Tag Archives: PTSD

Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife: Could the octopus be traumatized…

1 Comment Posted by on July 8, 2011

Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. Katsushika Hokusai, c 1820.

Every once in a while I get an email from someone I don’t know with a question about animal behavior. Usually they have to do with cats compulsively plucking their hair, or a question from a prospective MIT graduate student about my doctoral program. Yesterday I got a fairly unusual one though. And the curious person who sent it agreed that I could publish our exchange here. I have changed her name.

Dear Ms Braitman,

I am researching PTSD in animals as a result of sexual assault. I contacted James Crosby for help in this research and he told me about your website and your upcoming book, which I would really like to read. Sexual assault against animals is a topic that really bothers me, especially when I’ve heard people try to reason that its not such a bad thing. I’m in search of information that proves how harmful sexual molestation is to an animal, even if they have not necessarily been raped. I know of the psychological pain and confusion that perpetrators are filled with that leads them to commit such an act, but I want to know more about the psychological pain that animals suffer from once they’ve been sexually molested. Do you know where I can find specific information on this? Any specific cases where PTSD has been studied in animals that have been sexually molested? I know how psychologically harmful sexual molestation in children is, and I want to find out if animals are effected in the same ways. I really want to prove once and for all what a wrongful act sexual assault is to both humans and animals.

Thank you so much,

Animal Lover

Hi Animal Lover,

Thank you so much for your message. I actually just finished reading this article by a journalist suffering from PTSD. It concerns the human animal and is quite beautiful.

Anyway–back to your question. I am actually not sure what to tell you here. I do not know how I would define sexual molestation in nonhuman animals. That which is considered sexual behavior (as opposed to grooming behavior, for example) is so dependent on culture, context, individual preference and more. Among humans and certainly among other species. This isn’t to say that sexual molestation or assault of animals doesn’t exist or that they can’t be traumatized by it. But a strange person coming up to me and attempting to lick my anus without my consent would be considered sexual harassment. But is this true for a dog? Doubtfully. I wouldn’t know where a dog’s line of sexual comfort falls.

So much of our interaction with nonhuman animals would be considered sexually deviant if we tried it on another person.

Of course though, an animal exposed to repeated violation that they didn’t enjoy or physically injured them could be considered abuse and may be traumatizing…but it may not be for the same reasons that a human in similar situation would find disturbing. Ie. in the context of a horse that was, say, repeatedly restrained and forcibly entered by a person–would the horse consider this sexual abuse? Or is the horse stressed because of the confinement and any physical pain? Do the motivations of the abuser matter to a horse? I think that this is what distinguishes thinking about generalized trauma from trauma stemming from sexual abuse. And unless you know exactly what sexual abuse is for a given animal–then answering your question would be difficult.

I also think that finding out which animals have been exposed to such treatment might be somewhat of a challenge. Unless you’ve already stumbled on a sanctuary of some sort I did not know existed (ie. for zoophilia/bestiality survivors)? If not (unless you have witnessed certain behaviors yourself) you will be depending on the testimony of humans about a behavior most often considered taboo.

As for research that exists, perhaps you should check out the primatologist Robert Sapolsky’s work on what could arguably be called sexual politics among baboons. While he, I imagine, would not consider what he documents sexual abuse, he has studied the longterm affects of stress on subordinate baboons.

Warm wishes and best of luck!
Laurel

________

After I responded, I found about this case. A man in Washington State, who bred stallions and other animals, and was busted for cocaine last year and then discovered to be running a petting-zoo of a much darker kind.

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Dogs of Disaster

Leave a Comment Posted by on March 13, 2011

Swiss rescue workers (human and dog) wait for flight to Japan, where they’ll help find trapped people, bodies and perhaps other animals. Telegraph UK.

Thinking of the unfurling devastation in Japan, I came across a blog post on PTSD* in canine survivors of environmental catastrophe and war. The author, James Crosby is a retired Police Lieutenant, former Animal Control Division Manager and professional dog trainer in Jacksonville, Florida. I think he sums up many of the challenges quite well. He writes:

Although the literature is less definitive about the presence of PTSD in companion animals, the dogs that I observed on the streets after Hurricane Katrina exhibited symptoms that seemed to be a canine analog of human PTSD. These animals were depressed, lacking in normal affect, startled easily, agitated, and shy of human contact. More importantly, some of these animals exhibited generalized aggression.

An aggressive response in such stressed animals is not surprising, nor unobserved outside disaster situations. Many dogs, especially those who are under- or un-socialized, default to an aggressive display when frightened or exposed to a novel situation. The destruction of homes and evacuation, even death, of the human population of New Orleans was certainly frightening and novel, even to the best socialized of pets.

What did this mean for the dogs of Katrina? In my case, I set up a quiet treatment area, apart from the hustle of the rescue operations. The dogs got personal attention, most often after I built a working relationship through the use of non-verbal communication signals (body language is the basis for about 95% of inter-canine communication – NOT “whispering”, ESP, or other nonsense!) and let the dogs know they were once again safe. They were then introduced to other friendly, non-threatening humans and gradually returned to a ‘normal’ environment.

Did this ‘cure’ the dogs? Absolutely not. Many of these animals have had lasting effects, physical and behavioral. Some, such as Winnie (my Katrina Pit Bull rescue), still show fear during storms. Some have shown varying degrees of suspicion and aggression towards humans. Some have recovered exceptionally well.

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*Just a note: While the diagnosis of PTSD is an act of human categorization (and a product of very particular socio-historical context that made conceiving of PTSD as an ailment possible), I believe strongly (along with many behaviorists, psychologists and others) that dogs who suffer traumas can develop lasting effects that interfere with their abilities to lead normal, doggish lives. Such a thing is a working definition of mental illness–not simply an anthropomorphic projection onto nonhumans.

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Chimp-Human Mental Illness

Leave a Comment Posted by on February 8, 2011

Two weeks ago, New York Magazine published an excellent article on Travis, the chimp who made headlines for ripping the face off of a woman in Connecticut in 2009. The article began where most articles that covered the gory event failed to tread: deep history. Intergenerational chimp and human history, that is. It covered what happened to Travis’s mother (she was taken from her own mother in Africa, who had been shot, presumably something her daughter watched happen) and his father (a retired circus chimp), Travis’ removal from his mother (who had been tranquilized in order to give him up) and his sale to the family that would ultimately raise him as something of a chimp/human hybrid. The human history that surrounded Travis was just as dramatic. And it is obvious in reading the complicated portrait of this multispecies family just how dysfunctional and dangerous it was all becoming.

One thing to note is that the magazine published the above photo (their caption read: “Travis with a Stamford police officer.”). What the article failed to mention is that this same officer, Frank Chiafari, profiled in the New York Times last February, was not just any Stamford police officer. He is the same officer who responded to the frantic 9-1-1 call during Travis’s attack. He is also suffering from depression and anxiety. He told the NYT: “I’d go to the mall and see women and imagine them without faces.” According to the article, he also wanted therapy but was denied a worker’s compensation claim. “The reason was that harrowing episodes involving a person — shooting a suspect, for example — would be covered but similar encounters with animals were not.”As someone who reads about plenty of chimps traumatized by violent interactions with humans (in labs, circuses, and elsewhere), it was sad and ironic to find out that Officer Chiafari was suffering the same thing.

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