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From LinkedIn • November 3, 2025

Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Animal-Assisted Therapy: A Collaborative Approach to Healing Abuse Victims

Millions of Americans experience PTSD. Only half seek treatment. Traditional therapy faces high dropout rates and access barriers. We must provide better, more.

Millions of Americans experience PTSD. Only half seek treatment. Traditional therapy faces high dropout rates and access barriers. We must provide better, more effective care for abuse victims.

My model integrates three components: AI precision, animal connection, and human expertise. This approach does not replace the therapist. The human therapist provides the irreplaceable clinical judgment, ethical reasoning, and empathy. AI and animals are tools that augment the therapist's work.

AI Delivers Data-Driven Precision

  • AI systems analyze comprehensive therapeutic information.
  • Models predict PTSD outcomes with 77 to 87 percent accuracy.
  • The AIRS system identifies intimate partner violence risk up to four years earlier than self-reporting.
  • AI provides personalized, continuous monitoring and support between your sessions.

Animals Provide Embodied Connection

  • Animals offer what AI cannot: genuine emotional connection and physiological co-regulation.
  • Trauma is stored in your body. Animals address these somatic dimensions.
  • Interactions with horses and dogs decrease your cortisol and increase your oxytocin.
  • This approach helps repair attachment disruptions and provides safe relational experiences.
  • Animal-assisted therapy shows significant PTSD symptom reduction. (Effect sizes range from d = 0.54 to g = -1.129).

Mutual Healing Uses Rescue Animals

  • This model creates mutual benefits. It uses rescue and retired animals.
  • An estimated 10,000 to 33,000 retired racehorses face slaughter annually.
  • Therapy programs provide these animals a life-saving purpose and alternative.
  • A retired racehorse's sensitivity makes it highly effective for emotional and social skill development.
  • You heal alongside an animal that is also healing. This creates a shared narrative of resilience.

This collaborative framework addresses trauma more completely. It honors the complexity of abuse. It integrates AI's analysis, animals' regulation, and the therapist's expertise to provide accessible, effective care.

Download the entire paper: Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Animal-Assisted Therapy: A Collaborative Approach to Healing Abuse Victims

Alternative link: https://zenodo.org/records/17517339

My longer form papers: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4225-1210

References

Augsburger, M., & Galatzer-Levy, I. R. (2020). Utilization of machine learning to test the impact of cognitive processing and emotion recognition on the development of PTSD following trauma exposure. BMC Psychiatry, 20(1), Article 325.

Cherniack, E. P., & Cherniack, A. R. (2014). The benefit of pets and animal-assisted therapy to the health of older individuals. Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research, 2014, Article 623203.