel to acknowledge a form of continuity between humans and other animals that, first as a biology major and later as a PhD student at MIT, she'd never been taught in school. Nonhuman animals can lose their minds. And when they do, it often looks a lot like human mental illness. Thankfully, all of us can heal. As Laurel spent three years traveling the world in search of emotionally disturbed animals and the people who care for them, she discovered numerous stories of recovery: parrots that learn how to stop plucking their feathers, dogs that cease licking their tails raw, polar bears that stop swimming in compulsive circles, and great apes that benefit from the help of human psychiatrists. How do these animals recover? The same way we do: with love, with medicine, and above all, with the knowledge that someone understands why we suffer and what can make us feel better. After all of the digging in the archives of museums and zoos, the years synthesizing scientific literature, and the hours observing dog parks, wildlife encounters, and amusement parks, Laurel found that understanding the emotional distress of animals can help us better understand ourselves.

Subjects & people

authors→ author (initial fill only)
Laurel Braitman
tags→ tags
Science, Psychology, Life sciences, Nature, Evolution (Biology), Biology, Animals, Domestic animals, Dogs, Evolutionary psychology, Animal behaviour -- Evolution, Behaviour evolution, Animal behaviour, Animal psychology, Animal intelligence, Emotions in animals, Consciousness in animals
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18832

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