Episode 53 - Animal-Assisted Therapy with Maggie Broom

Host Dan chats with Maggie Broom about the benefits of equine therapy. Maggie explains how working with horses can improve physical, mental, and emotional well-being. We talk about -:

• How does animal-assisted therapy with horses differs from traditional therapy methods?
• The difference between how a mental health professional uses this therapy compared to a provider that just happens to be good with animals.
• We also explore what a session would look like for an adult who was late diagnosed.

Maggie's business Grey Horse Growth and Learning offers both personal development and therapy through the medium of horses.  Clients can attend Equine Facilitated Learning sessions for personal growth and social skills development, or one hour sessions for counselling/psychotherapy.

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Transcript

Transcript
Dan Kerr 
 Now before we get on the topic, I noticed on your website this intriguing paragraph.

maggie   4:09
Oh yes.

Dan Kerr   4:10
In in 1984/85 she spent a year traveling through Australia in a covered wagon, pulled by two Clydesdales now.
I'm sorry but.
What is the wagon this you're missing?
The most important part was the wagon, a time travel device, and how did you get back to the 1920s to do this?

maggie   4:30
Yes, it was a time travel device.
I it it gave me lots of time to travel.
That's why it was a time travel device.
I love traveling and I've always loved traveling on my own and I was going through a fairly rough patch where I felt I needed to be on my own for a little while and.
So it was an ideal situation and I could give you a lot of detail about how I came to have the wagon, but it wasn't an old fashioned style gypsy wagon.
It was a currently made gypsy wagon out of.
Steel and sorry. Yeah, not fiberglass. And what's the word for that stuff that's like board?

Dan Kerr   5:11
Fiberglass. Fiberglass. That's what it's up here.

maggie   5:16
That is, whatever it was not, not Fibre Board but but whatever.

Dan Kerr   5:21
Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah.

maggie   5:21
Yeah, but the canvas top thin wood sides, steel frame and car tire wheels, and two Clydesdale horses, and we just travelled S from milania in QLD.
Back home to Smith, Scully and it took.
I say a year because I I I spent quite a lot of time up there working up the horses and getting the wagon ready from the previous owners who'd had it.
So it was roughly a year and I loved it.

Dan Kerr   5:49
Wow.

maggie   5:49
It was good.
It was good stuff.
It cleared my head. Something amazing.

Dan Kerr   5:54
Oh God, there was a.
There was a Australian documentary You're not talking to talk about, a miniseries can't remember the name now, but it was about someone, you know, with a wagon in the 1920s looking for work out in the country, you know.

maggie   6:08
Right.

Dan Kerr   6:09
Awesome, great, great series. But it just it it I can't get my head around the fact that you're on main roads like freeways and anything like that.

maggie   6:17
Yes, yes.

Dan Kerr   6:18
You know, and how the Clydesdales were able to cope with the noise and distractions.

maggie   6:24
Yes. Look, they were fabulous.
I love my horses.
I thought they were absolutely sterling they.
They they made the journey possible, of course.
And yeah, I mean we worked things.
I mean like they the the main roads were wide and the truck is always. The truckers had CVS and they'd be they'd be radioing through to each other as they watch out.
There's this stupid woman on the freeway, not the freeway, not the freeway.
I never went on a freeway, but yeah, this woman on on the highway with this gypsy.
What I can say? Watch out for it.
And people stopped and helped me.
I I got a huge bucket of molasses from 1 trucky who stopped and said here have some of the.
So yeah.

Dan Kerr   7:04
Wow, that's unbelievable.

maggie   7:05
Yeah.

Dan Kerr   7:08
Clauds that was on my favorites.
I do love them.
I love them a lot.

maggie   7:11
I love them too, and I have to thank them for clearing my head that that year was particularly good for me and the other thing it did, it made me realize just how generous people are, because whenever I went, people would say, oh, come in for a show.

Dan Kerr   7:12
Yeah.
Harming, yeah.

maggie   7:28
You must.
You must want to shower bed to sleep in and and and that that kind of set me up for.
Being an Australian because I actually had to leave the wagon and come back to get Australian citizenship.
So halfway through NSW I I had to leave them behind at some very generous farming people who said no no, leave the horses here. You take a bus home and I did not citizenship and went back again.

Dan Kerr   7:49
Oh my God.
There's a book here.
There's a very, very interesting book.

maggie   7:55
There is a book, but I have tried.
I've tried to.
I've tried to smarten it up a bit and and get it published.
Maybe. Maybe now's the time.
I don't know, but tell you what it's you know, it did make me feel just how wonderful people are.

Dan Kerr   8:12
Oh, that's interesting now.
I your there's another part I saw on the website which was something I just wanted to get some more clarification.
So maybe elaboration was that that your doctoral thesis was a qualitative study of how people experience belonging, which explore the variety of ways in which people felt a comfortable sense of. This is where I fit.

maggie   8:38
Yeah.

Dan Kerr   8:41
I need some elaboration on that.

maggie   8:44
Well, I I just finished doing a two year counseling course, postgraduate counseling course, which really had me thinking about.
Being Australian and I hadn't been Australian for quite a few years by then.

Dan Kerr   8:59
OK.

maggie   9:01
And I had felt an immense sense of loss when I left the UK and I just wondered how other people dealt with not feeling, not not belonging.
And all the research about the longing you was belonging as a measure rather than a thing in its own right. So, you know, they would.
They would do research projects on, you know, whether this intervention increases a sense of belonging or that intervention increases a sense of belonging. But nobody actually had defined in in any of the stuff that I've read.
What a sense of belonging actually felt like.
So I just asked people. It was a qualitative study.
I didn't have any any randomized control trials or anything, but I just went and asked people and did, did, did.

Dan Kerr   9:46
Yep.

maggie   9:50
What qualitative research does?
And it was fabulous.
I really enjoyed doing it, which?
Is quite unusual, I think for a PhD.
And well, you, you hear people go. Oh, God, I've got to do this.
Oh, I've got to do that.
And I was thinking this is amazing. This is so interesting.

Dan Kerr   10:03
Right.
Course it should be their way. Jeez.

maggie   10:10
So that was that was that was good.
I wouldn't necessarily call it fun.
It was hard work.

Dan Kerr   10:14
Here.

maggie   10:15
But yes, I I don't necessarily use it directly in my therapy work at the moment, but I do feel like it's really important part of what it is that people are looking for when they are looking for some kind of therapeutic answer to what's going on for them.

Dan Kerr   10:23
OK.

maggie   10:34
Is they don't like what's happening for them.
I'm looking for, you know what?
Helps people to fit.
It in place.

Dan Kerr   10:42
I I get that, but also as an autistic person myself, I don't really.
Belonging belonging is not really high priority for me.

maggie   10:50
Yes.
No, no.

Dan Kerr   10:54
No, no.
So I I'm just I'm I. I do wonder.
I mean, it's lovely.
I mean, belonging in the sense of the I'm doing the podcast, but I'm doing that more as an out an outreach, not it's part of. It's me learning. I doing it as a means to learn new things and learn things about autism and that sort of stuff. But.

maggie   11:02
Yeah.
Yeah.

Dan Kerr   11:12
A lot of it's about other people finding their sense of belonging, but I'm also aware that there's there's probably a lot of autistic people who don't you who don't need.

maggie   11:18
Yeah.

Dan Kerr   11:21
Companionship. They don't need a lot of friendship.
They don't need a lot of that kind of stuff.
They just want to do what they want to do. Do you?
Do you see that this is that can be sort of that sort of sense?

maggie   11:30
Yes, absolutely.
You've hit the nail on the head and that's what came up for a number of people. That belonging doesn't necessarily have to be being with friends. It doesn't have to be being with other people even.

Dan Kerr   11:39
Yes.

maggie   11:42
And actually what sparked me was the ugly duckling story, which I presume you're familiar with.
Like you know, the ugly duckling was.
Teased and bullied by all the farmyard animals until he turned into a swan and joined the Swans because he looked like a swan. He didn't look like a duckling. And I my thesis question was what would have happened if he had actually just been an ugly duckling?

Dan Kerr   12:00
Mm hmm.

maggie   12:07
What would have happened if he was a duckling and nobody liked him and he had to stay being a duckling?
Where would he get his sense of belonging then?
And I I I really reject the whole notion that you have to look like something and be beautiful in order to fit in.
So that's when I was tearing apart the ugly duckling story.
And so then I said, well, how do people feel a sense of belonging?
And I think you've alluded to it when you've been saying I like to do my own things.
I like to, you know, I'm doing this stuff as a side thing.
That's where some people get their sense of belonging.
I interviewed a guy who said he got his sense of belonging out of being in a band.
He was an architect, but he got the belong out of being an abandoned, not being a particularly good musician, but nothing to do with architecture, nothing to do with friends, just to do with being part of something.
And that was like, you know, being part of humans, other people.
But I've had other people who say, yeah, my sense of belonging is very much related to the end.
Very much related to where I grew up.

Dan Kerr   13:05
Absolute. That's. That's a beautiful idea.

maggie   13:07
You know, when I when I see landscapes like my home landscape, I feel my heart swell.
So there are a lot of ranges of things. It doesn't mean you have to have a lot of good buddies to have a feel of sense of belonging.

Dan Kerr   13:14
Yes.
Yep.
Absolutely. That's interesting.
I I mean, I actually for the very first time, the only time in my life I felt a sense of belonging to country was in Alice Springs of all places.

maggie   13:29
Really.

Dan Kerr   13:30
Bizarre, but just that I don't know what it was, but I just felt a sense of yeah, below.

maggie   13:33
Yep, yes, this is, yeah.

Dan Kerr   13:37
The belongings can be listening to music but just sitting in here listening to music is that belonging.

maggie   13:41
Yes, well depending. You know, again I feel like, you know, whoever I interviewed defined it their own.
Their own way and and that I thought was really important, that I allowed it to, allowed them to define what it was. Because, you know, we can all wax lyrical about how important it is to have social networks and this and that and the other. But maybe there.

Dan Kerr   13:51
No.
Yep.
Yes.

maggie   14:07
Are other ways that people.
Get that sense of yeah, this is where I fit.

Dan Kerr   14:12
Yes.

maggie   14:13
May not necessarily be in a bunch of pals.
They may have a bunch of pals where they fit very nicely, but there may be other ways. I had one woman explain how she really felt she belonged because she knew the system in a school where her kids have gone and where she had worked, and she knew.

Dan Kerr   14:19
Yep.

maggie   14:30
How old school ran and she said I feel like I belong here.
I know it well and that was her sense of belonging, belonging to a system.

Dan Kerr   14:40
This is really interesting for a late diagnosed autistic person because I I think it's fairly common that most of us don't have a sense of belonging in ourself.
Because we've been something else.
We've been, we've been our masks.

maggie   14:54
Yeah.

Dan Kerr   14:55
We've been or you know, whatever we've had to do to to get through. And so I got to that point where I and still at this this point of saying, I don't really know who I am.
So I don't even have a sense of belonging myself.

maggie   15:10
Yep, yes.
And when people are feeling that way, it's.
You kind of, you're kind of on.
A. What am I thinking?
Like a loose line. I can't think of the right metaphor, but I had in my preliminary study, which I did before the main study. I had one one person say, look, when I'm feeling good, I feel like I belong to the universe and that is for me that.
An amazing sense of oneness.
OK. And I feel like what you're talking about is the opposite extreme that that, you know that where, where, where, where do I find?
Some sense of.
Rightness, or fit or whatever, and and I know that I mean, it's not just people on spectrum, but I think people on spectrum find it very, very hard.

Dan Kerr   16:07
That's it.
Yeah, well, that's it.
It's that.
Who am I?
Which I've used this a lot in the podcast is when the director says cut.
And I get to just shake off the masks. If I'm able to.
What is?
What is that when the director says cut, what is that person but belong in? This can come from learning about definitions and understanding those things that that does aid and and incorporate into your into yourself that sense of understanding yourself. And you get to. Yeah, I think the.
Belongingness can happen in that too.

maggie   16:42
And and what you said about learning, I think when people have stopped learning or they've stopped having curiosity, I think that's a really dangerous time for them.

Dan Kerr   16:50
Yes, absolutely.
It really is.

maggie   16:54
Yes, and and so one of the things that I I I really try to incorporate is generating a sense of curiosity in, in the work that we do with the horses.
And yeah, it's look, it's very difficult because I mean looking through all the psychological literature, there are so many ways.
People try to describe the self, you know, whether it's oneself or whether it's an emerging self or whether there are many cells and so.

Dan Kerr   17:17
Yes.

maggie   17:23
Yeah, I think we all have to find our own way there about whether whether I'm, I'm the same self that I was five years ago or the same self that I was when I was a kid.
How on earth can we know that we just?

Dan Kerr   17:35
It's awesome topic.
So much to it, I know.

maggie   17:37
We can talk for hours on this.

Dan Kerr   17:40
Well, I've I I have to.
I've got a good.
I've got a good segue song. Whether it's a good segue or a crappy segue, and I think this is a good segue about learning because I wanted to look at.
That your educational experiences. So when you were still in England, what what were you doing?
Were you still at university where you were teacher at that point?

maggie   18:03
Look, we we came to Australia when I was 30 and I'd had a very brief career in primary teaching and I'd really found that incredibly hard.

Dan Kerr   18:13
You.

maggie   18:14
And decided it wasn't for me and and lots of good reasons for that, but it just wasn't working for me.
So I ended up doing a criterial course and became an admin officer.
But I ended up being an admin officer in a psychology department, having already studied psychology.
And so I'm gradually drawn back into the whole psychology thing at a different level.

Dan Kerr   18:34
Wow. Yep.

maggie   18:35
Because I so wanted to do right by the kids that I was teaching. But there was one time and this was way back in the 70s where we had fifty children and two teachers in one big room and it just didn't work.

Dan Kerr   18:39
Yeah.

maggie   18:53
And and so it was a very stressful time for the other teacher. Very stressful time.

Dan Kerr   18:56
Oh my God.
And disparate age groups too.
It wasn't all just.

maggie   19:00
It was no, it was all the same age group, but they just come through from what was kindergarten in those infants called it in the UK, so they they weren't used to, you know, to to a school routine and and. And so I I I didn't enjoy that.

Dan Kerr   19:06
Yep, Yep, Yep.

maggie   19:17
And then when I got a classroom of my own with kids, that was that was better, but I still felt like I was betraying what I started teaching for because I'd hated my own school as as a child, I'd never.

Dan Kerr   19:27
OK.

maggie   19:30
I really, really liked being at school and I would do anything to get help with.

Dan Kerr   19:35
You won't get a lot of.

maggie   19:35
And I really wanted to.

Dan Kerr   19:37
No arguments from a lot of our listeners.

maggie   19:39
Yes, yes. And look, it wasn't because people were horrible necessarily.
Well, yes, yeah, it was. Look, people.
People were.
Teachers.
No, I don't.
I don't want.
I don't want to slag the teachers because I think they're all doing the best they possibly could.

Dan Kerr   19:58
Yes, that's it. Yeah.

maggie   19:59
And so there you go.
That's that's why I left. Teaching went into secretarial work, love doing admin at the psychology department at Nottingham University.
And and then came to Australia and.

Dan Kerr   20:15
You've done a psychology degree or anything at that point you had.

maggie   20:17
Yes, yes, I called in biology joint, so I was always interested in the animal side of things. You know, multiple pets as a child had always been interested in horses, had always, always, you know, biology and psychology.

Dan Kerr   20:21
Right. OK.

maggie   20:32
I I the two.
The two favorite subjects for me.

Dan Kerr   20:35
Well, how's the counselling fit in around there?

maggie   20:38
Well, I I didn't particularly want to be a psychologist.

Dan Kerr   20:43
Right.

maggie   20:44
But what I did want to do was to learn how to be a counselor.
So after we've been in Australia for a while, I I had heard of the the counselling course at La Trobe University, the Bachelor of Education and Counselling and I'd had such good reports of it.
I was just delighted when I got into that.
I was over the moon and I I studied counselling as opposed to psychology, which is very much to do with statistics and not all.

Dan Kerr   21:07
Good.

maggie   21:09
I mean, there's a lot of very interesting stuff in psychology.

Dan Kerr   21:11
Yeah.

maggie   21:13
I am interested in but I I felt it was. Psychology in itself is very much to do with testing, you know, whereas counselling is to do with understanding and finding meaning. So so for me counselling seemed a way to go.
And then when I'd done that, I had the opportunity to do the the PhD and pursue the.
Counselling.
PhD.

Dan Kerr   21:40
Oh, OK.

maggie   21:40
And then, yeah.
That's that's how it all started.

Dan Kerr   21:45
How did the writing for the disabled come into play?

maggie   21:51
Riding for the disabled came in.
Let me see 1980s.
I went on the wagon trip.
2000s I was going through a bit of.
A dip again.
And I thought I know.
I know what I need to do.
I need to volunteer somewhere.
You know, this is this is a good thing to do.

Dan Kerr   22:07
Right.

maggie   22:09
This will snap me out of it.

Dan Kerr   22:10
Hmm. Yep.

maggie   22:13
And that's when I went along to the Volunteer Resource Center and got the brochure and rang up and said hey.
Leave me. And that was good.

Dan Kerr   22:24
Oh, I think it's it's fascinating.

maggie   22:25
So we.

Dan Kerr   22:27
So similar to what I did when I was, yeah. Got out of school and I didn't want to do.
I just sort of went back to my high school and and talked to create advisors and say what, what should I get start doing?

maggie   22:33
Yep.

Dan Kerr   22:38
I started volunteering.

maggie   22:41
And look, I I I it's it's difficult because as a counselor or as a therapist I I I don't advise people but on the other hand I just think that to get you out of a mess or to get you thinking a little bit clearer it's always a.
Good idea to just check out what's going on for other people. And so that's how I got quite deeply into RDA. We were out at the Ivanhoe campus.

Dan Kerr   23:00
OK.

maggie   23:07
Of sorry, the Marinda campus of Ivan, her grammar school.
Which was at the time it was surrounded by countryside.
Now it's surrounded by houses, and so we were there for a couple of years and then we moved into bandura.
And that's that's still running.

Dan Kerr   23:26
So we we're getting towards.
Your business, I always find it hard to call what it's called service business.

maggie   23:31
Yes, perfect.

Dan Kerr   23:35
Great horse learning, growth and learning.

maggie   23:36
Yes.

Dan Kerr   23:39
How how did you get into to setting this up and when did the horses come about?

maggie   23:44
It was very.

Dan Kerr   23:45
Where where like.

maggie   23:46
Well, I've always had horses. Whatever happened, part of the reason you moved to Australia is because we wanted to get, you know, a bigger opportunity to keep horses because in in the UK, land is very, very expensive and we weren't country folk. We had, you know, we didn.

Dan Kerr   24:00
Yep.

maggie   24:02
Inherit farms or anything like that.
So when when the opportunities to to emigrate came up, we said, Oh yeah, we can buy a bit of land and keep some horses.
And that felt great because I actually left behind a lovely black mare when when we left England and and I was a bit sad to to leave her behind.
But when we got to Australia, we did.
We came out here we after a couple of years. We bought the place here in Smith. Scully and I was talking to a friend at the time.
And somehow or other we both came up with the idea that equine.
Psychotherapy was a thing, and we didn't know we'd heard it somewhere, and so we we looked on the Internet and there was nothing, nothing at all. We couldn't.
And then we found this one guy who said he was a doctor up in Bangor, Utah, and that was the one link that we found.
And that was what, 2008?

Dan Kerr   25:09
Oh, OK.

maggie   25:11
So nobody had heard of equine therapy at that point, apart from writing for the disabled, who is writing for the disabled riding.

Dan Kerr   25:18
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

maggie   25:20
But this guy was talking about equine psychotherapy. And so we rang him and said can we come and visit you?
And we drove up to anger at her and met this guy and he gave us some names to follow up and we ended up doing training for Igala psychotherapy.
Which?
Was an American organization.
And since then I've done lots and lots of other trainings with different organizations and different people and kind of just put together what I what I feel is important to to put into an equine therapy program.

Dan Kerr   25:53
OK.
So the what?
What you have on the website basically says that it's offering personal development of therapy through the medium of horses.
Clients can attend deck wine facilitated learning sessions for personal growth, social skills development.
There's also you do sessions for counselling and psychotherapy as well.
So basically essence Grey Horse is like an animal.
Animal assisted therapy how does therapy with horses differ from sort of traditional therapy methods, do you think?

maggie   26:26
Probably should ask some of my clients. Oh, you have a.

Dan Kerr   26:33
Looking behind me?

maggie   26:34
Look around.
Yeah, no.
A lot of ways, and I think that the most fundamental way is it is outside for a start and it's not two people sitting in an office opposite each other or, you know, with toys to play with. If you're working with kids or sheets of cognitive behaviour ther.

Dan Kerr   26:43
Mm hmm.

maggie   26:54
Things to take off.
Yes, it's much more relaxed.

Dan Kerr   26:56
Yeah.

maggie   26:59
And I always try to try to encourage people to think about the fact that therapy on occasions should be fun.
That it should not necessarily be.

Dan Kerr   27:13
Stating.

maggie   27:14
Yeah, devastating. Or and it should be challenging.
It should be challenging, but there should be fun times, because otherwise no wonder people there are people who won't go to therapy, and partly because it is no fun sitting and really working hard at what the hell is going on inside you.

Dan Kerr   27:18
Yes.

maggie   27:32
With the sense that no, maybe there's something wrong with me.
And so that's the other thing I I do try to impress upon people that mostly speaking it's called solution focus stuff that they've got solutions inside them that they can do, do whatever it is or they need to do.
Because they've already got the skills to do that and for some people it's just trying to work out what it is they need to do.
For other people, it's the air. I know what I need to do, but I don't know how to do it.
But yeah, so essentially it's a way of.
Therapy should be a way of of just helping people to make sense of the world and and the world includes themselves.
Horses makes it different because.
First of all, they what you're doing is helping people to feel in control because you never want to put them into a position where they're feeling out of control with the horse.
But when you are actually in control of the 500 kilogram horse.
It makes a difference to how you feel about yourself.
'Cause, if you can ask a horse to move and the horse does, or if you can ask the horse to stand still while you brush it or whatever it is you are already feeling in control.

Dan Kerr   28:40
Yep.

maggie   28:47
So there's a whole bunch of different levels that we're we're working with horses works.
It can be just calming for a kid or an adult to just rush a horse regularly with rhythmic brushing.
And here I'm doing it.
And I know you can't see me.

Dan Kerr   29:02
No, of course. Yeah, that's that's.

maggie   29:04
The rhythm rhythm is one of the things that that that works for people on the spectrum and we know that from people's experience. But.
People like oh, God, I keep forgetting his name.
The guy who had, who took the Romanian children from the orphanages and did a lot of work on rocking and drumming and make stuff that really helps to regulate people when you're feeling upset, go for rhythm, go for, you know. In the extreme case is banging your head.
Against a wall.
But you don't want to be hurting yourself.
But there is a reason why people do that.
There is a reason why you know and I don't like to call it stimming. When we hear people.
Talking about.
People on the spectrum.
Making movements, but often it's a movement that they need to make to self soothe to regulate themselves.
And it's often written.

Dan Kerr   29:58
Also, place them in a space as well.

maggie   30:00
Yes, yes, this is where I am.

Dan Kerr   30:02
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, that's that's that's it is a big thing. Now look, I the last couple of days, there's been some changes within Australia to NDIS.

maggie   30:12
Yes.

Dan Kerr   30:12
Clients have been getting messaged and one thing I did notice on one of the pages there was a yellow ladybugs was a lot of fear regarding equ one therapy and whether it's going to still be funded now.
A lot of people quelled that they they were able to explain, you know, but he's he's the crux of it.
And I guess this this question goes broader than just what we're talking about.
Is the difference between.
A.
Mental health professional.

maggie   30:40
Yes, yes.

Dan Kerr   30:41
Utilizing enquiry therapy and someone who happens to be good with animals.

maggie   30:45
Yes.

Dan Kerr   30:46
And there are, I believe, services out there that probably all over the world where there's there is that distinction that people may not realize.

maggie   30:54
Yes. And I think it's really important to be clear about that before you.
Sign on to somebody who is offering you equine therapy because.
Technically.
As an agreed train person.
I mean agala is very, very strict about two things.
One is that you must have a mental health professional person there who is qualified in mental health and it can be an occupational therapist or a speech therapist or a psychotherapist.
But they must have mental health qualifications.
And the galler also says there must be somebody there who is at least.
Well experienced with horses and preferably qualified with horses. So they say two people.

Dan Kerr   31:36
Yes.

maggie   31:39
So you can't really go wrong there, but for me, I like to work on my own because I don't like to offer the idea of one person working with a horse while two people talking about them and discussing, and that that's one of the reasons why I've.

Dan Kerr   31:39
It hopes.

maggie   31:58
I I prefer to work on my own because I think the relationship between the therapist and the client is important, even though the relationship between the client and the horse is what we're really looking at.
What is the client seeing in the horse?
What is the client doing with the horse?
What is the horse telling in inverted commas?
And I don't believe in the Mystic.
Sort of, yeah.
Horses are sent to heal us stuff.
I base everything I do on good sound science.
And there's a lot of good sound science behind equine therapy.
So yes, I don't think there should be any problem with anybody who does echoine therapy who is a qualified practitioner, because the line items are all there for speech, for counselling, for a counsellor must be a member of the Australian Counselling Association or PAC for the.
Psychotherapist and Counsellors Federation of Australia.
So you know that you're getting somebody who knows what they're doing wrong.
Someone who is saying, well, I can offer you therapy, but really what I'm doing is is showing you how to how to have a good time with horses and that can be very good.
There's nothing wrong with FY facilitated learning, but it is not necessarily therapy, and I do a lot of that kind facilitated learning myself and.

Dan Kerr   33:10
Yes.

maggie   33:19
I think if you wanted to know the difference, it really is.
Are you learning horse skills or are you actually?
Learning about yourself.
And and there's a lovely book called. It's not about the horse.
Which is basically about equine therapy.
It's nothing to do with horses. It's to do with the people. But for some people it is to do with the horses. And in an equine facilitated learning. It's. Yeah, I feel better because I can lead a horse around and I didn't know how to do that before.
I feel better because this horse is paying attention to me and this horse comes up and nuzzzles me.
That that doesn't have to be therapy.
Even though it is very therapeutic, but if you're working with a therapist, you know you're going a lot deeper and you want to have a greater responsibility to make sure that that person is emotionally safe.

Dan Kerr   34:07
Absolutely.
OK.
Before we get into a scenario, a session that a normal a typical session, let's talk about the horses a bit.

maggie   34:21
Yes.
OK.
Yes, go on.

Dan Kerr   34:31
In any way you want.
I mean, it's before we get into matching the horse with the client and that sort of that sort of reason the horses themselves.

maggie   34:36
Yeah.

Dan Kerr   34:40
What? What do they mean for you personally?

maggie   34:44
For me personally, I.
I love them to bits, but I do miss my previous horses I had.
I actually had three grey horses to start with.
That's why it was called Grey Horse Growth and learning.
And I had a little break on Emara and I had two.
She was a mayor and I had two Arab geldings, and they all had different personalities and different temperaments, and they were a really nice mix.
The little Connemara died eventually because she was very old.
She was into her 30s, and so then I got a spotty horse and.
Another horse who was also Gray.
So I had three Gray horse, the one spotty one again who I loved very much.
And then I actually managed to get another horse who was also Gray.

Dan Kerr   35:43
Wow.

maggie   35:43
And this is what happens.
You kind of collect things.
There's there's.
Facebook meme that goes around which says, you know why?
Why you have if you buy one horse, you actually have to buy 10.
But in fact, I've never bought any of my horses.
Oh no. I have bought some of them, but the horses I have at the moment are all horses that I'm either borrowing or have come to me because they don't have any other careers and so.
They they're not.
They're not performance horses.
Some of them are very old, some of them are injured.
And have.
Have physical difficulties and I think that's really important that when you're working with with horses that you have horses that are emotionally sound.
And also that they're not necessarily glossy and wonderful and able to, you know, turn on a sixpence, because that's how people are and if they're dirty when the client arrives, that's OK because life is dirty.

Dan Kerr   36:47
Mm hmm.

maggie   36:52
And sometimes they can be stubborn.

Dan Kerr   36:52
Mm hmm. And if they're stubborn.

maggie   36:55
They can be stubborn because in life you have to deal with stubborn people.
And then I kind of reframe that into well, are they persistent as opposed to stuff because persistent is a?
A positive word and stubbornness, a negative word, and so everything the horses do give you an opportunity to just explore a little more, you know, particularly young kids will say, oh, that horse is a bully.
They see the horses jostling each other.
All that horse is a bully.
So it gives you the opportunity to start talking about, you know, what does it mean to be a bully?
Have you ever been a bully yourself?
Have you ever been bullied? You see what I mean? There's there's.

Dan Kerr   37:29
Right. Yeah, it's absolutely. Yeah. It's amazing, isn't it?
You've talked about like with the stubbornness, there's all that sort of stuff, but there's also unfortunately, death sometimes, which again, not it is about the horses, but not.

maggie   37:44
And you know.
Well, yes.

Dan Kerr   37:47
But there is again, it is an opportunity to yeah, for for for people to.
Particularly go through with a professional about grief.

maggie   38:00
Yes. And again it's, I mean, I mean you're obviously well aware that I lost three horses in quick succession, all for different reasons.
And there was a lot of grief for me there. But as you, as you know, there was grief for clients as well because they had come to know the horses and that also, I think it's food for.

Dan Kerr   38:17
Exactly, yeah.

maggie   38:24
In any situation, there is always food for working with what we need to work with.
And and so grief is is one thing and.
Wouldn't necessarily be suggesting that somebody was experiencing the loss of a loved one necessarily.
Goes and works with grief over a horse that's gone. But, but I think I think, generic grief.

Dan Kerr   38:46
Hmm.

maggie   38:46
Understanding what happens at the end of life.
Understanding that that life is.
It's a cycle and that we start and we end and that, I hope helps people to value what they've got as well.
Because I think we will have to enjoy life the best we can or.
Or make make our life as meaningful as we can.
Because I don't think. I don't think there's an awful lot of meaning out there.

Dan Kerr   39:17
Yep.

maggie   39:17
See what I mean?

Dan Kerr   39:20
But the experiences we're talking about are in this kind of therapy of visceral as opposed to being like conceptual, really.

maggie   39:27
Yes.

Dan Kerr   39:28
You know you're seeing these things right in front of you.
Outside, you're smelling them. You're hearing them.
You're sensing them and then you're noticing that their absence as well.

maggie   39:33
Yeah.
And and the sensory stuff.
The noticing stuff, I think that goes right across all the therapy work that that my horses do.
And more and more I'm I'm getting to understand how important it is for people to be alert to their sensory experiences.
I I talk a lot at the beginning of any kind of.
Therapeutic relationship about observing and noticing and paying attention to what's going on in the horses, because that's how the horses communicate.
And that, I think for people on spectrum is also quite important for them to understand that horses communicate in different ways from people and different people communicate in different ways from each other.
But if they can start to read a horse, then they can start to to read other things that are going on.
But it's the whole sensory thing.
It's it's being able to listen and to be able to smell to be able to touch all those things and to be able to examine, you know, which which things make me feel better and which things make me feel worse and.
I know one little boy who absolutely hates the smell of horse poo.
So it is not something that he would he would go for, yes.

Dan Kerr   40:53
Henry.

maggie   40:56
And so, you know, pay attention to what your senses are telling you. If you if you.
Are experiencing a sensory experience that you don't like. That's not going to go into your list of how do I soothe myself?
What things do I soothe myself with?
I won't be soothing myself by smelling horse poo, but I might soothe myself by smelling a hors hare and skin and maybe the breath from his nose.

Dan Kerr   41:21
Let's let's let's set up a session.
Let's and we're, we're, we've got. You've got an adult who's who's coming in. He's like myself.

maggie   41:29
I don't Yep.
Yeah.

Dan Kerr   41:32
He's been he or her. They have been like, diagnosed.
This person would be generally feeling overwhelmed.
They're in the process of having to reocking with their past.
They're having to deal with the present and they're worrying about what the future holds.
They have a lifetime of masking.
Scripts. They have social anxieties and probably no idea where to start in that healing. So.

maggie   42:01
Yes.

Dan Kerr   42:03
What? What? How do you go about dealing with someone like that?

maggie   42:08
Well, normally what I do, but not every time I would ask them to come for a visit if they've rung me and they've said, can I, you know, I've heard about equine therapy. Can I make an appointment? And I'll say well, come and have a visit meet the.
Horses. And when you've done that and you've experienced what the place is like and you've seen the horses and you've met me, then you decide whether you want to book in some sessions and there's no charge for visit normally. But if people want to convert a visit into.
A first session. That's fine too.
But for me it's really important.
Particularly with people on the spectrum is that they feel comfortable enough in the setting because there may be sounds that upset them.
There may be smells that upset.
They may not like I had one person because we're on a hill. He found it incredibly hard to walk to the arena from the car because the hill fell away and that was really hard for him to keep his his sense of self. When the hill was fall.
Away.
So you don't know what people can cope with until they try it.

Dan Kerr   43:11
OK.

maggie   43:11
So I introduced them to the horses over the fence.
I don't normally let them onto the arena.
Normally it will be four horses on a sandy arena and we will stand at the gate.

Dan Kerr   43:17
Hmm.

maggie   43:23
And we'll see what happens with the horses, and I will just talk to them a little bit about how I keep the horses. What the horses do, what I would expect to do. And I would say something like, look, if if you're interested, we can come and I.
Show you how to create the horses the way they like to be greeted.
Have you ever done that before?
And a lot of people say, Oh yes, I.
And bit by bit I'll be asking, have you had therapy before? Because.
They come here often because they don't like sitting in an office, so I need to find out what not to do, you know, like so. So what worked for you in your previous therapy? And what would you like to do?
What? What?
You know what kind of things would you like me to avoid doing?
Because often you know if it's rainy, we can go and sit inside.
But mostly speaking like to keep people outside with the horses as much as possible.
And again, I encourage people.

Dan Kerr   44:24
Have you?
Have you thought about a horse at this point?
Have you actually started to think about which horse would might be?

maggie   44:28
Not at this point.
I'll. I'll wait and see. As you probably know, there is always one particular horse who always comes up and demands attention. And so very often that will be their first point of contact with with my horses.
And I will try to.
I will set up.
I mean I have to set up some kind of contract, as it were, as to why they're there, what they're looking for, and I try to work on the basis of keeping it really, really simple because people come and.
And often people with their kids will say, oh, they've got terrible anxiety or they're depressed or they've got this or they've got that because they've been told by their doctors, they've got something. But what I really want to find out is what is it that you can't do?
That you would like to do.

Dan Kerr   45:13
Mm hmm.

maggie   45:14
And you know what? What?
What kind of things do you do that you'd rather not do?
And that's as plain English as I can get, you know.
So for somebody who who comes along and.
And would like to be able to get out more. They they won't leave the house and it may be that a parent is telling me that they won't leave the house, but I have to find that out from the kid because it's no good trying to do somet.

Dan Kerr   45:38
Mm hmm.

maggie   45:43
For.
A young person that the parent wants, unless the young person actually wants it too.
Because often, you know, like kids are sent along to therapy and that's another reason why as you know, I like the parents to be on the arena with the horses so that it's a group activity.

Dan Kerr   45:54
Yeah.
What if you got an adult who's not able to communicate themselves?
Well, they probably don't even know. Like what you know.

maggie   46:06
Oh no.
Oh yes.

Dan Kerr   46:08
So it's it's.

maggie   46:09
Yeah.

Dan Kerr   46:09
You have to try and get that out of them.

maggie   46:12
Yes. And again with people that there are a lot of people who I will tell them what I'm going to do and just look to see whether there's.
A sign of agreement in terms of is their face looking, or is their face going, you know?
People don't.
People don't always talk with their voices.
So.
Again, if somebody is not able to put their finger on it, or if you know if I look, if if I feel like I'm quizzing them.
What I will do is say, well, let's just do something and you can you can let me know how you feel about it.
So it would be something, yeah. Like let's let's do something together.

Dan Kerr   46:55
That's a great idea.
Yeah, yeah.

maggie   46:59
And I the first thing I would always ask people at a first session, once they decided they want to do a session is let's do some work from outside the arena.
Till you're sure that you feel safe enough to go onto the arena with the horses.
For some people, that doesn't happen for a while.

Dan Kerr   47:14
Oh, OK.

maggie   47:15
And yeah, because.
They have to trust me and they have to trust the horses. And just because just because they're here doesn't necessarily mean they're going to trust me.

Dan Kerr   47:22
Of course.

maggie   47:27
So again, with people who are find it hard to articulate what it is they want, I'll say, well, let me show you a few things and I'll go on to the arena and ask the horses to do something or just generally greet them or brush them or brush.

Dan Kerr   47:27
Yeah, yeah.

maggie   47:40
Them anything.
And I said this is the kind of thing that that I would be expecting you to do if you were interested, but at that stage, if this is just a preliminary visit, I still have page, whether this person really wants equine therapy or somebody else wants them to.

Dan Kerr   47:52
Hmm.

maggie   47:58
Go to equine therapy.

Dan Kerr   47:59
At 4:00 PM. That's it.

maggie   48:00
Yes.

Dan Kerr   48:01
And you're using a show.
Don't tell method as well. What by actually getting out there with the horses here? Yeah, and.

maggie   48:05
It's like this. Yeah, you can.
You can tell people a lot and it doesn't go in, but you know this is here's this horse and.
You know, I stand behind the horse because most people will say, oh, no, don't stand behind on horse because it'll kick you. And what I really want to reassure people, first of all is that my horse is a safe to stand behind as long as you don't do.

Dan Kerr   48:17
Yes.

maggie   48:29
Anything too sudden, but also they have to remember that these are my horses and they are safe horses and if they go to anybody else.

Dan Kerr   48:30
Mm hmm.

maggie   48:35
I have to remember that rule is fairly it's it's fairly good rule, but I don't want them to think that they're gonna be kicked if they come on the arena.

Dan Kerr   48:36
Mm hmm.
OK. Have you got any particular?
I don't know.
Success stories of any kind, that sort of resonate with you, that you keep thinking about again and thinking, wow, that I can't believe that happened or.

maggie   49:01
Yeah, people, echoing therapists always come up with amazing things that horses have done.

Dan Kerr   49:07
You.

maggie   49:08
I think I think the whole point about equine therapy when you're really into it is horses are a metaphor for everyday life. Whatever the horses are telling you, they're telling you in metaphor. And this is what this is a success story that I think is really neat and.
It was a long time ago when I had a young man come to me and he was, you know, all the usual stuff, anxious and and he came of his own accord.
It wasn't sent by anybody.
And I had it working with one of my old horses that I lost.
Who this horse was a very he was a lovely Arab horse. Very, very interested in things and very.
Very quirky in his behaviour.
And there was one point where the client and I were talking and the horse is sort of wandered off in into the other side of the arena and had found a rope on the ground, a leave rope, you know, with a clip on the end of it, the.
Foot on horses and he picked it up and he shook it around a bit and.
Every now and again we, you know, we were still talking.
Every now and again you'd do it again, and we'd stop and look and see what he was doing.
And at one point, the young guy said, Oh my God, he's just like my girlfriend.
He.
Is continually distracting.
And she does that too.
But she does it with a pyro if ever I want to talk to her, she starts clicking with a Byron and it stops the conversation.
Because she just, it's just distracting.
So we talked a little bit more about how the horse was like his girlfriend.
And that was a moment of.
Understanding for him that he hadn't realized how much that irritated him and how much it got in the way of them having good communications. And of course, there was more to do after that, but that was just a moment when I thought, yeah, that's what this horse does.
Well, he outlines, you know, and The thing is when when you're working with metaphor.
Again, you'll name the horse and and this horse, you know, he said.
This horse is like my girlfriend.
So there you go. That's.

Dan Kerr   51:26
Is is that why The Lone Ranger caught his horse trigger?

maggie   51:29
Probably.
Yeah.
I like it.

Dan Kerr   51:34
Had nothing to do with guns.

maggie   51:36
No, no, no.
It's all to do with trauma.
The Lone Ranger was a very traumatized person.
Oh dear.

Dan Kerr   51:46
Good. I was going to.
Just finally ask you just so obviously we got people from all over the place and they might be interested in seeking this out.
How? How do they go about finding therapy in the area?
There's particularly egg wine therapy.
Like what should they look for?

maggie   52:08
I think go online have a good look at all the websites that are there.
There are a lot of very good people out there nowadays. The amount of training that's been on offer since since the sort of.

Dan Kerr   52:15
Yeah.

maggie   52:24
The 2000s was when it really started to blossom, and Echo therapy has been going for years. Centuries. The people you know, it isn't anything new at the moment, but I think most people have thought it was to do with riding and has been to do with rid.

Dan Kerr   52:37
Yep, Yep.

maggie   52:44
And and is very good when you do do writing, writing for people with physical disabilities is fabulous. Writing for people with emotional difficulties.
Intellectual disabilities.
It's Absolutely Fabulous and there is also, I think a big reason for going to work with horses on the ground and it can be on the ground at liberty, you know, no ropes, nothing or it can be on the ground, leading horses around in.

Dan Kerr   52:58
Mm hmm.

maggie   53:14
In a headstone and everything is to do with relationship. It's all to do with creating a relationship where you're learning how to invite rather than demand. You're learning how to feel in control as opposed to feeling out of control.
All the things that you know that people want to know, how do I? How do I?
How do I do this?
I will try it with a horse first.

Dan Kerr   53:37
And also when you go on, go on.

maggie   53:38
Yes.
I was going to say just just make sure that you you.
If you.
You want to find equine therapy?
Find it online and then find somebody who's been there and find out if it's. If it's good or if it's worked for them and it won't work for everybody.
It's not for everybody.
It's quite demanding in some way.

Dan Kerr   54:00
Yep.

maggie   54:01
Having said that, I had one client who came and just wanted to sit with the horse, my old horse and she sat in the arena for a whole hour.
With the horse right next to her and she was just massaging his front legs, one front leg, then another front leg and.
And she whips them out. And she came away.

Dan Kerr   54:19
Beautiful.
Read it.
I'd love that goodness me.

maggie   54:26
So it doesn't have to be complicated.

Dan Kerr   54:28
Yeah.

maggie   54:29
You know, let let people find their own ways of of of doing what they need to do at the time.

Dan Kerr   54:35
Which is what a professional can do as opposed to finding, I don't know.
Rainbow Stream, a lovely hippie girl with who wears bare feet with horses.
And wants you to connect psychically to them or something like that.

maggie   54:53
Yeah. Yes.
And I'm not gonna try and connect psychically to the horse instead, and I recommend that you don't buy that, but connection is the really important thing.

Dan Kerr   54:58
Check their auras.

maggie   55:03
But it's not a psychic connection.
It I mean like I say, it's an energetic connection, but it's not like you know, again not Mystic energy.
It's just the energy you put in is really I look, there's masses of stuff I haven't said about attunement and scientific stuff about horse's heartbeats regulating other people's heart beats.
But we can't.
We can't.
We can't talk about everything.

Dan Kerr   55:22
Let's see it. Yep.

maggie   55:24
It's taken me years to learn all this.

Dan Kerr   55:25
Well, it's.

maggie   55:26
I can't tell you, but it's fabulous stuff. I'd recommend it to anybody to try, and if you like it, go for it.

Dan Kerr   55:26
No.

maggie   55:32
And if you don't like it, you know, well, try dogs.
Because dogs are completely different.
Because they're prey animals.
Course as a prey, animals and dogs are predator animals.
They both are really, really valuable in different ways.

Dan Kerr   55:44
Absolutely, yeah.
That coexistence plays a big part in our the history of of both our species or three of our species. You know, it's fascinating.

maggie   55:53
Yep, yes, yes.

Dan Kerr   55:57
I wanna thank you so much for talking about about particularly this therapy.
We've been trying to do it for awhile now and I just think it's it's it's something that a lot of people probably wouldn't realise just how valuable it can be.
And so for my side, I'd be recommending people to go and just experience it at least once.
To because they might be surprised at the sort of learnings and understandings. And just as I said, that visceral part of it is, it can be incredibly.

maggie   56:21
Yes.

Dan Kerr   56:27
Powerful for people to go.
So yeah, I would highly recommend that people seek out where possible and just try.

maggie   56:36
I would say so.
And it, you know, it doesn't have to be me.
There are a lot of good people around.
I have to say I've just completed an online, no ******** therapy course and I don't know if you're familiar with no ******** therapy, and I hope I can say ******** on on your, but I do try to keep things absolutely straight down the line.

Dan Kerr   56:53
Yep you can.
Yep.

maggie   57:01
Reducing the the jargon, absolutely being honest.
And fair, you know, honest and and and warm.
It's important that we have a good relationship.
I'm I'm not.
I'm not out there to tell people what to do and no ******** therapy is a really a really good reminder that, you know, we're not.
We're not there to to do anything other than just tell it like it is.
Oh, that's a terrible phrase, but yeah, let's talk in plain language.
Talk in plain language and not try to.
Not not try to.
Deliberately obfuscate things.
I think it's really important to to to talk in plain language.

Dan Kerr   57:44
Is there anything else that of that you would like to utilize as a plugging opportunity?

maggie   57:50
No, no, I wouldn't, I would say.

Dan Kerr   57:52
Your tick tock. You don't want to mention your tick tock or your.

maggie   57:55
No, no, no.
Look, I I have.
I have as many clients as I need at the moment, so I don't need drum up support.
It's nice to have a trickle coming through all the time, because that's the other side of it. I don't.

Dan Kerr   58:04
Mm hmm.

maggie   58:06
I only see two clients a day with the horses because I really don't want to overdo the horses, and it's actually quite intense doing it because I have to be on the alert the whole time, not just for the therapeutic side of it, but for the horse side.

Dan Kerr   58:14
Thank you.

maggie   58:19
Of it and physical safety.

Dan Kerr   58:19
Yep.

maggie   58:22
So yeah, I I think try anybody and everybody and make sure they're got lovely horses.

Dan Kerr   58:30
That's wonderful.
Thanks so much for spending your time talking to us.

maggie   58:34
OK.
Thanks Dan.

Dan Kerr stopped transcription