Can Equine Psychotherapy Be Useful For Trauma Clients?

Claire Dorotik-Nana, M.A. has been a contributing writer on exercise and mood for Trail Runner and Her Sports magazines, as well as a course author for several education courses at International Sport Science Association. Claire’s first three books, KIDS BORN THIN: A parents’ guide to understanding and preventing childhood obesity, ON THE BACK OF THE HORSE: Harnessing the healing power of the human-equine bond, and NO SECRET SO CLOSE: A true story of a father’s murder, a mother’s betrayal, a family torn apart, and the horses that turned it all around, are available through Amazon.

“The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man”. If this statement is really true, there should be many uses for equine psychotherapy. However, being that the field of equine psychotherapy is relatively new, do we know if this is an appropriate method of treatment for trauma clients?

There have been many alternative methods of treating trauma clients including EMDR, biofeedback, meditation, and even yoga. What these forms of treatment have in common is the task of engaging the client’s awareness of both emotional and sensory responses to traumatic events. In doing so, these methods attempt to identify the client’s emotional personality (EP), or the part of the personality that develops as a response to traumatic events, and provide a means through which the client can then begin to integrate the EP with the apparently normal personality (ANP), or the part of the personality that develops in order to function on a daily basis. While the client’s ANP is the part of the personality that is present most frequently, it will allow him to hold down a job, engage in relationships, and otherwise function normally, the ANP does not allow for emotional and sensory awareness. Under these circumstances, the client’s memory of past trauma will be semantic, and his responses noetic, without emotional response. When the client encounters threatening situations, or situations that appear threatening, such as stimuli for a previously traumatic experience, the client’s EP will be engaged, his memory will be episodic, and his responses will be autonoetic, with feeling. The EP is the client’s emotional response to past trauma that he is unable to connect with when the ANP is engaged. When the EP is engaged, the client will not be able to modulate his emotional responses cognitively, and may become overwhelmed with these emotional responses, and unable to function socially. Much of the work with trauma clients has been in facilitating the client’s awareness of the EP, and providing the means for the client to cognitively modulate these intense emotional responses, and begin to integrate them with the ANP, thereby reducing dissociation. Each one of these alternative methods of treatment uses a different modality to accomplish this. Is it then possible to use equine psychotherapy to accomplish this?

To answer this question, it is necessary to first describe the use of the horse as a modality for treatment. Unlike many of the other modalities that are employed in trauma work, the horse is a living creature with unique and immediate responses. In using the horse to do trauma work, it is necessary to understand the level at which horses communicate. The horse’s evolutionary survival plays a very large part in their communication system. Because the horse is a prey animal, his survival depends directly on his perception of danger, in the form of a possible predator, and his reaction, in the form of his fight or flight response. If this fight or flight response had not been so strongly in place for the horse, he would have never survived, and evolved as a species. In working with horses, it is necessary that we understand the thought process of a fight or flight animal, as survival is at the forefront of the horses mind, at all times. When the horse perceives danger, he will flee to a safer situation, no matter what. This survival mechanism makes the horse innately a very sensitive, perceptive animal. He is primed to sense any threat a mile away. To the horse, what represents a threat can be anything that makes him unsure, creates fear, or isolates him from safety. In this respect, horses are very perceptive of anger, anxiety and fear expressed either overtly or covertly. To a horse, covert anger, even when masked by another positive behavior is very threatening. The same is true with anxiety and fear. When any of these emotions are expressed, whether masked by positive behaviors or not, they represent a threat to the horse which will engage his fight or flight response. Horses have evolved to be very accurate readers of anything that might threaten their survival, and anger might represent a predator, and a reason to flee. And anxiety or fear might also signal a predator, again, a reason to flee. When using horses as a modality for trauma work, they will very accurately read the client’s emotional state, whether it is expressed, as with the EP, or masked as with the ANP, their survival depends on it. When the client is not experiencing, or expressing anger, anxiety, or fear, he represents safety to the horse, and the fight or flight response of the horse will not be engaged. The horse, then, becomes the tool for which the client and the therapist can begin to interpret the client’s emotional state, in either the form of the EP, or the ANP.

In order to develop an awareness of his emotional response to trauma, and the EP, the client is first asked to develop a relationship with the horse. This first step alone can often elicit an emotional reaction from the client that may represent part of his EP. Certainly, standing near a large animal like a horse can elicit some fear. When this occurs, the horse’s fight or flight response will be triggered, and he may move away from the client. This experience may trigger some past traumatic experience for the client. He may experience emotions that are very similar to those with a past traumatic experience. At this point, the therapist can then begin to help the client cognitively modulate these intense emotions, and develop a sense of control over them. The therapist can also ask the client to identify his somatic response to the feeling he is experiencing. When the client can begin to cognitively modulate his emotions, and thereby integrate the EP with the ANP, and become congruent in feeling and behavior, the horse’s fight or flight response will be lessened. So as the client begins to reduce his own emotional intensity, the horse does as well. To the horse, when the client becomes less emotionally intense, and more contained emotionally, he represents safety, and a relationship can begin to develop.

Following the development of a relationship with the horse, the client is then guided through a series of exercises with the horse. Each of these exercises are designed to allow the client to further develop an emotional awareness, and experience his emotions physically. The therapist acts as a mediator, helping the client not only to understand his own emotions, but also to understand the horse’s reaction to them. The therapist assists the client in developing an awareness of his emotions by interpreting the horse’s reactions for him. The therapist then provides the client a framework for which he can begin to cognitively modulate his emotions. The horse’s reactions to the client provide the necessary feedback to the client and the therapist. When the client has successfully contained his emotions, and feels this genuinely, he will represent safety to the horse, and the horse’s fight or flight response will be lessened. What the client experiences is an immediate feedback from the unbiased perspective of the horse. The horse will decide to trust the client when the client represents safety, not for any other reason. For a horse, this is about survival, and lying will not benefit him. It is absolutely true that the horse will not lie to the client. He will only trust the client, when the client has contained his emotions in a way that represents an integration of his emotions with his behavior, or congruence. This immediate feedback, as well as the reward of gaining the horse’s trust is a tool that can be used very effectively to help the trauma client begin to integrate his EP with his ANP. Unlike many of the other modalities for trauma work, the horse is innately responsive to the client’s emotions. And unlike these other modalities, the prospect of earning the trust of a large frightening animal, such as a horse, while being given immediate feedback as to his emotional state can be very rewarding for the client. It is a way for the client to begin to resolve past trauma, in the present. What is often observed is that the relationship that develops between the client and the horse represents a past relationship for the client. In the beginning stages of equine assisted psychotherapy, the client reacts to the horse much in the same way he reacted to this past traumatic relationship. However, as the client can begin to modulate his emotional responses to this situation, the horse will respond with trust. Reestablishing this trust is the essence of equine assisted psychotherapy. In order for this to occur, the client must learn to integrate his emotions with his behavior, thereby integrating the EP with the ANP.

Although the field of equine assisted psychotherapy is very new and not well understood as of yet, it is a promising modality for trauma work. Many current programs emphasize that simply being around animals in general, and horses especially, is good for trauma clients. However, exploring the relationship between the client and the horse can provide the therapist and the client with very in depth feedback as to the client’s emotional state. The horse can serve as the objective mirror for which the client can begin to understand himself and his affect on others. And the reward of the horses trust and affection is a very fulfilling reward.

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