Animal-assisted approaches are gaining significant interest in social work and education. Animals are used to create a therapeutic environment and in diagnostic as well as healing processes. They often appear to be the better helpers. However, there is a lack of critical scientific distance and knowledge regarding the multifaceted, and sometimes problematic, aspects of the human-animal relationship. This interdisciplinary book, featuring texts from social work, social history, cultural anthropology, sociology, psychology, and special education, makes an important contribution to bringing the human-animal relationship into the professional-reflective focus as a paradoxical everyday phenomenon and educational field for the disciplines and professions of social work and education.