Mattering as Medicine: Exploring the Significance of Human-animal Connections for Individuals Living With Pain and Suicidality
Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This dissertation explores the significance of human-animal connections (HACs) for individuals who are living with pain and suicidality (“total pain”). My study will address two stages of research that inform one another: in stage 1, which completed in 2023, three months were spent conducting ethnographic research, interviews, and surveys to patients at the Royal University Hospital Emergency Department (ED) to investigate if therapy dogs could support patients presenting with mental health and substance use concerns. Findings showed that the therapy dogs’ presence had a positive impact on both the patient and staff experience in the setting. In stage 2, which is the core focus of this dissertation, I extended this line of inquiry based on a problematic that was formed in stage 1 to conduct further data collection and analysis. Methodologically informed by an exploratory institutional ethnographic approach and utilizing a framework grounded in a critical disability lens, I conducted in-depth interviews with patients living with total pain whom, at one time or another, visited the ED to make sense of how HACs may support individuals with their pain management work. I also conducted interviews with health care providers and therapy dog handlers situated in the ED setting. Analysis of stage 2 data involved directly examining the work of all actors in the setting, as well as the processes and social organization of animals in pain management and recovery work more broadly. My analytic discussion, incorporating findings from both stages of the study, concluded that HACs can assist in pain management in day-to-day life, and facilitate a vital sense of mattering. Animals can exist outside of textual coordination, and disrupt the textual mediation that produces anti-mattering, and worsens pain outcomes. Therefore, the inclusion of HACs in health care delivery practices signals to a broader institutional caring that is needed given the ongoing systemic barriers and limitations in emergency medicine. The integration of animal-assisted services into care practice can act as a critical disruptor to institutional circuit of over-medicalization that dehumanizes patients, while also assisting in combatting the mind-body separation that often falls upon those living with total pain. The outcomes of this research provide a contextual understanding for the material ways animals can help individuals doing pain management work, with the primary finding that HACs substantially support those living with pain physically, mentally, emotionally, and relationally through complex working mechanisms. Further, the integration of HACs in care settings can act as a safeguard against systemic erasure often experienced by people living with pain. HACs provide a perceived, bias-free proxy for social-emotional support that does not carry the structural prejudices that are embedded within many institutional systems, and can assist with reducing iatrogenic harms. As such, this body of work aims to contribute to the fields of emergency medicine, medical sociology, anthrozoology, and critical disability studies to help improve health care practices and inform policies that will address the specialized and innovative role animals have in supporting individuals on journeys seeking assistance with, or recovery from, total pain experiences.
Author: Pavelich, Alexandria R
Language: English
Subfield: Animal Science and Zoology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7214881572