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Therian Study Alert
The Jackal in the City: An Empirical Phenomenological Study of Embodied Experience Among Therians and Otherkin
The result of FurScience's interviews and focus groups with therians at Anthrocon since 2016 is finally out. Tens, possibly hundreds of therians were interviewed one-on-one in close to hour-long sessions, their responses recorded, transcribed, and later analyzed anonymously. The study was published in The Humanistic Psychologist and is 20 pages long, detailing the experiences of therians and otherkin, along with associated analyses and a suggested re-terming of what we call "mental shifts," at least in the context of psychology.
While most therians will already be familiar with the what this study will reveal, I'd consider this the closest thing to a "therapist's guide" to therianthropy/otherkin that currently exists. It's accessible for $20 through the APA website linked above. For those who would not like to pay for it, I will summarize below:
The study analyzes the experiences of many therians and otherkin and seeks to "destigmatize and depathologize" our experiences. They provide well-structured examples of what we experience, as well as its psychosocial connotations starting from early childhood and into adult life.
They define a therian as "an individual who believes that they
are not human—or at least not completely human. Instead, they identify as a species of non-human animal that either currently exists or has existed and is now extinct," and an otherkin as a person identifying "as a nonhuman being that is typically considered mythical or fantasy-based (e.g., fairy, elf, unicorn)."
They apply Sara Ahmed's work on the ideas of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation to alterhumanity. They dive into our preference for natural environments over manmade ones, our disconnect from other humans and our own bodies, species dysphoria (which they describe but do not explicitly name), and reorientation by means of our own personal image, shifting, seeking out community, and "ontological doubling" - "living [a] human life with its human demands, alongside a pervasive feeling of being out of place."
They suggest the "re-terming" of what we call "mental shifts" and "phantom shifts" and the like as embodied shifts instead, seeing as they involve more than just a shift in consciousness and can include physical sensations (such as phantom limbs) and can occur in response to the environment, by one's own volition, or spontaneously. While some may be against outside individuals coining terms for us, these are professional psychologists and this likely has more to do with their own understanding of us. Per the study:
"Therianthropy and otherkinship are often experienced as an attunement and orientation toward, and a belonging with, nonhuman animals and to the natural world. In connection with their environment, therians and otherkin experience profound changes in which they are less likely to be mindful of their humanness; instead they experience heightened sensations (especially those sensations that are sharp for their theriotype/kintype), increased spatial awareness, phantom limbs (feeling limbs and body parts belonging to their theriotype/kintype), and personality changes (e.g., from passivity to aggressiveness or assertiveness, from anxiety to calmness, introversion to extraversion, etc.). These changes were conceptualized as mental shifts by Grivell et al. (2014), but due to how this experience involves not just a shift in thoughts and emotion, but in the body and their relationship to their environment and to others, we here use the term embodied shifts. By conceptualizing shifting as an embodied experience, we reaffirm that affective [for the uninitiated, "affect" in psychology regards one's physical expression of emotions - gestures, postures, vocalizations, etc.] and behavioral changes, alongside altered states of consciousness, are not experiences located within the individual, but take place in the intersubjective field (e.g., as a reaction to changes in the environment, feeling threatened at work, or experiencing comfort in isolated spaces or with groups of accepting people). Although these experiences can be orienting in terms of the therian’s or otherkin’s experiences of self, allowing them to become reoriented to their environment or situation, it can also be disorienting for them and their social interlocutors."
The conclusion to the paper encourages professionals (therapists and such) to understand us through a lens of cultural humility and provides some hope in that "(perhaps ironically) humanistic psychotherapy..." can provide therians and otherkin some sense of wellbeing.
Overall, this is really good for us. If you are in therapy, do consider forwarding this study to your therapist.