“The GRR Method”: Companion Animals as Partners in Human Stress Management Through Grounding, Relating, and Reframing Skills

Abstract

With the advent of the COVID pandemic and associated stressors, there is an increased need for strategies to support mental health, stress management, and coping skills.1 The biopsychosocial benefits of human-Animal interaction have been identified as a protective factor for mental health and stress during the pandemic.2 Through incorporating intentional interactions with companion animals in the use of three widely recognized evidence-based coping skills—grounding, relating, and reframing—the GRR Method is delineated as a coping strategy. The GRR Method is not an evidenced-based practice or tested intervention, rather, it is a proposed application strategy for existing evidence-based coping skills through partnership and purposeful interaction with companion animals. Within this article, the human stress response is briefly reviewed to provide a framework in which to situate use of grounding, relating and reframing skills augmented by companion animal interaction. The GRR Method is presented and explicated as a One Health strategy that can benefit both people and animals; issues of animal welfare, consent, and enrichment are explicitly addressed.