Equine Assisted Psychotherapy: Changing the Brain

The brain, although fascinating is relatively lazy. It takes the easiest route to get things done. It likes constancy. It wants routine. It would rather be on auto-pilot than work for what it needs. But this way of living doesn’t always work for us. There are times when life is a struggle and therefore change is necessary.  How the brain works is critical to create change.

The horse and human facilitators in equine assisted psychotherapy provide an opportunity for clients to tell their story through providing a blank canvas. An important piece of this blank canvas theory is that the facilitators come into the therapeutic session leaving their “knowing” outside of the arena. They may have learned a great deal in college or in trainings, but everything they learned, or know, is best used when forgotten, when it comes instinctually instead of through a script or format. This goes for the mental health professional as well as the equine specialist. They both serve the process best in an “unknowing” state. 

The other part of the blank canvas is the arena and the horse. This allows the clients to build a story of their struggles, where the arena is the problem environment and the horses the people they interact with in that environment. The acronym Critical MAASS, movement, attachment, awareness, stress, self-distancing, and story. The “maasss” called the brain can change. The EAP process creates metaphors for clients’ life struggles and gives the client the opportunity to author a new narrative of growth, learning, and change.

Movement:

Equine Assisted Psychotherapy creates change through movement. Movement can happen in a session through the use of actions, words, and the senses. Non-verbal actions are made by facilitator and horse alike. The horse may flick a tail or move an ear or stomp a foot. Does this have meaning? The client may ask the facilitators their opinions. The facilitator may just look, or shrug, or just stare.  These are powerful non-verbals in the EAGALA methodology. The power comes in the underlying message that the client comes up with the answers, not the facilitators. The “look”, “shrug” or “stare” is meant to mean, “it’s for you to figure out”, this creates a discomfort in the client to make a move, to do something to release that edge of discomfort, which creates change.

Metaphors brought out by the facilitators’ use of clean language is movement through words. Facilitators pay attention to the horses’ movement without labeling or judging. Through Socratic questioning the facilitators ask the client about the horses’ movement. The clients’ answers provide insight into the human consciousness. The conscious mind may not be aware of this until it is brought to the clients’ attention through the Socratic questioning and the clients reasoning from these questions. 

Horse behavior can seem intuitive. For millions of years horses have survived as prey animals through their senses. Their acute sense of smell is used regularly to provide them with the information of their surroundings. All it takes is a strong upwind breeze to bring a dangerous scent to the attention of this prey animal. Horses also use smell as part of their complicated social structure. They greet each other nose to nose and eventually recognize each other by scent as well as sight. Horses are known to identify varying pheromones to determine the nature of an approaching herd member. They can sense aggression, anxiety, fear, calm, all through scent and body language. Horses can sense these feelings from humans as well and will treat the human accordingly. 

Horses’ survival also is determined by their eyesight. The equine eye is the largest of all land mammals. Each eye is monocular, i.e., they function independently. In order to get a full picture of something, the horse must turn his head so both eyes register the same scene.  Their only binocular view is their front view and their blind spot is right behind them, thus the saying, “stay clear of their back end”. So the horses’ senses are strong survival mechanism. 

The way horses interact with humans through their senses brings

Attachment:

Strong attachment and bonding helps the development of the brain. When the primary caregiver is attuned to the infant the infant becomes more resilient, therefore, bonding creates resiliency. This happens in the arena as well. When a person comes into the arena there is a strong likelihood that they will feel attached to one of the horses. They may not feel it at first, but over time it will happen. The attachment may be in the form of an unconscious memory, the horse may behave in a way that reminds the client of a distant mother, or loving grandfather. The client then reenacts their relationship with that person through their interaction with the horse, who is now the clients grandfather or mother. This allows the client to understand the relationship they had with the person. They have the opportunity to see the person in a new light by re-living or re-experiencing the person in a different manner. This attachment helps build the clients sense of resilience with the goal of transferring that experience to the outside world.

Awareness:

EAP creates an environment where the client can gain awareness. Studies have shown that an ambiguous situation paired with a novelty creates awareness. The arena is the ambiguous situation and the horse the novelty. The Webster definition of ambiguity is “uncertainty or inexactness of meaning in language”. When a client is in the arena and asked to “show us what that looks like” it creates an environment of learning. With the use of the horse, the client has no one to rely on but himself for a solution. Have any of you been out in the arena with a horse and client and you asked the client to “show us what that looks like” and the client just stands there with a big question mark hanging over his head? Maybe your first response is to take the ambiguity out of the situation and say, “you know, use these props here to build the situation you’re in”. But what would this do for the client but take the ambiguity out of it and limit their learning. 

Stress:

Stress is another factor that builds a learning environment. There are two types of stress, good stress and bad stress. Bad stress does the opposite of what we set out to accomplish. It ends up frustrating or humiliating the client, especially a client of trauma. Good stress is motivating. Generally a client seeks therapy when under stress. This stress may not feel good but it motivated the client to seek help. This same type of stress is what is in the arena.  Mild to moderate stress is actually motivating. Short-term stress activates us for the work of change. The short-term stress response prepares our brains for movement or the fight or flight response. This fight or flight can be one of life or death or it can metaphorically be that of changing old patterns of behavior and thinking into new and lasing change. Horses’ intimidating stature can be part of what can create the stress. They are large, powerful, and unpredictable. Being in the arena alongside a horse is a natural opportunity for some to overcome fear and develop confidence, therefore creating change. 

Self-Distancing:

Humans possess the capacity to transcend their ego-centric point of view, to go beyond. We are capable of taking a step back and reason about past experiences – a self-distancing perspective. This perspective is a non-threatening approach to getting to know oneself and why we operate the way we do. In this self-distancing approach, we put our “stuff” on the horses and/or surrounding environment. This way the horse can become a father, sister, boss, or even a part of ourselves: stubborn, boring, sensitive, etc.

Story:

Telling stories has been a part of our world’s cultures since the start of time. People tell stories through pictures and words. Telling our story is an important part of processing thoughts and feelings in order to make sense and have meaning of what occurred, what is occurring, and what can occur in our world. Story telling is a way to pass down our heritage, to feel known and/or heard. It is also a way to process our struggles, to have a “sounding board”, somewhere to explore, gain understanding and to hopefully have insight toward change.  Telling our story releases the tension held in our bodies. It opens neuropathways to areas in the brain that were once closed.