Shari B. Kaplan, LCSWIntegrative Mental Health

What Your Favorite Animal Says About You in Therapy

28 May 2026 · 1 min

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In this segment of her YouTube talk, therapist Shari B. Kaplan explains a common therapeutic exercise where clients are asked, “If you could be any animal, which would you choose?” She illustrates how different answers reveal underlying client needs: a client who wants to be a cared‑for dog signals a desire for safety and unconditional love, suggesting the therapist should focus on building strengths and a sense of security. Conversely, a client who chooses a lion seeks power and invulnerability, indicating a lack of perceived safety and a need to explore the balance between power and vulnerability. Kaplan emphasizes that these seemingly simple preferences provide diagnostic information that guides individualized treatment planning.

Chapters

We used to ask everybody, if you could be any animal in the world, what animal would you want to be? And somebody will say, I want to be a dog that's taken care of by a really good person. And I'm like, oh, well, how would that be helpful? Well, I'd always be safe and I'd always be loved. And then I'll hear, I want to be a lion. And I'd be like, why a lion? And they'd be like, because then I would be powerful and I wouldn't have to worry about being hurt. And that's also telling you one person doesn't feel that they have the power to be safe and the other person just wants to take it and be safe. So that's also giving you information about, hmm, I'm gonna have to treat these two people very differently. Someone needs some strengths built in and maybe somebody else needs to understand the balance of power and vulnerability.