Living with two dogs and presence to the situation. Ethnography of patients-dogs interactions in a psychiatric Ward

The aim of the study is to finely describe and understand how two dogs’ presence on the one hand, and dog-centred activities on the other hand, can change the way in which resident psychotic patients are in touch with their (human and non human) environment. Our hypothesis is that the presence of the dogs alters the sensory and perceptive qualities of a situation, opening the way for different ranges of commitment and affectivity. More precisely, the dogs are considered as subjective agents that make people doing things and make the patients feeling specific emotions, depending on the position they have in the human-dog interaction. When the patients learn to cope with the dogs, or when they learn to train them, they get in touch with the dogs in an original way. With time, they become more skilled in the management of affect and communication. These skills become stabilised through the repetition of gestures or the acquisition of other body techniques (Mauss). In order to address these questions, we conducted an ethnographic study that lasted one year. The ethnography focused on the precise qualitative description of bodies, attention process, body postures and verbal and non-verbal communication that occur in the presence of the dog and during the dog-training sessions.