About Us
“We believe in empowering you as the client, to be the expert in your own life, to be engaged in your own experience and healing process. We believe that you have all the answers within yourself” - Eagala
Interacting with horses can foster emotional health by promoting valuable life skills like patience, fairness, commitment, emotional congruence, clear communication, relaxation, determination, and establishing healthy boundaries.
As horses are sensitive to human emotions, they can serve as a mirror, helping clients to recognize their emotions and process their feelings, giving opportunity to discover their unique personal solutions in achieving their goals.
Horses are empathetic animals and offer freedom from judgement, live in the moment and have no expectations. This allows people to work through their challenges without fear in an emotionally safe environment.
The horse’s immediate, honest responses and ability to read non-verbal communication and body language can give individuals valuable immediate feedback and space to process and find clarity.
Due to the general size of horses, they can challenge people to overcome fears and challenges in their lives. In interacting with horses, courage, trust and confidence is nurtured, along with the opportunity for clients to identify their unique strengths, encouraging them to face those things that may seem difficult in their lives.
Why partner with Horses in Counselling and Learning?
(EAP & EAL)
Equine-assisted Counselling is an evidence-based complementary treatment that incorporates interacting with horses. It’s a collaboration between the client, mental health professional/equine specialist.
Equine-assisted Counselling is unique in its experiential nature, combining proven therapeutic models, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Narrative Therapy, within a framework that includes horses and physical activities. It provides a hands-on approach to counselling that supports clients of all ages in addressing therapeutic goals.
Equine-assisted counselling can help clients with difficulties, such as overcoming anxiety and depression, healing past trauma, eating disorders, ADHD, and grief/loss, whilst promoting personal growth and development. Through interacting with horses, the client can benefit through learning about themselves, their relationship styles, become more aware and recognise unhealthy patterns in their lives, whilst building on their personal strengths and encouraging positive change in their lives.
Sessions occur in a safe and natural environment, such as the paddock or arena, with a trained Mental Health Professional and Equine Specialist. There may be between one to 4 horses participating in the 50-minute session. Minimum age is 5 years.
What is Equine Assisted Counselling/Psychotherapy?
Equine Assisted Counselling and Learning can benefit:
Trust and Empathy:
The client is provided with the opportunity to develop trust in the horse, the facilitators and themselves. This is a powerful step towards growth in interpersonal relationships and healing. For those whose ability to trust has been damaged, learning to trust a horse is very powerful, as they experience and learn to both trust and be trusted.
Emotional Awareness:
Through the ability of the horse to mirror a client’s emotions, a client can become more aware of themselves, how their feelings affect their behaviours and the impact they have on those around them. Through direct immediate feedback, the client is encouraged to develop greater emotional intelligence, leading to a deeper understanding of themselves and development of life skills.
Problem-Solving Skills:
Achieving success with fun and challenging exercises and goal-focused activities, in non-verbal ways, encourages initiative and problem-solving. Experiencing a sense of choice and decision-making can replace feelings of helplessness and lack of motivation, empowering the client and supporting the development of self-belief.
Confidence:
A client’s self-esteem can be positively impacted through interacting and communicating with a large and powerful horse. Activities are designed to promote confidence and support the client in identifying and building on their strengths and gifts.
Trauma Healing:
Equine-assisted counselling can be effective in treating PTSD and other trauma-related disorders. Horses provide a safe and non-judgmental environment where clients can find space and peace to process their experiences and move forward in their healing, through the safety of Trauma-informed care.
Social Skills:
The relationship between horses and humans is based on non-verbal communication. Through interacting with horses and observing how they communicate, clients can learn how to express themselves and understand non-verbal cues, resulting in improved interpersonal skills.
Impulse Control:
Clients that struggle with impulse control and emotional regulation can benefit from Equine-Assisted Counselling. The need to communicate with a horse calmly and non-reactively encourages skills of emotional awareness, emotion regulation, self-control, and impulse modulation. Equine-Assisted Counselling can be effective in
reducing irritability, agitation, and impulsivity, promoting the development of cooperation, emotional regulation, capacity for delay, and behavioural control.
Stress Management:
As clients spend time with horses they can experience and learn how to live and be in the moment which fosters mindfulness and stress reduction.
In interacting with horse’s and trying new things, they are being asked to step out of their comfort zone with the help and support of the facilitators and the horse. Clients are given the space to process their experience’s, such as the fears, and encouraged to identify insights or achievements experienced during the process.