The equine impact: A no-judgment, real-time feedback loop

An essential benefit of equine-facilitated psychotherapy is empirical learning. Clients gain in-the-moment insights about themselves, how they think and act, and how it all relates to situations and relationships in their daily lives.

For example, imagine a client comes into the office setting and says to the therapist, “I just get so frustrated at the littlest things, and I don’t know how to deal with it.”

The therapist might ask the client to reflect and talk about a specific situation that produced frustration: “Let’s run through the sequence of events. How did your body feel? What were you thinking at the time?”

For many people, it’s difficult to recall emotions and thought patterns to a degree that promotes self-discovery and coping skills. It certainly helps, but it may require more time to get to the crux of the issue and develop solutions.

In an EFP session, the client’s frustration might arise while leading a horse, trying to catch a horse in the pasture, or during any other activity we can facilitate between horse and client. In real time, the therapist can help the client work through the frustration — the thoughts, feelings and behavior patterns.

This is where the horse offers yet another powerful healing element: non-judgment. Even the most well-intentioned humans judge others, whether consciously or unconsciously. Or, due to past hurts, sometimes we interpret judgment that isn’t there.

Horses do not have the level of awareness to judge. Every behavior or reaction comes down to comfort and safety — to survival. Depending on their surroundings, they move back and forth along a spectrum of arousal, between completely relaxed and panic (survival) mode.

However, horses also have an innate drive to seek equilibrium, and a corresponding ability to let go (and forgive) in order to achieve that balance. This is an instinctual survival trait as well: Expending too much energy mentally or physically does not bode well for an animal in the wild.

Pretend that you mistakenly raise your hand too quickly in order to pat or groom your horse. You see his fear reaction and immediately correct yourself, taking a step back and slowing your movements. He sees that you’re not intending to harm him and that the perceived threat is over, so he settles back into relaxed mode.

When you approach your horse more mindfully this time, he might greet you with a nose bump and further relax as you begin grooming him — letting go and forgiving your mistake.

To return to our example EFP session, if the client is struggling with frustration, the horse may become disconnected. We see this often. When people are unsure of what to do in a situation, they tend to give mixed signals in verbal and/or body language. This confuses a horse, and he may turn his attention elsewhere, walking away from the client to explore an interesting object.

In contrast, he might become alert and focus more on the client, looking for signs that he could be unsafe with this person. If the horse is constrained by a lead line, he might show signs of agitation, such as pawing the ground, pacing around the client, or tossing his head. Side note: We select therapy horses because they demonstrate important communication behaviors while remaining safe to work with. These are the influential moments when a client can see how their behaviors impact those around them.

By taking a moment to pause, practice some mindful breathing and reassess the situation, the client can return to a level of calmness that the horse perceives. He will often turn his attention to the client again, and may physically engage by stepping closer, perhaps offering a gentle nudge with his nose — again, letting go and forgiving.

This is the real-time, nonjudgmental feedback loop that is so impactful in equine-facilitated psychotherapy. This is where the healing happens.