Healing Companions

“Finally, someone has written about the best kept mental health secret: how dogs save psyches, hearts, minds, and sometimes, quite literally, lives . . .”—Belleruth Naparstek, LISW, author of Invisible Heroes As the more than 65 million dog-owners in America will attest, there’s something about the presence of a dog that inspires confidence, nurtures emotional well-being, and brings out the best in ourselves. But for some people, the presence of a dog can do even more. Written by the leading expert in an emerging new field of therapy, Healing Companions is the first book to detail how dogs are increasingly benefiting those who suffer from a range of emotional ills, from eating disorders and anxiety, to agoraphobia, depression, and post-traumatic stress. Healing Companions will teach you: What criteria to consider when choosing the right dog for you. What kind of training service dogs require. What to expect and how to respond when you take a service dog out in public. How a dog can complement other forms of therapy. How to navigate the procedural regulations that apply to a service dog. How to recognize the dog’s needs and provide it with proper care. And much more. “Animals are more complete than people. They are wonderful teachers, therapists and role models for us all. Read Healing Companions and learn about their ability to guide and heal us all.”—Bernie Siegel, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love, Animals, and Miracles “This book should be required reading for everybody who is considering getting a psychiatric service dog or is working on training them.”—Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make Us Human

A guide to understanding the profound connection in animal/human relationships and its potential for mutual healing • Explains the unspoken connection between people and their animal companions and how they share the same energetic patterns and emotional wounds • Outlines specific behavioral traits and physical issues that animals may exhibit as they mirror their caregiver’s emotional state of being • Explores holistic modalities humans can employ, such as energy therapy, to promote healing in animals and ultimately themselves The animals we attract in our lives reflect us in many ways. Our connections with them run deeply, down to the soul level. Just like us, they are also on a journey to evolve their soul through their relationships and experiences, and each has deeply spiritual messages for us and intentions for our personal growth. In this book, Tammy Billups invites you to explore and deepen this profound relationship, showing how you can co-evolve along with your animal companions, experience unconditional love, and, ultimately, enact healing for both animal and caregiver. Offering a soulful and bioenergetic perspective on decoding our animals’ actions, behaviors, and physical issues, Billups explains how our animal companions share our energetic patterns and emotional wounds, revealing issues in our own lives that may be hidden or suppressed. She identifies the five core emotional wounds in animals and the ways in which they manifest, outlining specific behavioral traits and physical issues animals may exhibit as they mirror our emotional states. She explains how to connect with them on a profound level so we can grasp their needs more clearly and learn what they have to teach us. She also provides guidance to help your animals heal the emotional wounds and traumas that create their anxiety, stress behaviors, aggression, and fears. The author details a three-step process to help you through decisions you will make on your pets’ behalf and explains how, when a person works on healing a core emotional issue in their life--abandonment for example--it helps the animal release this same issue and the corresponding negative behaviors as well. She also shows how extremely receptive animals are to energy work, holistic healing, and spiritual practices, explaining how these methods unlock emotional barriers and enable both person and animal to heal and reach their highest potential in conscious evolution. Providing tools to identify our animals’ messages more quickly, the author shows how our pets’ higher purpose is to help people understand themselves.

‘I knew dogs could make a difference to the children’s lives. I knew it the moment I watched a little boy, exhausted by pain and sickness, stretch out his hand to touch my dog’s paw, and then...he smiled.’

The best medicine may not always be found at a pharmacy or in a doctor’s office. Sometimes it comes in the form of a four-legged friend. Three well-known leaders in their fields—award-winning dog photographer Jesse Freidin, adolescent HIV+ specialist Dr. Robert Garofalo, and LGBTQ advocate and journalist Zach Stafford—offer a refreshing, beautiful, and unique portrait of HIV infused with a deep message of hope. Each extraordinary profile shows the power of the incredible bonds between humans and their canine companions, whether that means combating loneliness and stigma, discovering the importance of unconditional love, overcoming addiction, or simply having a best friend in a time of need. When Dogs Heal shares the stories of a diverse set of people who are thriving and celebrating life thanks to the compassion and unconditional love of their dogs. A portion of the proceeds from this book benefits Fred Says, an organization dedicated to financially supporting HIV+ teen health care.

Let your unconscious heal youListening to your dreams can help you understand the 'inner' knowledge your body contains and your dreams express. Our emotions influence the production of healing and destructive opiates within our bodies – our feelings impact our physical well-being. In Dreams, Counselling and Healing, experienced psychotherapist and dream expert Brenda Mallon shows how you can harness your dreams to heal yourself.Using counselling sessions, material from workshops and groupwork and from first-hand accounts, reinforced with an in-depth knowledge of contemporary research in dreams and therapy, Brenda Mallon will help you discover what your unconscious is trying to tell you.Dreams, Counselling and Healing explores how dream content reveals crucial insights that enhance healing in body, mind and spirit. This is an invaluable book for anyone who wants to learn more about the interpretation dreams and their dynamic application to making positive life changes, physically, spiritually and emotionally.

Healing Circles: Grieving, Healing, and Bonding with Our Animal Companions, is a guide for those grieving the loss of a cherished pet, as well as a celebration of the healing bond between people and their animals. This book contains practical suggestions for working through pet grief, along with accounts of how other people have experienced loss, healing, and bonding. Joy Davy, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with a special focus on Pet Grief, offers insights into the depth of the human-animal bond, as well as ways to grow through the pain of bereavement. The intense pain we may experience after the death of a pet is called a "disenfranchised grief," meaning it is a grief that society does not recognize. Healing Circles gives reassurance and comfort, and offers the words to teach others to respect your loss. You will find a guided imagery for re-connecting with your pet and some ideas for memorializing the bond. You will find an exploration of how children and your other pets may experience grief, and how to help them, and a discussion of when to consider bringing another animal companion home, and how to create a loving bond with that pet. Throughout this book, you will see examples of how animals heal us, and how we heal them, as well. Our bonds with animals are uncomplicated by grudges, criticisms or judgments. Many people today find that their greatest emotional support comes from their pets. We are more stressed than ever before. We are nutritionally impoverished, sleep-deprived, frazzled from over-scheduling and trying to multi-task. The human beings we love may not be present for us, because they are on their smart phones. And we may not be present for them, because we are tweeting and posting. Meanwhile, the cat curls herself into a perfect circle on our lap. The dog settles in next to us, nuzzling our arm, leaning against our leg. The animal is the only one who comes to find us in the blazing, buzzing, electronics-filled house. And we feel accompanied on our solitary path; we feel deeply loved; we love in return. Of course we still love our people, too. But it's the companion animal who values us enough to give us warmth and time. This meets our very deep need for connection. We appreciate that. And so, we bond. There is the pet-who-completes-a-family, the sibling-pet, the once-in-a-lifetime pet, among many other types of bonds that we create. These relationships enrich us beyond measure. Our pets' lives are short, however, and those of us who dare to love will have to face the loss that inevitably follows. This book is a guide through the dark path of pet grief, but it is also a joyful celebration of the beautiful bonds that people and animals create with each other. Healing Circles is an indispensable guide for every animal lover.

Offers a daily reflection; Scripture verse or quote; and prayer for those who struggle with addiction, are in recovery, or are on their way to recovery. Complementing counseling, 12-Step meetings, or retreats, this book will offer encouragement to help bring healing one day at a time"€"and with God's help, strengthen you to help others who battle addiction.