ESA letters: Dogs on a plane

There was once a wild pet hair, and it made me respond to an Indeed.com ad for therapists to write Emotional Support Animal (ESA) letters. I’m a therapist. I love my dog. I enjoy writing client advocacy letters (to support a woman’s returning to college following a breakdown; to support a man in a visitation case, etc.). Apparently these factors combined were enough to spark my profit motive. I sent my résumé with a cover letter:

Curious. I was a therapist in Ohio for 17 years, Colorado for one year, and now Nevada for the past two years. At no point prior to Nevada did I see a client who requested an emotional support animal. In Nevada – everybody and his half-step-niece wants one. As you – I hope – know, the need for an emotional support ‘other’ is obscure and potentially complex. I knew a Child Protective Services manager who brought her teddy bear to and from work every day. Did she ‘need’ that support? Might therapy have helped against this dependency? Valid questions.

I have written more ingratiating cover letters than this, but it was right enough to elicit this response:

Here at [Emotional Support Animal Letter Company], we’re always looking for more great people, so we’d like to get to know you.

Your application for the Licensed Mental Health Professional position stood out to us and we would like to invite you for a phone interview.

You will meet with our founder and CEO, _______. The interview will last about 20 minutes and you’ll have the chance to discuss the remote contractual therapist position and learn more about our company.

Later that night, I may have dreamed about pope-therapists blessing dogs in restaurants and in apartments sans pet deposit; and about therapists betting their license that clients are so feeble and unbalanced as to need furry courage to go places and be places. When morning came, I read a few psych-based articles on the problems of these letters, then wrote back:

Following my short wave of curiosity, I must bow out of your candidacy process. It took little contemplation for me to realize that while a ‘self-medication’ is often important or even necessary – whether it’s alcohol, chocolate, intellectual pursuits or the company of a dog – it is not in the interest of depth therapy as I practice it to prescribe them. However, I appreciate your interest.

For humor’s sake, here are the two rejoinders I received approximately half-an-hour later:

We received many applications for the position of contractual licensed mental health professional. We reviewed your application and decided not to invite you in for an interview with the hiring team.

We appreciate the time and energy that go into submitting a resume, cover letter, and application. Thank you for investing the time to apply to _______.

We wish you success in your job search and in your future endeavors.

Within minutes, from a different principal of the company:

Good luck to you . . .

Have to admit, just two emails from you . . . and you wore me out.

I rounded it out with –

I appreciate your dis-inviting me to interview after inviting me to interview. This, along with my letter to you declining your initial offer of interview, provides me documentation that my name and license will not be used by [Animal Letter Company] for purposes pertaining to your business.

The issue of Emotional Support Animals and clinical letters is a qualmish one, an arena of misuse and abuse by both client and clinician. In my imagination I picture hundreds of people, thousands of them, everyone going about with dog on a leash or Shih Tsu in a handbag, cat in a basket, guinea pig in a pocket, parrot or iguana on a shoulder, fly in a matchbox because they are lonely or nervous to be out in the world. I am perplexed, or actually, paradoxed. On the one hand, it can seem like Monty Python therapy (“Pardon me, my good man, but is that an especially obsequious ferret on your head?”). On the other hand, of course almost all of us need some dependency object or person, or thought or hope, or music or résumé, or food or money, or prestige or job, or narcissism or therapist. Why shouldn’t we lean on an animal friend? The crux for therapists is that “First do no harm” and be no enabler: We should question addictive needs, not cave in to them. Rehab questions alcohol, therapy questions codependency. Shouldn’t we question the claimed need to attach an animal to one’s bosom? I believe therapy should see a continuum of help toward a continuum of goals. Best would be “healthy happiness”: promoting autonomy not dependency and victimization; intervening for self-esteem based in one’s core feelings and needs, not on external rewards. If the person is not able to reach autonomy, has a dependent nature, we may still help her create self-supporting boundaries, some limits to a parent’s or spouse’s incursions.

In one article, a normally nay-saying psychologist explained her decision to write an ESA letter. The tragic woman had “no reason to live” but for the companionship of her pet. That was a situation that I believe any clinician would agree with. For the old woman, it was gold-standard therapy, the best and necessary to be done. In less dire cases, we should ask the brutal question of self-medication via dog or cat or peacock versus psychiatric medications, therapy, catharsis and teddy bear. Not to mention confronting a client who is twitchy, likes Bowser and is trying to pull one over on us.