Emotions, Facial Emotions

Chapter 13 of Handbook of Emotions, Facial Expressions of Emotion, Matsumoto et al (2008) thoroughly explain Darwin’s 135 year old conclusion that the muscle actions involved in emotions are universal to both nonhuman primates and other mammals (Matsumoto et al, 2008, p. 212). Matsumoto et al (2008) provided research from current day to show how this theory is still relevant and it both intrigued and surprised me. This chapter in particular was very crucial in the application of my future clinical work. It has instilled in me the necessity to make careful observations of my future patients because there is a lot of information to be collected based on their expressions and body language.
With this being said, the idea that deficits emotional expressions can be associated with psychological disorders is something that I would really be interested in learning more about
Therefore, the conclusion made by Darwin really began to fuel my interests. I volunteer with a not for profit organization called K9s for Warriors here in Jacksonville that provides veterans with service dogs, including emotional support dogs. In the beginning this did not run very smoothly as there was some controversy as to the validity of an emotional support animal. My main question is if Darwin's conclusions of the universality of the muscle actions involved in emotion in both nonhuman primates and other mammals, then wouldn’t this increase the validity of an emotional support animals ability to pick up on a human's facial cues of distress? This chapter would lead me to conclude that if emotional expressions do in fact serve as a “social affordance”, then an emotional support animal would be able to provide the response necessary for that individual, especially in highly astute mammals such as