Equine
Assisted Therapy
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP): EAP promotes exploration of feelings and behaviors by working with horses. It promotes therapeutic healing through improving self-awareness, developing trust, development of social concepts, encouraging sensory stimulation and integration, and combining body awareness exercises with motor planning and verbal communication. EAP promotes problem-solving skills and pro-social attitudes and provides care-giving experiences. As part of the experiential process, clients may engage in activities ground activities and riding the horse. It has been used successfully with individuals diagnosed with developmental disabilities, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, behavioral disorders, personality disorders, and post traumatic stress disorder.
Equine assisted therapy promotes personal exploration of feelings and behaviors, and allows for clinical interpretation of feelings and behaviors. It denotes an ongoing therapeutic relationship with clearly established treatment goals and objectives developed by the therapist in conjunction with the client.
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy adheres to standards developed by the Equine Facilitated Mental Health Association Standards Committee and the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association. It is a relatively new field and formal research studies are just getting underway, with promising preliminary results.
Equine, or Hippo Therapy, is a mixture of physical therapy techniques and well-respected “Play Therapy” methods. Physical needs of the clients are addressed with methods actually developed by the ancient Greeks, and used during our own Civil War on wounded soldiers. Emotional, social and mental needs are addressed with the horses in methods derived from Play Therapy, which often used props and balls in a nurturing space. Because we work with large horses and on hard soil, the consequences of actions are much more intense, and the therapy often matches that intensity.
We teach clients care of horses, establishing
a relationship (very important to herd animals), and basic riding techniques.
These simple arenas are a doorway into a world of therapeutic possibilities.
Ground-work (grooming, leading, saddling, presenting ourselves physically as communication, establishing relationship and dynamics of interaction) works on many levels – self-esteem, assertiveness, taking responsibility for ourselves and others, understanding the concept of differing perception, relationship-building, communicating our needs and opening to other’s needs, allowing and establishing trust, consistency and safety, to name a few.
Riding continues these lessons at a more dramatic level, as we are now perched high in the air and dependent on these 1000-pound animals to keep us safe and moving in our intended directions. The relationship-building we’ve done to this point becomes very important, and our skills of communication, assertiveness, understanding another and consistency are tested. Fears are engaged and our authority examined.
Some developmental and learning delays make understanding a sequence
difficult. So facilitators may issue instructions for a sequence of activities
while riding. The mental challenge combined with the emotional, social
and physical challenges of maintaining control of the horse create powerful
learning opportunities.
Victims of domestic violence have a tremendous opportunity to work with issues of trust, fear of a very large and potentially harmful being, assertiveness and relationships, among others. Facilitators often see kids who won’t talk to any human, but who open up to a horse, and the success of that leads them back to relationship with people, and access to critical talk therapies.