The Transformative Power of Wild Animal Encounters
- Brainz Magazine
- 16 hours ago
- 7 min read
Viviana Meloni is the Director of Inside Out multilingual Psychological Therapy, a private principal psychologist, HCPC registered, chartered member of the British Psychological Society, EMDR UK member, with recognition for her clinical leadership, and author of specialist trainings in trauma, emotional dysregulation, and personality disorders. She also holds a Senior Leader Psychologist role in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom at SLaM, a globally recognized leader in mental health research. Moreover, she is reviewing institutional partnerships in the United Arab Emirates.
For decades, pet therapy has been celebrated for its ability to soothe, regulate, and heal. Yet, as psychologists, we are beginning to understand that there is a frontier beyond the familiar comfort of domesticated animals, a frontier where the human nervous system meets the raw, unfiltered presence of wildlife in their natural context. These encounters do not simply reassure, they reorganize. They trigger neurobiological shifts powerful enough to recalibrate perception, emotion, identity, and meaning.
My work and travels across diverse ecosystems, in particular during my time in the Costa Rican jungle surrounded by sloths, howler monkeys, and macaws, swimming with dolphins and giant sea turtles in Brazil, Panama, and Zanzibar, and standing only meters away from lions, giraffes, zebras, and crocodiles during safaris in Tanzania, contemplating pink flamingos in Sardinia, directly interacting with elephants in Thailand, doing my immersion in the Dominican Republic, swimming through warm turquoise waters surrounded by vibrant parrotfish, electric blue tangs, and shimmering yellow damselfish, from observing chameleons and endemic species in the deep forests of Madagascar to preparing for my next chapter in Polynesia, have shown me that wild encounters operate on a psychological plane fundamentally different from traditional therapy. These experiences are not sessions, but powerful nervous system events, immersive, multisensory, unpredictable, and evolutionarily ancient.
Unlike interactions with pets, which function through familiarity, attachment, and domesticated reciprocity, encounters with wild animals activate a far broader and more complex psychophysiological spectrum. The human organism oscillates between awe, attunement, fascination, and a constructive, non-traumatic form of fear. This emotional blend stimulates key neurobiological responses:
Oxytocin rises in the presence of non-threatening mammals like dolphins or elephants, supporting bonding, trust, and prosocial openness.
Dopamine surges during surprise, wonder, and heightened sensory engagement, reinforcing presence, learning, and motivation.
Serotonin increases during exposure to slow, rhythmic, and peaceful wildlife interactions, such as floating beside a giant turtle or observing giraffes move across the savannah.
Adrenaline and endorphins activate during elevated arousal, such as being only a short distance from a lion, sharpening focus, sensory precision, and emotional imprinting.
The default mode network downregulates, reducing self-focus and rumination while enhancing connection to a larger ecological whole.
The prefrontal cortex shifts from analytical functioning to open, receptive perception, creating space for meaning-making, humility, and transformation.
Together, these mechanisms create the ecopsychobiological resonance, a deep alignment between the human nervous system and the living rhythms of nature. This resonance is not symbolic or metaphorical, it is neurochemical, somatic, relational, and evolutionarily encoded.
Wild presence as a therapeutic catalyst
One of the most profound aspects of wildlife encounters I have personally observed within my world travel animal experiences is the absence of projection. Wild animals do not respond to us based on our emotional needs, our histories, or our identity narratives. Their behaviour exists outside the human psychological system. And paradoxically, this lack of psychological mirroring creates a powerful therapeutic space.
In Tanzania, observing a lioness quietly scanning her environment demonstrated something essential about regulation. Co-regulation can occur without contact, language, or shared culture. Her calm vigilance entrained my own nervous system into a state of grounded alertness, a rarer and more integrated form of arousal than what we encounter in daily urban life.
In Zanzibar, swimming with dolphins produced an almost meditative synchrony. Their fluid, effortless coordination created a sense of belonging that was bodily rather than cognitive. The experience activated not just oxytocin, but a deeply embodied form of attunement that transcended verbal communication. Dolphins, with their social intelligence and rhythmic movement, naturally guide humans into a regulated, coherent bodily rhythm.
In Madagascar, chameleons taught an entirely different psychological lesson, the therapeutic value of slowness, subtlety, and adaptive presence. Watching their measured movements shifted my attentional system from rapid, goal-oriented scanning to slow, contemplative observation, a transformation akin to advanced mindfulness practice, yet occurring spontaneously in nature.
In Thailand, at the Elephant Sanctuary, encounters with elephants in an ethical sanctuary context revealed a striking form of relational intelligence. Their cooperative behaviours, tactile communication, and capacity for emotional attunement appeared to activate affiliative neurocircuitry in the human observer, reducing physiological arousal while eliciting a sense of humility and co-regulation. Such responses differ markedly from those generated by domesticated animals and point toward a distinct ecopsychobiological mechanism.
In the Costa Rican jungle, observing sloths, animals whose biology centres on deliberate, energy-efficient motion, induced a notable temporal recalibration. Their extreme slowness functioned as a natural regulator of human attentional tempo, encouraging parasympathetic activation, improved interoceptive awareness, and reduced cognitive hyperarousal. This slowness entrainment reflects the therapeutic influence of wildlife whose rhythms contrast sharply with human acceleration.
In Brazil, within the coastal and forest wildlife immersion, field experiences from coastal ecosystems to dense forest environments highlighted the therapeutic value of multisensory exposure to diverse wild species. Encounters with marine mammals and rainforest fauna appeared to enhance attentional flexibility, promote biophilic engagement, and modulate stress-related neuroendocrine responses, contributing to observable improvements in emotional regulation.
In Panama, interactions with wild marine life, particularly during open-water observation and guided swimming sessions, produced a measurable state of relaxed alertness. The combination of fluid movement patterns, natural oceanic rhythms, and the unpredictability of marine species activated a blend of awe and controlled vigilance, supporting autonomic balance and reducing cortisol-linked arousal.
In the Dominican Republic, immersion experiences that include encounters with typical marine animals such as parrotfish, surgeonfish, and damselfish have been observed to support therapeutic outcomes. Interaction with vibrant aquatic fauna can promote psychological restoration by reducing stress levels, enhancing attentional focus, and fostering a sense of emotional grounding. The multisensory engagement of swimming in biodiverse tropical waters further contributes to improved mood regulation and subjective well-being, highlighting the potential of nature-based interventions in the marine environment.
In Polynesia, where I am planning to go within the next months, I intend to deepen my exploration of the therapeutic effects that arise from full immersion in untamed natural environments. Among manta rays drifting like shadows through turquoise lagoons, humpback whales migrating along ancient routes, spinner dolphins carving spirals of light at the surface, and vibrant reef fish animating the coral gardens, the region offers a powerful setting for understanding how contact with wild marine life can restore emotional equilibrium and enhance overall well-being. This journey aims to illuminate the profound healing potential embedded within Polynesia’s untouched ecosystems.
Awe as a neuropsychological intervention
Awe, consistently triggered during wildlife encounters, is emerging as one of the most potent psychological states for well-being. It reduces self-focus, enhances cognitive flexibility, increases prosocial behaviour, and expands time perception. Crucially, awe triggers a recalibration of the autonomic nervous system, balancing sympathetic and parasympathetic activity.
Research shows that awe:
decreases activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, reducing rumination and self-criticism
activates vagal pathways, improving physiological regulation
stimulates prosocial neurochemicals like oxytocin, encouraging compassion and connection
broadens attentional scope, supporting creativity, curiosity, and openness
While awe can be found in art, music, or architecture, wild animals are arguably the most powerful natural triggers of awe we have. Their unpredictability, autonomy, and presence create conditions that exceed familiar cognitive boundaries.
From observation to identity transformation
Sustained interaction with wildlife does more than regulate emotion, it reshapes identity. Many individuals describe a profound shift that emerges from these encounters, including:
an expanded sense of self
increased ecological belonging
heightened sensory awareness
reduced existential anxiety
improved tolerance for uncertainty
a more grounded relationship with vulnerability and power
These changes echo what we observe in transformative therapies, psychedelic-assisted interventions, and spiritual experiences, yet they arise naturally and somatically in the presence of wildlife.
As I prepare for Polynesia to continue exploring interspecies encounters within marine ecosystems, my clinical aim is to deepen our understanding of how wild environments reorganize the human psyche. The next frontier of psychology may not lie in more techniques, but in returning humans to the environments and species that shaped our nervous system for nearly all of our evolutionary history.
Toward a new clinical framework: Wild encounter therapy
I propose conceptualizing ethical, non-invasive wildlife exposure as a complementary therapeutic modality grounded in three pillars.
Neurobiological activation: Harnessing oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and awe-related pathways to regulate and expand the human emotional system.
Ecological co-regulation: Allowing the steadiness, presence, and authenticity of wild animals to support nervous system recalibration.
Existential expansion: Facilitating identity shifts through immersion in vastness, unpredictability, humility, and interdependence.
This approach does not replace traditional clinical work, it enhances it. Wild encounters provide immediacy, depth, and somatic resonance that cannot be replicated in offices, hospitals, or structured therapeutic environments.
Wild animals have been our evolutionary mirrors. When we meet them again, not as spectators or consumers, but as co-inhabitants, something ancient awakens. Something profoundly human.
In the end, encountering a wild animal in its natural world does something no clinical method can replicate. It invites us back into the truth of our own nature. It strips away the noise, the narratives, the roles we perform, and it places us face-to-face with a form of life that exists in pure presence. In those moments, whether locking eyes with a lioness, drifting beside a sea turtle, or moving in rhythm with dolphins, we are reminded that healing is not always something we do. Sometimes, it is something we remember.
These encounters reconnect us with an ancient intelligence, a quiet inner knowing that we are part of a living, breathing planet. And perhaps that is the greatest therapeutic gift the wild offers, the chance to return home to ourselves.
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Read more from Viviana Meloni
Viviana Meloni, Private Chartered Principal Psychologist
Viviana Meloni is the founder and the clinical Director of Inside Out Multilingual Psychological Therapy, a London-based private psychology consultancy across popular locations including Kensington, Wimbledon, Chiswick, West Hampstead, and Canary Wharf. Viviana Meloni provides psychological consultations, assessments, formulations, and treatment in English, Italian, Spanish, and her company’s extensive network enables multilingual collaborations and liaison with Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Punjabi, and Russian languages. She firmly believes that in every challenge lies an opportunity to grow, heal, and inspire.
References:
Keltner, D. (2023). Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder. Penguin Press.
Porges, S. (2022). Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions. Norton.
Young, K. & Sandberg, T. (2022). “Awe and the Small Self.” Nature Human Behaviour.
Fredrickson, B. (2016). “Positive Emotions and Resilience.” American Psychologist.
Zak, P. (2017). “Oxytocin and Social Bonding.” Hormones and Behavior.
Clayton, S. (2021). The Psychology of Environmental Identity. Cambridge University Press.
Barrett, L. F. (2020). Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
