Helping Injured Animals Helps the Helper, Too: Vicarious Resilience and the Animal-Human Bond

In this article we report on an exploratory study that focused on the positive impacts that helping injured animals recover had on the helpers, and these impacts are related to the concept of vicarious resilience. We examined the results of 20 informant interviews to determine how and what they learned from animals and how they incorporated that learning into their lives. The following themes emerged: perspective taking, expansion of sensorial awareness to respond to nonhuman communication, persistence and faith in the animal's resilience, inspiration and hope, patience, and consistency, contributing to something greater than yourself, views on life and death, and compassion fatigue. These themes suggest that some humans learn and grow in important ways from the animals they help to recover from abuse perpetrated by other humans.