September is the month for valuing life — 30 days dedicated to listening, welcoming, and raising awareness about mental health. In this context, the relationship between humans and animals takes on an even more significant role.
Studies show that living with dogs, cats, and other pets can reduce stress, alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression, and even assist in therapeutic treatments. But, more than science, it's about affection: animals teach us presence, routine, and unconditional love—essential values for those seeking emotional balance.
The Yellow September campaign also invites us to look at the bonds that sustain us. And, in many families, that bond has a snout, paws, and fur . The connection with animals helps reconnect people with the joy of small things , restores purpose and companionship in moments of loneliness, and awakens mutual care. Talking about the role of animals in the emotional health of human beings is talking about hope and the silent power of love between species .
To discuss this topic with us, we invited psychologist Irene Prestes. She is a psychoanalyst, holds a postgraduate degree in the Psychology of the Human-Animal Bond, is a specialist in Multispecies Family Clinic: human-non-human bonding, coordinator of the PsiVet Conecta mental health support group , and founder of the Bicho Gente Project.
This interview is unmissable! Read it at the end of the article and share it with friends and family.
Pet Med - Emotional connection – How can living with dogs and cats contribute to mental health and suicide prevention?
Irene Prestes - The emotional bond with dogs and cats contributes as a protective factor for human mental health. The emotional bond with dogs and cats can be an important reference point for libidinal investment – that is, a direction for vital psychic energy, which gives meaning to the subject's healthy life. The relationship with a pet can function as a "transitional object" for the person, helping with socialization, focusing on care, processing anxieties, and managing feelings of emptiness. For individuals at risk of suicide , living with an animal can be considered a risk or protective factor; as a protective factor , living with an animal denotes a vital emotional bond and can function as a kind of anchoring point for desire, offering a relationship of recognition and individual and collective belonging, which contributes to restoring the meaning of existence and maintaining the subject's relationship with the world and with others. As a risk factor, however, the relationship does not present an anchoring emotional bond or does not yet present a caring relationship. The interaction between the person and the dog or cat can be quite unfriendly.
Pet Med - Stress reduction – What scientific evidence shows that contact with animals reduces anxiety, depression, and feelings of loneliness?
Irene Prestes - Understanding that the psychic and the somatic are inseparable and immersed in a field of symbolic representation, and that psychic symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and loneliness are expressed in the body. And that one of the sources of satisfaction for the psychic subject can be highlighted through sublimation, which is the transformation of internal impulses into activities that promote socially acceptable satisfaction. It is evident that family life with animals, when it denotes stable affective bonds and productive activities that give meaning to life and well-being , minimizes the effects of stress factors, contributing to the reduction of negative stress. This family life with dogs and cats provides a space for loving affective transference, where the subject can project, symbolize, and metabolize their emotions. Finally, contemporary scientific studies, aligned with this understanding, show a reduction in cortisol (the stress hormone ) and an increase in oxytocin (the hormone related to bonding and well-being) during interaction with dogs and cats. These effects have a psychological impact: they help to reduce excessive instinctual arousal (anxiety) and facilitate the experience of pleasure and calm.
Pet Med - How does the need to care for an animal encourage positive habits, such as walks and regular schedules?
Irene Prestes - We know that mental health depends on a good libidinal economy and an ability to invest in the external world. Adopting an animal means taking on the responsibility and commitment to the animal's well-being. In this way, the need to care for a pet stimulates positive and healthy habits for the person, organizes the daily lives of family members , and preserves the animal's well-being. The secure attachment bond between them functions as a symbolic structure that shapes psychic time and space. The daily routine of establishing schedules for feeding, cleaning and hygiene, walking, and playing with the pet promotes regularity and creates a potentially facilitating and trusting space for both, and guides the individual towards self-care while caring for the other. The act of walking and playing with one's pet favors the discharge of psychic tensions, which we call drive relief, and stimulates a healthy routine and the resumption of pleasurable activities – something essential for maintaining psychic equilibrium. Finally, a caring environment for healthy individuals promotes the participation of everyone, both human and non-human. Caring for the self-other relationship is at the origin of the development of the capacity for ethical awareness in human beings.
Pet Med - In moments of deep sadness, what role does a pet play as a source of comfort and motivation?
Irene Prestes - From a Freudian perspective, profound sadness can be understood as an expression of a mourning process linked to loss, in its different types: normative, material, relational, identity-related, real, or symbolic. In this context, a pet can function as a support for libidinal investment. Faced with a loss, libido needs to find new destinations so as not to remain fixated on the lost object. The pet offers a possibility of affective displacement, allowing the subject to redirect their psychic energy towards a living and active, responsive and non-judgmental relationship of love and work. This can function as support for the self in moments of fragility and profound sadness, offering motivation to maintain daily care and a stable and healthy bond.
Pet Med - What are animal-assisted therapies and how do they help in the treatment of emotional disorders?
Irene Prestes - Animal-assisted therapies can be understood as a modality of intervention in which the secure attachment bond with the animal is mobilized to facilitate human emotional processes. As an intervention strategy, these therapies utilize interaction with animals as environmental stimuli capable of evoking, shaping, and reinforcing adaptive behaviors. Furthermore, animal-assisted therapies can be understood as an opportunity to create a potentially facilitating space: an intermediate area between internal and external reality . The animal occupies the role of transference mediator: it enables the emergence of unconscious content, functioning as a third party that softens resistances and expands the possibility of symbolization. Because it is not involved in verbal language or social judgments, the animal spontaneously facilitates the expression of repressed emotions, allowing them to find less threatening ways of manifesting. Thus, it helps reduce rigid defenses, reduce anxiety, process internal conflicts, and partially restore libidinal economy compromised in emotional disorders. This assisted interaction contributes to emotional maturity and the reorganization of fragile areas of the self, and enhances play and creativity skills .
Pet Med - What specific benefits does interacting with pets bring to senior citizens, especially in preventing depression?
Irene Prestes - In old age , individuals often face successive losses: of the body, of life plans, of social roles, of significant people. From a Freudian psychoanalytic perspective, aging points to the challenge of incompleteness and finitude. In this scenario, interaction with the animal functions as a potential space for attachment where the experience revitalizes libidinal circulation. The pet assumes the role of an affective container, offering a welcoming and emotionally supportive environment. Caring for a pet requires dedication, stimulates a sense of usefulness, which encourages the elderly person to remain connected to the external world, reducing the risk of narcissistic withdrawal. Furthermore, the affective bond offers a field of identification and companionship, alleviating feelings of loneliness and emptiness. In this sense, the animal acts as a protective factor against melancholy, sustaining investment in life and reinforcing social ties. It helps preserve contact with the true self, preventing functional decline, withdrawal, hopelessness, and depressive states. At this moment, as throughout all human development, relationships with others continue to be a fundamental source of investment, support, and organization of life's equilibrium .
Pet Med - How can the presence of a pet help with self-esteem and the development of socio-emotional skills in children and adolescents ?
Irene Prestes - Childhood and adolescence are important phases in the process of self-formation, marked by relational experiences of meaning and significance fundamental to well-being and mental health. Many children and adolescents feel alone and powerless in the face of the adult world, insecure about the transformations they are experiencing within themselves, given their psychic immaturity. The growing manifestations of intolerance and violence experienced by children and adolescents reveal situations in which the family, school, and society fail to fulfill their primary role of welcoming, caring for, and socializing their new members.
The presence of a pet can help in this process in several ways:
- Boosting self-esteem: when caring for a pet, the child or adolescent experiences an active role of responsibility and recognition. This feeling of "being needed," "being important" fuels the sentiment. of belonging and personal worth, reinforcing the self and acting as support against feelings of powerlessness or worthlessness.
- Socio-emotional skills: the relationship with the animal functions as a relational device , enabling the experience of empathy and responsible acceptance, since the individual needs to recognize the signals and particular interests of a being different from themselves. This broadens the capacity to perceive the other, to regulate emotions , and to deal with frustrations , which are fundamental for social interaction.
-Space for symbolization and psychic elaboration: for the child, the pet can assume a function similar to that of a "good enough environment," allowing the expression of affections, fears, and fantasies in a more accessible and less threatening way. For the adolescent, amidst identity and separation crises, the animal can offer a stable bond, functioning as a container for anxieties and as a support for belonging.
Thus, living with pets can be understood as a protective factor, a bond that protects against somatization, strengthening self-esteem and enriching the socio-emotional repertoire, by offering the developing individual a concrete and symbolic way of processing their emotional experiences.
Pet Med - How does daily engagement with an animal strengthen a sense of purpose and belonging?
Irene Prestes - Understanding that the human subject is constituted from the relationship with the other, mediated by affective bonds and the need to give meaning to life in the face of internal and external tensions. The daily commitment to an animal can be understood as a displacement of libido invested in human relationships, allowing the subject to find a way to sublimate their psychic energy through care, routine, responsibility, and a sense of purpose. Caring for the animal reinforces self-esteem and confirms the subject's capacity to be responsible for the other. This daily bond also strengthens the feeling and network of belonging, as it organizes the subject within a network of meanings that includes them in social life – they recognize themselves as part of a family, of a multi-species community.
Pet Med - Adopting or walking a pet can expand your social support network . How does this impact mental well-being?
Irene Prestes - The absence of affective exchanges can favor the accumulation of internal tensions, leading to somatization. Conversely, when interspecies affective bonds develop in a facilitating environment, they strengthen well-being and expand the social support network. From a psychoanalytic perspective, adopting an animal is not merely a practical act, but the expression of the desire to establish bonds of affinity and to recognize the animal in its uniqueness. In Freud's view, this affective investment can be understood as a drive displacement that enriches social connections and the community. In Winnicott's view, living with a pet allows for experiences of care , play, and spontaneity, fundamental to emotional health. Thus, every animal, regardless of its origin – with or without pedigree, bought, donated, found, gifted, or rescued – needs to be subjectively adopted by its responsible family member , in the mutual recognition and belonging that sustains the interspecies relationship. Thus, pets not only offer companionship but also become a link between the individual and the community, acting as a protective factor for mental health and well-being, since social integration reduces the risks of isolation, depression, and psychosomatic illness.
Pet Med - What warning signs of emotional distress can those who live with animals notice, and how can they seek help?
Irene Prestes - From a Winnicottian perspective , the animal can act as an affective mediator, perceiving subtle changes in the emotional state of family members . Some signs of pain and suffering that can be perceived include:
-Increasing social withdrawal or isolation;
- Marked mood swings, irritability, or apathy;
Neglecting one's own routine, hygiene, or diet;
-Difficulty in forming emotional bonds, including with an animal.
When these signs appear, it is crucial that the responsible family member seek external support, maintaining a healthy environment for themselves: talking to family, friends, or mental health professionals. The animal can help in this process as a facilitator of bonding, but it does not replace professional intervention.
Pet Med - How can families be guided to cope with grief when a pet ages or passes away, while maintaining emotional balance?
Irene Prestes - Grief following the loss of a loved one involves a process of separation and processing of the self . The bereaved should be supported to regain a sense of security and to recognize the animal as a non-human being that was part of their life. In times of grief: any clue about your pet. (A collar, a sound, a photo) can trigger an emotional alarm and bring sadness, longing, anger , tears, or a lump in the throat even before the person "thinks about it." "Love is the deepest source of pleasure in life, while the loss of one we love is the deepest source of pain; love and loss are two sides of the same coin." ( Parkes , 2009).
Strategies that can help the bereaved:
-Validate and name the feelings;
-Create symbolic farewell rituals (Albums, pet photos);
-Maintaining a network of emotional support. (family, friends, social groups);
-Preserve daily activities and personal interests, ensuring continuity of self-care.
The central idea is for family members to find a balance between bonding and autonomy, allowing grief to be experienced as a natural transitional process, strengthening the self and avoiding harmful emotional withdrawal.
Pet Med – What message would you leave to reinforce that the companionship of an animal does not replace treatment, but can be a strong ally in suicide prevention?
Irene Prestes - The companionship of an animal is potentially healthy for all people, at any age , where caring implies standing alongside the individual and educating them to accompany them on the path that promotes their development. The presence of a dog or cat can be understood as the recovery of a sense of otherness, of being-with , an affective and ethical need of human beings.
Pet Med - Finally, if you feel it's necessary, use the space below to supplement your contribution by adding any other information you consider important that wasn't covered during the interview.
Irene Prestes - Freud, reflecting on the complex issue of care and the preservation of love, indicates that it is precisely at this point that love for animals offers us important lessons: fidelity, constancy, and reciprocation. In contrast to human relationships, which always wear down and tend to weaken over time, the relationship with animals tends to grow stronger with time.
