{"id":8231,"date":"2010-03-01T05:56:36","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T13:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gasdetection.com\/?page_id=8231"},"modified":"2014-08-25T15:16:50","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T22:16:50","slug":"dolphin-assisted-therapy-gift-sea-destructive-hype","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gasdetection.com\/interscan-in-the-news\/magazine-articles\/dolphin-assisted-therapy-gift-sea-destructive-hype\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphin Assisted Therapy: A Gift From The Sea Or Destructive Hype?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Health<\/a><\/p>\n

March 1, 2010<\/p>\n

Dolphin Assisted Therapy\u00a0: A Gift From The Sea Or Destructive Hype?<\/p>\n\"Dolphin\"\n

By\u00a0 Michael D. Shaw<\/p>\n

The unique relationship between dolphins and humans dates back to at least ancient Greece, where they were revered as being helpful to sailors. In fact, killing a dolphin in that culture could be punishable by death. But do dolphins have special powers that can cure humans?<\/p>\n

Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT) stems from the collaboration between Hank Truby\u2014a linguist and acoustic phonetician\u2014and fabled dolphin researcher John Lilly, MD. Lilly was convinced that dolphins could mimic human speech patterns, and published a number of scientific papers on the subject. Less well-publicized is that his findings that the animals knowingly uttered human words have never been replicated.<\/p>\n

Among his many other interests, Lilly was a proponent of psychedelic drugs and believed that he was in psychic contact with aliens, who guided him to his work with dolphins. He considered dolphins to be psychic conduits between aliens and humans.<\/p>\n

Early research involved two boys with autism and limited attention spans, who were seen to interact with the dolphins for as long as 90 minutes. Their parents were overjoyed that the boys were so engaged\u2014cooperating with each other, and playing with and feeding the dolphins.<\/p>\n

However, the first authority who truly pursued the therapeutic aspects was Dr. Betsy Smith, an educational anthropologist at Florida International University. In 1971, Smith let her mentally disabled brother wade into the water with two adolescent dolphins. “They were pretty rough dolphins,” she remembers. But they treated her brother tenderly. “The dolphins were around him, still, gentle, rubbing on him.” Smith believed that the animals knew her brother was different from other humans.<\/p>\n

Based on these and other encouraging results, Dr. Smith began therapy programs at two facilities in Florida, and offered them free of charge for many years.<\/p>\n

Advocates of DAT claim therapeutic benefits for such conditions as:<\/p>\n