Anyone who has ever owned a horse knows they are just plain good for people. Winston Churchill certainly expressed this observation in his statement, "there is something good about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man."
As a youth specialist, I've studed kids riding horses in traditional youth programs and have witnessed horses help youth develop many life skills such as responsibility, work ethic, money and time management and goal setting, along with life values and attitudes such as courage, trust, discipline, patience and persistence. This beneficial phenomenon also appears be true with adults who participate in horse activities.
Within the last eight years, a new area of use for horses has emerged. Horses are being utilized in a non-traditional way to help non-horse owning participants and some special audiences learn and grow. It is called equine- facilitated learning and psychotherapy.
Equine-facilitated learning or therapy is a technique where a mental health professional teams up with a horse owning professional. The two professionals select challenging groundwork-type exercises for participants or groups to perform. When accomplished and then immediately analyzed, therapists are well on their way to addressing specific treatment goals (emotional growth and learning). The focus here is how the participant attempts to complete the task, rather than if the task is completed correctly.
• Mental health professionals - Licensed psychotherapists, therapists, ministers social workers or counselors, are the mental health professionals. If a psychotherapist is used, the technically correct term for the technique becomes equine-assisted psychotherapy or EAP.
• Participants - This technique can be used with youth leadership classes, church youth groups, basketball teams, cheerleader squads or adult corporation executive boards. Individuals and groups with behavior problems such as addictions, severe depression, abuse or anxiety disorders can benefit from going through these exercises.
• Mechanics - This technique utilizes ground work and not horseback riding exercises. Participants are challenged to complete a specific task - either do something to a horse or get it to do something. The participants are given specific rules they must follow with no instruction or even hints on how to accomplish the task. Safety precautions are given to the participants as needed.
• Experience - While completing the task, skills and attitudes begin to surface for the participants. Problem solving, creative thinking, assertiveness, leadership, confidence, non-verbal communication, responsibility, trust, relationship building, team work, focus and patience are examples. Participants start to learn about themselves and others in a new and adventuresome way.
• Processing - At the completion of the task, the facilitator or therapist leads the individual or group through a discussion where the participants identify and discuss their feelings, frustrations, behaviors, and start realizing their personal strengths and weaknesses. This is the unlocking step to learning and emotional growth.
Next month, readers will be taken through a real-life equine-facilitated learning exercise to see if they can figure out how to accomplish a challenging ground task with a horse.
Thanks go out to horse professionals Jess and Nancy Lamphere of Sulphur Springs for their input on this column. Their Web site is www.honeyridgefarm.com. They are both certified equine professionals by Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association. or EAGALA. The association's Web site is www.EAGALA.org.
• Doug Householder is an educational consultant in the horse industry. E-mail him at dh-horse@flash.net.
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