I cannot speak for anyone else here, but the reason I consider myself a spiritual therian is I always looked at it as a conscience and used it to determine my choices in life and draw inspiration from and connect with the natural world.

Integrating that deeper innate fox is easier to do in a metaphysical sense, although I understand the psychological mechanisms as well. I consider it a spiritual experience because it made my life more fulfilling, even when I didn't understand or even want it.

I will tell a story. There was a wolf who existed maybe 100 years ago, I don't know exactly. This individual died tragically and became a ghost haunting the woods. When I was in these woods the ghost got inside of my mind and became a part of me. I was changed after that night. I used to “see” (in my mind's eye) my solemn friend walking beside me.

I've since found it more pragmatic for me to rely on psychology/biology to explain my experiences. The “ghost” (metaphorically) got inside of my body and I felt like rotting death, I felt sick. I realized the dead ghost wolf was me all along. I explain my experiences as effects of dissociative disorder. It is deeply meaningful to me nevertheless and comes back to spiritual thoughts about the nature of consciousness and other things.

Psychological and spiritual therians are wildly different, but it's possible for one to be both.


As goes, psychological takes on a more psychological aspect of why one is therian. Think things like imprinting, being born that way, or trauma. These are things that involve the way our body and brain is structured and provides a explanation through our own makeup.


As for spiritual therianthropy, we believe we are therian due to spiritual reasoning. Some of us believe in body misplacement (see soul shapes), walk ins, or non-human aligning souls. We believe we are therian due to reasons usually beyond us, and have superstitious beliefs for the most part.

I’m a mostly spiritual otherkin because I have a past life and visions and a spiritual “gut feeling” about my kintype (as well as instincts from the psychological side). Also it’s only something I have because of my “core” being a cosmic spirit which inhabited that body in the past.

(2024-04-01 14:43)Rainshine1220 Wrote:  I wish people would understand that im not ‘playing pretend’, that me being a therian isn’t a choice, it’s smth I was born with. I didn’t just wake up one morning and go “im a cat” and that was it. No. I’ve had experiences since I have any memory, around 3yrs old and probably younger. I’ve always been like this. This isn’t excluding others, or saying you can’t awaken in later life, but rather that therianthropy is a part of me. I didn’t choose it, it’s not a phase of aesthetic. I was born this way. When I tell my friends, they sometimes play along for a while and then stop. This is fine if it’s a genuine mistake of identity. I understand that. But people picking it up as a trend and throwing it around a while before dropping it is not ok! This is a huge part of my identity, and feels so ‘me ‘and I just hate that others don’t take it seriously! It makes me feel iscolated all over again when others say it’s a game etc. it hurts.

A big part of acceptance and happiness, at least from I've found, is acknowleding you can innately be an animal, know it's the real you, but also knowing you will have experiences your theriotype can never have. You can be a cat but a cat never gets to go to an arcade, eat an exquisite meal, or drive a car.

One of my favorite things to do is riding a bike down a side street and pull my fox-senses forward, and just be immersed in the scents of the plants and trees around me, the sounds of people and animals nearby, and rush of the wind hitting my fur and tail.

This comes with a huge caveat this all takes a lot of patience, focus, and a good amount of practice (please don't kill yrself by practicing shifts wrecklessly in a dangerous environment!) but if you start by centering yourself and taking a genuine interest in little things around you, you'll find it gets easier and easier as you go along.

Hello everyone, I have been wondering for a long time what the difference between a spiritual connection and a psychic connection actually is. Do different shifts have different connections or does it not affect shifts at all? Does anyone have an answer? Please try to substantiate with experience.


Otherwise, my position as a psychological therian is:
I'm a therian via a brain-based connection. I have the instincts, feelings, emotions and behaviors of my therotype. I believe that the psychic connection goes through the brain and thus affects the "human/therian" in things that are controlled or subject to the brain. I have never had astral shifts, which I believe is related to spirit travel. Perhaps, in my opinion, the feeling of the soul in the wrong body is also related to the spiritual connection. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm new to these things and I don't know much about this topic. So for newbies (like me) WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPIRITUAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL THERIANTROPHY? How do I know if I'm a spiritual or psychological therian and what's the difference?

I would really appreciate the answers, however they will vary from therian to therian. Any philosophical thoughts and debates are most welcome. Please feel free to write any opinion here. This thread should mainly serve to broaden the horizons of both new therians, confused by this, who are in the questioning phase (myself included) and somewhat older therians (no offense intended).

Sorry for such a long essay
Have a nice rest of the day/night

As far as alterhuman identity, I've always felt that dragons were part of my identity. And they still are to this day. Of course, that was before I'd figured out what therianthropy was. I had originally heard about it from TikTok but mostly knew that Tiktok was absolutely not the place to learn about something as niche as therianthropy.
I came here to learn more about otherkinity/therianthropy as I'd already seen a few posts on how to find out your theriotype previously.
That was a while ago.
From what I've gained, there is a lot of misinformation/stigma around the community, making learning about therianthropy very difficult.
I entirely agree with perspectives like this. You're allowed to wear masks, do quads, etc. But it can't be your whole identity. If that's your entire means of being a therian, you probably are not a therian.

I agree…
Sadly, I did find most of my identity through the internets. If you look at the theriotypes I listed in my intro, you can see I’ve come a long way. It all started when-
Y’know, how about I not x3
Basically, internet is very influential. Luckily, it is not where I learned about therianthropy. Thats waht I’m trying to say lol.

Just a little thought that crossed my mind. Younger people measure time in months, whereas older people measure time in years. Our perception of time changes as we age. Years go by faster. If you've discovered therianthropy a few months ago, or even a few years ago, you're still really green. It's hard to be patient when you're young and you want to know now, but give it time. If you're a therian, you will probably still be therian when you're old. If you're not therian, maybe you'll lose interest in a short time.

Good post! I have an addition to that (please excuse my bad wording):

Just because you had one or two shifts in your lifetime, it doesn't mean you're a therian. You can have cameo shifts, that's shifts from something that is not your kintype. It often happens with kithtypes. Sometimes it can be hard to differentiate between kin and kith. It's important to take your time and do research.

The same goes for having a connection to an animal, I've often seen this. There's a difference between identifying with and as something. Identifying with/having a strong connection would be considered other-hearted or kith. You can have lots of cameo shifts that are consistent and long-term too.