Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) is an experiential form of mental health therapy that uses interactions with a horse (equine) to facilitate individual growth and relational healing. Licensed therapists use experiences with a horse and personal reflection to achieve the participant's therapy goals.
Located at One Heart Stables at Christian Children's Home of Ohio, equine therapy is available to children and adults in the general public.
We asked some of our equine therapists how equine therapy promotes healing & why they would recommend this type of therapy.
Equine therapy promotes healing as the horses help us to recognize things about ourselves by responding to us based on our behaviors and emotions. They help us learn about ourselves and how our bodies respond to different emotions, like excitement, anxiety, fear and anger. When we can learn what our body is telling us about how we are feeling, we can make the decision about what to do with our emotions in a more effective way. It also allows us to learn about healthy connections and boundaries in relationships. We work on recognizing what our body needs and what we need in our relationship with our horses, which then transposes in our human relationships.
Equine therapy promotes emotion regulation by working on elements of finding safety and trust, having consistency and predictability in our lives, learning about healthy connections in relationships, how to appropriately set boundaries and by working towards managing our emotions in order to think through stressful situations.
Equine therapy can aid clients in embodying the regulation and relational concepts that they may know or be learning so that they can actively practice healthy relationship and healing in the moment, in the context of a real relationship. It can be powerful for clients that may have been in therapy for an extended time, know concepts, and need help in practicing to apply those concepts. It can be powerful for clients who have experienced pre-verbal trauma or hardship, or who struggle with verbally processing their experiences and emotions; because equine therapy is experiential and sensory-based, many interventions do not require verbal processing or narration of traumatic experiences to aid in processing.
Equine Therapy at One Heart Stables operates from a framework that is flexible and adaptable to the needs of the individualized client depending on what they are working on for their therapy goals. It is for anyone and everyone seeking mental health services.
Learn more and meet our equine therapy team at encompasscounseling.org/equine.
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