Equine assisted therapy is a typical psychotherapy service involving equines. Equine therapy offers the opportunity for clients and clinicians to work together with horses as equal partners in an experiential process, empowering life-changing outcomes. This therapeutic approach involves a hands-on learning opportunity for clients to project and analyze their situations, make connections, and find their own solutions. Since the solutions are personally experienced in conjunction with intellectual understanding, they tend to be deeper, more profound, and longer lasting (EAGALA).
No horseback riding is involved. Instead, effective and deliberate techniques are utilized where the horses become metaphoric in specific ground-based experiences. Our clinicians use Equine Assisted Psychotherapy as a means to assist the patient to explore, problem-solve, overcome challenges, and to reach their treatment goals.
Why Consider Equine Therapy? (https://www.promisesbehavioralhealth.com/addiction-recovery-blog/lessons-equine-therapy/)
- Horses can hear your heartbeat from 4 feet away, sensing the biological impact that your emotions may be having on your body
- Horses have more facial expressions than dogs, offering a more emotive animal companion for your therapeutic needs
- Horses can mirror your emotions, whether you are angry, grieving, or anxious, your clinician may use the horse as a metaphor for your own feelings. Similarly, witnessing a horse’s response can bring increased self-awareness to your own feelings.
- Horses are large, sometimes intimidating, animals. Equines offer the opportunity for clients to increase their confidence, gain empowerment, and overcome any fears in a safe, controlled environment.
- Horses assist clients in learning patience, with others and themselves.
