Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy

Treatment Philosophy

Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy is a form of experiential psychotherapy involving the collaborative effort of a client and a horse with a licensed psychotherapist/credentialed equine professional. EFP differs greatly from traditional psychotherapy due to the impact of the horse's mirroring and the immediate clear and honest feedback. EFP partners a horse and human in activities which promote relational issues of trust, bonding, communication and boundaries. Mutually respectful activities such as riding, grooming, handling and lunging engage the partners in a healing relationship leading the client towards personal insight and lasting change. Working together intimately with the horse, splintered families, disconnected couples and children are able to resolve conflict.

As a therapist, my job is to promote healing within the self and in relationship. And one of the horse's most important teachings is about achieving connection and insight. Experiencing one's own sense of harmony and learning that the horse recognizes and responds to one's true inner nature provides a healing experience and the opportunity for awareness and growth. EFP involves recognizing and developing healthy values as well as helping to change harmful behaviors through working with horses.

EFP is a preferred treatment modality for me because of my familiarity with the horse's inherent nature, inner strength and profound ability to connect. EFP involves a beneficial integration of the horse's innate healing ability with psychotherapeutic work. Both my personal and professional experiences have proven to me the healing and psychological benefits of EFP.

Why a horse?

Partnering with horses has changed lives since ancient history due to the horse's unique ability to reach the heart of the human soul and connect on the most authentic level. As both a licensed psychotherapist and Certified Equine Mental Health Professional (CEIP-MH), it is my job to facilitate the magic that is inherently present in the equine-human pairing. Horses serve as guides to our true selves with their uncanny intuition and their honesty. Horses care only about our state of clarity and the purity of our hearts.

Equine partners have a natural ability to aid in healing of the physical, mental and emotional. Their ability to read people and mirror their emotional experience is quite profound. Thus, they are direct and non-threatening teachers to humans, compelling us to take responsibility for our behaviors and inner experience. Horses are incapable of lying; therefore, their immediate feedback encourages the human to grow in authenticity.

A horse also has the ability to express empathy and to extract empathic responses from a human partner. People who have difficulty forming meaningful relationships may often begin that challenging work with an equine partner. With my help as a psychotherapist, the client begins to learn the cornerstones of a healthy relationship: trust, mutual respect of differences, accountability, self-control, cooperation and empathy.