Therapy dogs help young, painfully shy Hongkongers overcome social fears
Animal interaction programme is proving an effective first step to help withdrawn residents defeat inhibitions and get back into work or study
Therapy dogs have proven to be very effective in bringing young, withdrawn Hongkongers out of their shells, University of Hong Kong researchers say.
Participants of animal-assisted therapy are more likely to go back to school or look for a job, rather than continuing to stay cooped up at home, surfing the internet, an HKU study shows.
Such therapy was particularly successful in raising the self-esteem of reclusive people who might otherwise shy away from engaging in social interaction that did not involve animals, the researchers said.
A psychiatrist explained that the animals could help because they were not "demanding or expecting certain achievements" from their human friends.
The two-year study examined 68 socially withdrawn subjects aged between 13 and 29. All were from a programme by the Chinese Evangelical Zion Church Social Service Division that had used animals to help more than 200 people with social inhibitions since 2010.
"About 80 per cent have either gone back to work or school," the division's general secretary Ng Yan-ho said.