Doctors of the Soul

by Wendy Elliman

Domino is a dolphin, but she's also earned the right to be called a healer. It was after he'd fed her and played with her that 10-year-old Ran, severely autistic and shut away in a world of his own, ran onto the beach and looked into his father's eyes for the first time in his life. It was following a year's close contact with Domino that six-year-old Netta, brain-damaged by infection shortly after birth, spoke her first full sentences and began playing with other children.

"Dolphins recognize the unfamiliar in these unhappy children, and relate to them with intense interest and gentleness," says Sophie Donio, who trains Domino and runs the Supportive Experience With Dolphins Program at Dolphin Reef in Eilat, Israel's Red Sea port. "And, for their part, these children quickly see that their disabilities don't repel the dolphins the way they do many human beings."

The therapeutic value of animals has long been recognized from guide dogs for the blind, to monkeys for the handicapped, to the soothing and morale-boosting qualities of fish and birds and cats but dolphins are in a class of their own, according to Donio. "Other animals serve as tools for the therapist," she says. "Dolphins, however, are themselves the therapists. It's they who motivate the patient, they who will the interaction."

Israel's dolphin therapy program began in 1991, designed for children over seven with a range of problems Down's syndrome, learning disabilities, anorexia, hyperactivity, communication and concentration difficulties, deafness, blindness, depression and sexual abuse. It's one of a handful of such programs now being run in the US, Australia and Britain.

"We accept only a small number of children so as to give each of them maximum attention," explains Donio. "The work is longterm: a child enrolls for a series of at least seven courses, each lasting four days."

Courses are carefully structured, balanced between cognitive and emotional development. The first part of each working day is a dolphin training session. The child works with the trainer, learning to feed and signal to the dolphins.

"We guide the youngster to make contact with the 'dolphin therapists' in a positive and unforced fashion," says Donio. "We give the children goals to achieve with the dolphins, and, in doing so, we stimulate their thought processes and their will to cooperate. This increases the child's level of concentration as well as his enthusiasm."

With Netta, for example, dramatic changes took place over a few months. At her first training sessions, she couldn't sit still, obey the trainer's instructions or imitate the hand signals used to communicate with the dolphins. Four months into the program, she was eager and disciplined, she'd mastered the signals and her main remaining difficulty was letting go of the fish she fed to the dolphins.

After the training session, child and trainer swim (or float) in the water with the dolphins. "The dolphins have already been fed, and so they don't stay around us for the food," relates Donio. "They're there because they want to be. Their genuine friendliness toward people, the pleasant touch of their noses, the sounds they make and the eternal smile on their faces all make the encounter pleasurable and exciting, and help raise the youngsters' self-confidence and sense of self-worth, their level of communication and ability to express emotions such as love and happiness."

"It's the dolphins who seek the contact, not Ran," discloses the boy's father. "He swims, they swim around him. The dolphins seem to relate to him as someone they know. I remember one time that Ran was swimming alone when Domino came up to him and they started playing a game together. For 10 minutes, it was just the two of them. Another time, after Ran had been playing with Domino, he came out of the water and he hugged me. That had never happened before. I haven't words to say what it meant to me."

The fact that encounters with dolphins are in water is a large plus to the therapy. "We begin our fetal life in water and usually feel good there," says Donio. "Liberated from gravity in the water, we also experience positive physiological changes: freer blood flow and reduced blood pressure. According to one researcher, the wave frequencies broadcast by dolphins increase production of a chemical in the human brain that induces a sense of well-being."

Whatever may be true of dolphin wave frequencies and their watery environment, it is indisputable that they love to touch and to be touched, that they have enormous love for human beings, and that they want to help them.

"There's no doubt," affirms Donio, "that there's a very strong therapeutic element to the dolphin. And it's our human wisdom to accept with open arms what the dolphin gives us."