Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy with Therapist JoAnn Tomer
Lisa Hassler
Welcome to the brighter side of education. I am your host, Dr. Lisa Hasler, here to enlighten and brighten the classrooms in America through focused conversation on important topics in education. In each episode, I discuss problems we as teachers and parents are facing facing and what people are doing in their communities to fix it. What are the variables and how can we duplicate it to maximize student outcomes? In this episode, I focus on children's mental health in the classroom. How can we improve children's mental health to increase academic success? According to the CDC, in 2022 on the state of children's mental health, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems are the most commonly diagnosed mental disorders in children.
About three in ten children with ADHD had anxiety as well. Estimates among children aged three through 17 in the years 2016 to 2019 were that approximately 6 million had ADHD, 5.8 million had anxiety, 5.5 million had behavioral problems, and approximately 2.7 million suffer from depression. Now, you add covidant to the mix since then, and these rates of depression and anxiety are increasing. It is a major concern that parents and educators are facing, as it can lead to academic and behavioral issues in the classroom. So what options are there to help? Well, animals can offer an extraordinary amount of emotional support beyond the pet owner relationship.
Animals are sometimes used in therapeutic settings. ADHD is an additional area where Equine assisted psychotherapy can actually be very helpful. The Journal for Creativity and Mental Health stated that introducing horses to the therapeutic process showed significantly increased positive behaviors while reducing negative behaviors. Studies show that clients can experience a variety of benefits from Equine assistant psychotherapy and that clients feel that they've achieved something on their own rather than being told to do something by a parent or teacher. Today, Joanne Tomer is here to talk about her experience as a mental health therapist and her work with children and horses.
Joanne was a teacher and counselor for 33 years and is the owner of Abel Equestrian, where she combines her professional expertise and love of horses to provide Equine assisted mental health therapy to children. Welcome to the show, Joanne.
JoAnn Tomer
Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to sharing my feelings and my knowledge with your audience.
Lisa Hassler
So what is your background with counseling and horses and how did you become involved with Equine assisted mental health therapy?
JoAnn Tomer
Well, I was with the Sarasota County Schools, and I had gotten my Masters in Counseling and had gotten a guidance position. Prior to that, I taught emotionally handicapped, and then I was also a paraprofessional, and I worked with special ed students as a paraprofessional as well. And I also started riding as therapy for myself. My husband passed away in June of 2002 very suddenly, and getting back into riding and being around horses was was my therapy. And while I was at the barn where I first leased a horse and then ended up after a year purchasing my own horse.
There was another girl there that was riding, and she was going to New Hampshire to the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association to get certified as an Equine Facilitated Mental Health riding instructor. Nara, by the way, is now known as Path. They've renamed themselves. So in order to do Equine Facilitated Mental Health therapy and be able to get reimbursement from insurance or through agencies, for agencies to recognize you, you do have to have a riding instructor and a therapist. And the therapist can do both. But the riding instructor without the therapist can't work alone. And so it was just a logical step for the two of us to join forces and start the program.
Lisa Hassler
Can you explain what Equine therapy is and how it is different than the work that you did in the school system as a counselor?
JoAnn Tomer
The first thing is that we see our clients out at the barn. Instead of come sitting on the chair or come sit on my couch, it's come sit on my horse.
Lisa Hassler
I like that.
JoAnn Tomer
The biggest thing is the setting, obviously. And with horses, with equine- therapy, you are constantly moving. Your active clients are involved with the horses in all aspects of horsemanship, which I'll get to in a little while. But I think that's probably the main difference is where you're seeing the clients and the type of activities that you're engaged in as a therapist.
Lisa Hassler
So using horses in psychotherapy is not a new concept. Can you talk about it's? Very interesting history.
JoAnn Tomer
It is, actually. The ancient Greeks used horses for people with incurable illnesses. Hippocrates even discuss the value of therapeutic riding, and he claimed the benefits were unbelievable. And then there's literature dating back to the 17th century where it's documented that it was prescribed for gout, neurological disorders and low morale. In 1946, Equine therapy was introduced in Scandinavia after an outbreak of polio. So the original use of horses in therapy is what's known as hippotherapy, which is more of a medical diagnosis. Well, they use it for medical issues and it's an adjunct to traditional physical therapy. And so you have a horse handler, a physiotherapist, and a specially trained horse to do the hippotherapy.
So here in Sarasota, we have instride in the Nicomas area, which offers hippotherapy. And then also up in Manatee County there's smart sarasota Manatee Association for Riding Therapy. And they primarily do the hippotherapy, although I believe they've also added mental health for maybe veterans. I do need to get over there sometime and check out their program.
Lisa Hassler
I was going to ask if there's anyone else in the area that does anything like what you do. You're kind of an anomaly uniform in your area.
JoAnn Tomer
I am. I've never seen any kind of advertising for somebody that does just the Equine facilitated mental health and working out of a private setting, I'm only aware of the two programs that are the large nonprofit programs. The therapeutic riding as a therapy was started with a lady from Denmark and her legs were paralyzed from polio. But with therapy, she was able to win the silver medal for dressage in the 1952 Olympics.
Lisa Hassler
Oh, wow.
JoAnn Tomer
And then at the same time in Germany, they were using therapeutic riding to address orthopedic dysfunctions such as scoliosis. And again, Nara, the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association, was the first riding center in North America, and that began in the 1960s. There's therapeutic riding in the United States and Canada through the Community Association of Riding of the Disabled. So again, most of the focus has been on for physical handicaps.
Lisa Hassler
Yeah, I see that. And so your combination of the mental health therapy portion of it is unique, but it's not done alone. You usually would then work in conjunction with like a child would have another, maybe a counselor or psychiatrist, and then you would also be providing that additional therapy in the outdoor setting with the horses. Right, exactly.
JoAnn Tomer
Frequently it is an adjunct to more traditional therapy. For a while, I was getting clients from the Florida Center because they had a grant from what's called a SAMHSA Grant, and it was through the Central Florida Behavioral Health Network, I believe, and it allowed for adjunct services. And so they had me providing they were called wraparound services. So not only did I provide the therapy out at the barn, but I would also go over to their facility and meet with the parents and their staff to do the services, to do.
Lisa Hassler
All those sort of wraparound services. What were the ages that you typically worked with and what were the benefits academically that you saw?
JoAnn Tomer
About five is the youngest, mainly because you need to have a certain amount of cognitive skills to be able to see what's going on with the horse and be able to transfer that out to your day to day life. So five is pretty much the youngest that I would go for and then all the way up to adults at whatever age they're capable of getting on a horse. Since we're not a hippotherapy center, I don't have a lot of the adaptive things that they have, like the ramps and that kind of thing, to be able to get somebody on a horse if they're not capable of getting on themselves. I teach all aspects of horsemanship, so my clients learn to groom the horses.
So they learn all aspects of grooming and handling the horses and including sometimes getting them from the pastures, if necessary. Hand walking, we do groundwork, which is where you would do what's called ground driving, where you connect a long line to a horse and you walk behind them and guide the horses if you were sitting in a wagon and guiding them that way, and also just walking alongside the horse and getting the horse to follow you. However, using your body language to get the horse to follow you. And then, of course, we teach actual riding and we move along at the pace of the client.
They'll tell us how quickly to move along or how slowly to move along. I've had clients who it takes them weeks to just let go of the saddle and pick up the reins and ride without holding on to the saddle. And then there's others that just are just natural horse people, and they get on, and in no time at all, they're out there riding totally on their own, off lead and doing everything that they're supposed to do. But we take our time.
Lisa Hassler
What would you say would be the benefits that they could take away from this type of a therapy and put that into their classroom setting or home setting? In what ways does it benefit them that traditional counseling does not?
JoAnn Tomer
One of the biggest things that working with horses does is it develops a very strong sense of self esteem. It's basically, if you can control an animal that weighs anywhere from 800 to £1200, you can do anything. And so this really builds self esteem. And then from there, you can start addressing other issues such as anxiety, ADHD. It's very good for ADHD because horses are extremely honest. And if you're up there on the horse and you're not focused and you let your attention drift, or you look over to see what's going on in the pasture, instead of looking at where you're going with the horse, the horse is going to let you know.
And I always tell my clients that they have an eight pound bowling ball sitting on their shoulders. And so if that bowling ball isn't looking where it's supposed to go, isn't directed where it's supposed to go, the horse is going to let you know. A lot of teachable moments for people with ADHD because it really forces them to pay attention and focus on what they're doing with the horse.
Lisa Hassler
My daughter went to Joanne, and she worked with her for about six years, I want to say since she was about eleven years old. When I spoke to her about talking with you and about the benefits of we always called it horse therapy. That's fine.
JoAnn Tomer
I think that's what most people call it.
Lisa Hassler
So this is what she told me. She said that it gave me something to have control over. I think as a child, many children feel out of control with the school they attend, their home life, the class they're in. She said that she had to learn how to balance the horse to be in control, so she had to control herself to control the horse. She also said that you get calm, so you're not always so stressed. So it was calming for her to be on the horse and to be grooming the horse and to be in that environment.
She said it strengthened and improved her emotional control. Because you can't be scared or your horse will freak out. The horse will mirror your reactions. Your emotions can affect the situation. And so she learned to not let her emotions rule her life. I thought that was powerful, but also she said it's a good way to connect was to be able to have the horse there. So she was able to connect with the horse. And she thinks it's good for people who like animals because they may talk more, it's easier to open up. And her recommendation was that kids should do it because it's a good way for kids to get their hands dirty and be in nature.
JoAnn Tomer
Yeah, I love everything that she said. It's all very powerful and insightful stuff that she said there. And I can give you a really good example what she was talking about, how the horse will mirror your emotions. Back to you. I had an incident one time with myself where I was heading to the barn for a riding lesson when I was still working, before I retired, and I was late getting there. Traffic. I was the guidance counselor down at Garden elementary in Venice, so I had to get from Venice back up to Sarasota. The traffic was awful and I was late getting there.
And so I was just totally stressed out. I walked into Gingy stall and she was eating her hay. And you have to understand that everything is all about food, especially with mares. But most of the horses, they don't eat to live, they live to eat. And so I walked in and I put my hand up to pet her and she turned around and walked right out of that stall out into her turnout area.
Lisa Hassler
Wow.
JoAnn Tomer
Came back in. I touched her again immediately. She went out and came back in. So I realized that my stress was going over to her. She sensed that immediately. And so I went out and saw the trainer that we were working with and told her what was going on. She said, Just take it easy, don't worry about it, we'll catch it later. So she just went and worked with the other lady by herself. And I just got myself calm down.
Lisa Hassler
Because they can sense it. They can feel when you are tense and upset. And that was another thing that I had noticed just as a parent while I was watching her ride. She would sit up tall. I think that's part of that self confidence. She would be looking around her environment. It became something that she just was routine into looking at, with scanning her environment, being able to be focused and present in the moment so her mind didn't wander off to other things. She was really intensely engaged. And she also had to make sure that she didn't react in a situation like if there was a squirrel or a bunny or a snake or something that she didn't scream or yell or react in a way that could have made the horse buck or she could have fallen off or some sort of domino effect.
Because if she wasn't in control I see her now as a young adult that is looking at law enforcement as her career path. And I see that the things that she's learned from horse therapy and how she's applied, that by being aware of her environment and looking for signs of danger, being able to control her emotions and stay calm even if something emotionally stressful arises, she's always very even. So all those years I see it just trained her to be more in control and more aware. And so I think that I attributed that back to what she gained from being in that type of a therapeutic setting.
JoAnn Tomer
All of that is so true with the benefits. But one of the things that I do with my school age clients is I give them a little card that they can put inside their desk that only they can see it. They don't have to share it with anybody. And it's just a series of steps that they can follow if they're suddenly feeling anxious or angry or something's really bothering them. It's just a simple visualization steps. So close your eyes, take a deep breath, and picture yourself riding. Whether it's Gingy, my horse, or Sebastian, one of the other horses we use, there were a couple of different horses that I used.
Just picture yourself on the horse having a really good ride and recreate the feelings that you have when you're riding. And that usually helps them to kind of get back into control and get to a place where they're not going to have an issue with their emotions and their feelings. And so that's one of the ways that we can transfer what's going on out at the barn into their day to day life. And we still do talking therapy in a sense, but we're talking while we're doing other things. So while we're grooming is when? How was your week?
What have you been doing? Anything special I should know about? Or if they're not comfortable talking to me, tell the horse, is there anything you want to tell Sebestyn or Gingi? And then when we're done riding, then we also process the session. And what was your favorite thing that we did today? One of the things I like to do as part of the teaching, the riding is doing pattern work. We're all set up different items around the arena, so they have to follow a pattern. So you walk to here, you go around this item. You go in between here we have jumps, and we have things that I can use to have them walk around, or two or three, and they liked doing that.
I also set up a square. I have four ground poles that I set up in a square. And they do different things with the ground poles. Walking across them in different directions and around and figure eight. So it's a cognitive challenge for the client and the horse that keeps the horse fresh. They're not going just around in circles all the time, so that makes them have to think as well. So we do a lot of those kinds of things. Once the client is riding off lead, when they've reached a point where they can actually go off lead and ride independently, then we process it.
What was your favorite thing, and how can you take that with you out into your day to day life, whether at home or at school, and use that information? So we still talk. It's just in a little bit like you were asking about the difference between doing therapy at the barn and doing therapy in the classroom. We're talking while we're doing other things, right?
Lisa Hassler
When I was talking to Ellie about the dynamic of why did she prefer the horse therapy compared to the traditional counseling setting, and her first thing was, well, there's horses, and I love horses. And so it gave her the ability to do something that she always wanted to do. But the other one was she said, Well, mom, have you ever heard of the car talks, how people open up in these important conversations or deeper conversations when they're in the car? And it's that setting where you're contained and you're not staring at each other's eyes and you know that there's no other distractions.
And she said, it's kind of like that, where it's just the client, the horse and the therapist, and you're out in the middle of nowhere, and it's just you like a bubble. And that little bubble is not threatening, and you're not looking at each other's eyes where she's sitting on a couch and you're sitting at a chair looking at her or something. And so not as much intensity and anxiety or stress involved in how do I respond? Because being on top of the horse and just the walking and the calmingness of it, she said she was better able to open up and she felt more relaxed in that situation.
So I feel like that's a very helpful thing, especially if children are struggling with their emotions or anxiety, self esteem, impulse control. But those moments where you're looking for a non threatening way to just talk and you don't feel as though someone is waiting for this response and you have to give them something within a certain time limit. It's just kind of like you can breathe a little bit and kind of just let the conversation naturally flow.
JoAnn Tomer
Exactly. And that's the other thing, too, when you mentioned time, is that a typical counseling session in a therapist office is what is it, a 50 minutes hour, I think they call it, if you're lucky. And our sessions are most of the time an hour and a half. And frequently we didn't even look at the clock. We have the freedom to kind of let nature take its course.
Lisa Hassler
That is true.
JoAnn Tomer
First thing I wanted to bring out is that the whole concept of riding and being around horses, in my opinion, is probably the ultimate in multitasking without realizing that you're multitasking. Because when you ride, there's so many things, if you're riding correctly, that you have to be aware of but you're not aware of, that's the whole thing. It becomes muscle memory and it becomes automatic. Kind of like driving.
Lisa Hassler
Right.
JoAnn Tomer
If you were to stop and think about how many different little things you do when you're driving a car, I mean, the list would be a mile long. And it's the same thing with riding. I mean, it's where your hands are, how you're holding the reins, how you're sitting, what you're doing with your legs. There's just so many different things that work together. And it was interesting in the 2012 Olympics in London, I guess they did a survey of all of the athletes and they asked him what they thought the most difficult event was in the Olympics.
And the number one response was the equestrian.
Lisa Hassler
Wow.
JoAnn Tomer
Because of what everybody said was, well, it's not just you that you have to think about. You're also having to think about a 1200 pound animal. You're thinking for two and you're working for two.
Lisa Hassler
That is so true.
JoAnn Tomer
So being horses as a therapeutic method actually brings that out in people that you're able to do those kinds of things, but in a way that's non threatening and it just develops those kinds of skills that stay with you your whole life.
Lisa Hassler
How would a parent know if Equine therapy is a good fit for their child? And how would they find an Equine assisted mental health therapist in their area?
JoAnn Tomer
Well, in general, first of all, you want to make sure that your child does love animals. I mean, there needs to be that affinity for animals, especially horses.
Lisa Hassler
Yes.
JoAnn Tomer
And the best way would be to find a place where they do it. I imagine going online and googling Equine facilitated mental health therapy and see what pops up. And then what I do with all prospective clients is I have them come out, meet with me and take a tour of the facility and we talk about what we do and I explain how I do my program. And there's no charge. It's just kind of a meet and greet and come out and take a look and then decide if that's something that you want to do or that the child wants to do and you go from there.
It's one of those things that for the most part, once they start, they stick with it. I have had a client, she's no longer a client, but she ended up buying a horse out at our barn that came on the market and now she's training with the girl who owns the barn who trains upper level riders. She stayed with me through, got all her basics with me and then moved on to Sophie. And she's showing and jumping and totally, I mean, horses 24/7. But the parents need to be prepared for that too.
Lisa Hassler
Yes, right. I know ellie, she had wanted to do that for a while. And then my son even went to you for a while as well.
JoAnn Tomer
He was coming out.
Lisa Hassler
Yeah, he did well too.
JoAnn Tomer
I think it helped him a bit.
Lisa Hassler
He loved being around the horses and there's just something about being in that environment that's calming, even for a parent. I would just go and relax. Loving to be there. And there was a time when her whole therapy session was her getting Sebastian out of the field.
JoAnn Tomer
That was a learning experience. But it was amazing how that was what we made our session for that week, because he was not being very cooperative. But she stuck with it.
Lisa Hassler
Yes.
JoAnn Tomer
The amazing thing is that she was not going to give up.
Lisa Hassler
No. It gave her that perseverance and patience lesson that she needed and that if she wanted to be able to ride him, she was going to have to have those kinds of things. Because like what she said about having control, it's like you can control something, but then you also have to realize that you're not in complete control. So as you can control your own emotions, you still have this animal that you are trying to work with and that you have to understand their wants and needs and desires and they may not always match yours at the very same moment.
JoAnn Tomer
Exactly.
Lisa Hassler
Gave her some flexibility. So here is the call to action. Equine assisted Mental Health Therapy has a proven track record of use and success since ancient Greece. So if you're a parent looking for alternatives to help your child with ADHD, anxiety or depression, I highly recommend finding one in your area. Thank you, Joanne, for all the work you do helping kids cope with mental health issues and for bringing Gingy and Sebastian along with for the ride. If you have a story about what's working in your schools that you'd like to share, you can email me at Dr.
Lisa Richardson hassler@gmail.com or visit my website at www dot dr. Lisarhassler.com and send me a message. If you like this podcast, subscribe and tell a friend. The more people that know, the bigger impact it will have. If you find value in the content to this podcast, consider becoming a supporter by clicking on the Supporter link in the Show Notes. It is the mission of this podcast to shine the light on the good and education so that it spreads affecting positive change. So let's keep working together to find solutions that focus on our children's success.
