Equine Assisted Practices including Horse Therapy

This episode was inspired by a talk given to therapy interns.  Check out the resources below- We covered a lot of topics related to this one.  I love hearing the input and feedback, so please dont be shy.

Movies/Shows

"Heartland"

"Rescued Hearts" film- to be released soon! A documentaty you dont want to miss!

Books;

'The Tao of Equuas". ~ Linda kohanov

"The Art of Facilitation, with 28 equine activities". ~ Charisse Rufdolf

" Horse Brain Human Brain" Dr. Jones

"Horse Boy"  & all  books by Rupert Isaacson

https://naturallifemanship.com

https://www.equinewisdominstitute.org/

https://youtu.be/H5QPGX4QAf0

Transcript

Samson Q2U Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera: 0:01

Hi, this is Ishii Abel, the Horse Human Connection Matrix podcast. Today, I want to talk a little bit about what's available for equine therapists. I'm going to give a talk to some interns. And it occurred to me that this might just be a great subject for a podcast as well. So, I want to talk a little bit about the history of horses. What my purpose is, the things I've noticed, the science, the myth, and the magic. I want to list some of the people that are highly, highly influenced this industry and that have also influenced my opinions and the work that I do. I want to talk about a few certification programs and what those things are and kind of bring things back to therapy and throw in a little bit of stuff about autism as well. So here we go. An awful lot of horse. And this has got to bring images up to all of us through our modern media, whether that's the Wells Fargo wagon, or Westerns, or movies that we've seen about horses carrying men into battles, or pulling chariots from the earliest times pulling plows, Of course, man, woman, and horse have had this relationship for many, many, many, many, many years. And how did it start? There's a fanciful chapter in a book called Clan of the Cave Bear, which, going way back now, deals with a time on the Earth when there were Neanderthals and Cro Magnon Man. And in this novel, that is very well done, documented and substantiated in many of the things that it talks about between herbalism and flintknapping and, and a lot of the science. Anyway there's a chapter where this woman gets on a horse. And you can imagine that this could very well be that the very first time a human decided to get on a horse. And, I love what that captured in me when I read it because it's almost as if the horse is inviting her. And I imagine that's the way it was now that I know these creatures so well. Being able to train a horse to go into battle the way the Romans did, the way It's been done throughout history the way George Washington did. George Washington was an exceptional horseman and I have a feeling that that's why he related so well to his troops and his soldiers as well. The trust that you have to have to take a prey animal into a situation where you're gonna Cut people and make blood and kill people on its back. That kind of trust, that kind of partnership is, is, is just like, it blows my mind that we've been doing this for so long and that those things would go against a horse's nature in so many respects. So that being said, it's not a huge jump for me that horses have wanted to be our partners. Why else would they? Why else would this relationship have lasted so long? So, when I began to learn about horses, which was when I was a child, and then much later, as a person in her 40s, I've There was a lot to learn, a lot to learn about being a leader, a lot to learn about dominance and bossing horses around and imitating herd behavior, or at least specific parts of herd behavior. The parts where the lead mare and a stallion boss everybody else around, but that's not all they do. And, and that's important to look at the other ways that herds interact, the members of a horse herd interact with each other. So, As I began to study more and more, something didn't sit right with me. And when I started to walk down the road of Equine Assisted Learning and went to get some horse therapy for myself, I realized some things. I realized that horses are going to show up really, really differently when we're not asking them. to do all this stuff for us when we're not treating them like slaves, which is essentially the way that traditional horsemanships have treated horses. We capture them, we keep them, we feed them, we ask them to work for us, we reward them, and we punish them, and they are not free. That's pretty much what a slave is. When we ask them even if they're domesticated horses to work with us in an emotional way, and they still may be slaves, but they seem to be offered more choices and just being recognized for having these different attributes and abilities. Rather than just carrying people around, bringing them into war, pulling plows, and being transportation. Asking them to participate on an intellectual and emotional level elevates them. It elevates the relationship. And they show up differently. And we begin to see them for who they really are. They are Amazing creatures who are way, way smarter than most people give them credit for. I used to like to say this, and now I realize that this is even insulting. That the average horse has an intelligence of a three or four year old child. Well, that may apply to the amount of language skills they have. But they have even more than that. Like my older mare who's 30 years old, a very smart horse to begin with, a very old horse who's been working with humans and around humans for a very long time, is way more than a four year old child. In fact sometimes she feels like my mother. Yes. When we recognize what they're capable of and Ask them to help and treat them well. All kinds of, all kinds of wonderful things happen. So, before I come back and talk about some of the neuropathways, the neuroscience, and the magic, I want to list some of the people and talk briefly about them. So Linda Kohanov. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. The Tao of Equus. She's written a couple of other books. I consider her the grandmother of equine therapy. This woman had a horse who was lame and she couldn't ride it so she began to walk with it in these auroras of Arizona and then she wrote a book about her experiences and this horse began to communicate with her and she began to have a very very deep connection with this black mare who Who really began everything that we do today, I believe. Cherise Rudolph is a woman who wrote a book called The Art of Facilitation with 28 Equine Assisted Activities. I got to study with this woman before she retired from horses. She is currently an artist. And this was about experiential learning. Now Cherise started off with Working with kids in outward bound programs and then moved into ropes courses and eventually into equine therapy and ended up specializing in veterans in the military and then specifically women with PTSD in the military. And this book that she wrote with all these beautiful equine assisted activities to do which promote, experiential learning is just phenomenal. And I've, I've worked out of the book with several different groups. I trained with her and the processing that takes place afterwards is so unexpected. I mean, these exercises we're going to bring things up for people that you can't even Imagine that they're going to bring up, and that's, that's the real beauty of it. It's not just the exercises, it's also how the horses show up. A very important book is Horsebrain Human Brain by Janet Jones, Ph. D. That is like an essential these days. Liz Mitton Ryan has done an incredible amount of work up in Kamloops, British Columbia, and I was able to study with her as well. And just through meditation, With horses and channeling and interacting with her herd. The horses up there are are phenomenal also and a lot of that work is done with heart math. A lot of what Sharice Rudolph does is also utilizes heart math. And if you're not familiar with heart math, that is definitely something to look up. It is advertised as a quick coherence method, a way of bringing our physiology back into a, a more regulated state. And that feeds into how we interact with horses and the loops that can be created, too. The movie Rescued Hearts, which has not yet been released, but should be this summer, is going to be a very important documentary documenting all the way that horses and humans and how lives are changed by those connections. Most people are familiar with the Netflix series Heartland, the type of work and reflection and mirroring done in this TV sitcom. It's a very well made entertainment, as I see it. But it also, it also tells what's possible with horses. And The star of the show, whose name escapes me at the moment, is instrumental in the movie that I just mentioned, Rescued Hearts. She's in the movie, she advocates for the movie, and it's gonna, it's gonna be great. So, all of these people, all of these resources are available. To learn more and to study from and in my mind, I mean there are others out there too, but in my mind these are what I have found, what I have read, what I have followed, and what have heavily influenced how I got to this place. For people to become certified in, in a modality, that corresponds with their licensing as a counselor or a therapist or for a lay person horse person to have a certification that then they can work with a therapist. There are a lot of different programs and unfortunately there's not a standardization. There's not even a standardized initials that stand for this work. I use EPA for equine assisted practices because it's broad in general and can cover everything. There's somebody else that grabbed those initials and used them for their own program. There are other broader initials that are out there. And so that can be a little confusing. So I think it's worth mentioning that there's not a standardized abbreviation for this type of work. And maybe there shouldn't be because It varies so much as we get a little deeper into it, you'll see how much it varies. So PATH, Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship. They will certify people to be very safe working with horses, with children, with handicapped people, mentally and physically with autistic people. And I've read about their programs. I've looked into doing it myself and. Decided not to. When we're talking about the science and the magic, this program's been around for a really long time, and it does good getting people with horses, but I don't think it scratches the surface of what's possible. EGALA is another very old program, Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association. So this is a program that began with some metaphors and with horses. Working with youth in detention facilities. And they've done a lot of good work. Again, they are, they've been in there for a very long time. And I'm not sure they've grown with all of the knowledge that's now available. But, the history of equine therapy is worth looking into. In any way that it interests you. As far as I'm concerned, any time you get horses and people together, well not any time, but almost any time that you get horses and people together with the intention and atmosphere for doing emotional work, something good is going to come out of it, as long as nobody is getting hurt. Equine Experiential Education Association is called E& A. Equisoma is Horse Human Trauma Recovery. Rupert Isaacson, who we'll talk a little bit about, and who I have an interview on my podcast with, is also an author, the author of Horse Boy, the movie Horse Boy, the method Horse Boy. So, This will segue into some of the science. I'm just going to mention Dewey Freeman as well with attachment and mirroring effect and there's links in the email that I sent about, about these things. I would definitely have a look into them. So let's talk about Rupert for a little bit. Rupert had been a horse trainer and he was a journalist and he had a six year old nonverbal incontinent. autistic son that they had struggled with for six years. And I think when the child was about four, he wandered next door and Rupert found him in a stall with a horse. And did not panic because he had trained horses and he could see that, you know, there wasn't an immediate danger. But he did end up going and talking to the man that owned the horse, who didn't ride the horse anymore, and got permission to start taking his son on rides. Well, the child loved this. And Rupert noticed that while on the horse, his son was calmer, was regulated better and seemed to be more aware of his surroundings. Later, Rupert had an opportunity as a journalist to go on a six week horseback riding journey with shaman through Mongolia. And this just, this is one of those things that just fell into place, you know, serendipitously. And so he brought his wife and the child. And over the six weeks, Traveling through Mongolia on horseback, the autistic boy has breakthroughs that are incredible. So when he gets home, Rupert finds a neuroscience and said, even though he was with shaman, even though he understands shaman and has a very strong belief system in this, he wanted to know if and what the science was. And what they came up with was movement of the hips releases the neurochemical oxytocin which is a feel good chemical that helps us regulate and helps us learn and connect. I still think there's more to it than that, but I'm sure that that's true also. Dewey Freeman has a slightly different opinion about what happens with the hips of a horse and connecting with humans. I'll let you watch the, the YouTube to find out more about that because it too is interesting. I want to highly, highly recommend as a resource, not just because I'm the one doing the interview, but because the most knowledgeable person I know about horses and horse therapy is a woman that taught me a lot of this. And her name is is Carissa Schmidt. And the interview that I have not released yet, but should be released hopefully next week is with her, and her commenting about all of this. And she can comment about it from a clinical standpoint, and from an expert horsemanship standpoint, which you don't want to miss. So there's more ground to cover here. Let's let's go back a little bit to more of the neuroscience. Horses don't see the same way we do. They have eyes on the side of their head. They're prey animals. If you walk a horse through the barn, And a hose is always ruled up a particular way. And most barn aisles, commercial barns are going to have hoses to fill the water buckets that are in the stalls. That horse sees that hose differently every single time that it's been moved. It has to process, is it dangerous? What changed in my environment? And of course, older horses that have been there for a really long time are going to become somewhat desensitized to it. But when we're out on a trail, or even in an arena, With the sun coming in at a different angle, or through a different window, or a different time of day, or something shiny on the floor, or a jacket hanging over a stall door, all of these things have changed in the horse's environment and register in their brains as possible danger. So when a horse feels danger, it will become dysregulated. Because they can become so easily dysregulated, and do frequently, even in domestication, even in environments where they're used to things, they have to get really good at becoming regulated again. So just like people become emotionally dysregulated, the horses are going to feed off of people, just like they'll feed off of the other animals in a herd. So in a herd of horses, in a wild herd of horses, they have a connection with their electromagnetic field in their heart. They are hypervigilant, they're prey animals. The lead mare is responsible for knowing the environment the best. For knowing every individual the best. So that if A horse grazing on the outside of the herd is the first to hear something in the bushes that might be a predator. It will become dysregulated. It will, its ears will move, its heart rate will change, and that lead mare will know that. And then that lead mare will decide it's time to run or Maybe just one or two horses will investigate a little bit and then it might be time to run. Whatever the decision is, she's making that decision. But she's making it quickly because she's so in touch with the herd. And every member of that herd is connected. Can you see how this behavior can translate to working with humans and giving them a sense of belonging? So even just sitting in a round pen with a horse is going to bring up feelings of in being included and belonging that humans aren't used to having that we rarely get from being around other humans. Just just one thing that and the ability to regulate fairly quickly, so they go up and come down. So the saying, and maybe you've heard this, meet the person where they are. This is actually a horse training thing that's been morphed into the therapy world. Because in training a horse, you meet them where they are. And this is old school. Before we got better at telling about the subtleties in training a horse, where they are most receptive to learning, one of the methods was, if the horse is really up, get really up there with the horse. Make them, if they're afraid of something, make them afraid of you, and then bring them down together. You can see how that translates from the herd behavior. Now, hopefully, most trainers know a little bit more about nuance, you know, and all of that isn't necessary, but a version of it, a much milder version of it, is still effective.

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As we've been talking about horses and herd behavior and human therapy and all that's available, I think I'm beginning to make a picture where you can understand how valuable horses are in equine assisted learning and in equine therapy and how they mirror us. I don't know if I talked very much about the mirroring effect, but humans have mirror neurons and horses, horses have something. I don't know what it is, but part of the way they always show up is about that mirroring and how they show us what we need to know. It just, it happens all of the time. So, as I was talking with these therapy interns, it's, it's a fine line to walk I think when you begin to bring animals into therapy because we are tempted to do that thing, or to give them more credit than is due, or to interpret things that seem quite magical in different ways. And it's hard not to get labeled as woo woo or way out there. But when you start to come into this world and you see what's possible, and you see how they help. I would just say stay away from it unless you have an open enough mind and you're willing to walk that line and balance it. Because I think still maintaining your credibility with colleagues may become difficult. At some point people maybe don't care. I don't care. But I know people that work in this field that are constantly trying to navigate that, and it's not always easy. I think some of the newer research, even though it may not qualify in our quote unquote scientific world, but the telepathy tapes. The idea that is being documented that autistic children all over the world, Dr. Hennessy Powell down in Medford and some, some woman has made a group of podcasts and gone to a lot of trouble to scientifically document how these occurrences are happening and, and what is going on. But. It doesn't surprise me at all because I've been immersed in this world. I think there's a lot of people that doesn't surprise that nonverbal autistic children are telepathically commuting with their caregivers. I mean, it makes perfect sense to me. And I, I just wonder about other people that are nonverbal as well. Dr. Temple Grandin started talking about autistic people thinking more in pictures than normal people and herd animals thinking in pictures. I don't know that she ever made the jump. I have not read all of her books. There's a telepathic transference of this, but that was certainly my experience both with the cattle and I've got a podcast about the cattle and how much do they really understand because that was where I started realizing that, that these animals were understanding me at a level that was just incredible. Even before the horses. So, you know, is it because I'm special? Because I have some clairvoyant powers? I mean, maybe. I don't think they're super strong. I think they've been strengthened by various practices and things that I've done in my life. But I firmly believe that autistic, allistic, whatever your brain function is, that we all have this ability. It's simply a matter of believing and practicing and slowing down enough to Develop what is naturally there. When we start talking about Gestalt and Jungian type therapies, we're already asked to understand and believe in our subconscious or our unconscious mind and what goes on there. You know, and aren't these really part of the same thing? I mean this. Our brains are just so complex and fascinating, both with instinct and intuition and generational storage and cellular memory. You know, I mean, you can make a case of antidotal science for all of these things that helps make it believable. Will there ever be hard, hard line science? I don't know. I, I, I really don't know, but that doesn't mean you can't believe in it. That doesn't mean it isn't useful. And even if you don't completely believe in it, there are still ways to utilize the horse human connection in working with clients or in working with experiential learning and people. When I came back from equinicity in British Columbia with Liz Ryan. My horses began to act differently and I began to treat them differently. And I wanted to do these 20 case studies that she had, she was going to give some sort of a certification if you did the case studies and then brought them back and had a second visit. Well, I never got around to going back for the second visit, but I definitely completed all of the case studies and some really and I documented them and some really amazing things happened. And some stories that are. You know, some of them are told in my previous podcasts here and there. One that really, really stands out. That I don't know that I have talked about that much was a young man, well he wasn't that young, he was in his early 30's, came and he was very conflicted, it was during the time of the pipeline incident with the Lakota and North Dakota and the military was out there trying to put a stop to this protest so the pipeline could be built. And this man, who came to my ranch to do a case study, was military, he was ex military. And he was also of Native heritage. He was very sad about all the things that were happening. And he sat down with my horse, and this was a, an Appaloosa. Foundation bred Appaloosa Mustang. And if you don't know horses, Appaloosas are derived from a breed that was helped along by the Nez Perce, who were an Indian tribe, and they were war ponies. So the genetic makeup of this horse was really in line with With this young man, and a lot of people don't realize that horses cry. They, they shed tears and they cry from sadness. And they don't do it very often, but my horses did it several occasions during these case studies. And this horse sat with this man for over an hour. With his head bowed in front of him, the man is on a chair. In the pasture. And they cried. And I wasn't privileged to everything that happened, but it was over an hour. And they cried, and the horse did some licking and chewing, and they meditated, and the horse was moving energy off of him. And he got up out of that chair and said, I have to go. I'm going home to get my pack, and I'm driving there. And he did. He left my ranch, he picked up his clothes, same day, headed on the road to go and be with these people. And he contacted me after he was home, well he contacted me from being there and then also when he got home with the portion of the questionnaire about, you know, what happened to you during this. He sent me pictures, too. And he had these amazing experiences while he was there. His military background really helped the Native protesters understand what these people's next moves were. He saved people's lives as they were spraying water on the Natives, and if, if the men that had any facial hair. it were protesting there, or even just having cold water that would instantly freeze on your face because it was that cold. People would have suffocated had he not been able to use techniques he knew to quickly defrost their faces and, and he was a lot of help. So one of the pictures he sent me was all of these military people standing up on this hill with their binoculars and their rifles overlooking the camp where the protesters were. Another experience he told me about was he went for a walk to just kind of decompress by himself. And as he was walking down this road, this long straight road, that had a rather high, like a 30 foot berm on the side of it, he heard this noise, and this rumbling, and this herd of wild horses. Came up this berm in to his side, but right there and the stallion was in the middle. And he sent me this picture of this majestic stallion and this berm just lined with horses on either side of him. And he said he just had, had goosebumps and was just overcome with all of this emotion. Feeling like, you know, these horses were supporting them. As well. And he said he was flashing images of the horse that that I kept while this was happening. It's a wild story. It's his story. I got to witness the part of it that happened at my ranch. But it's all part of the bigger story of our history with horses and how they are here to help. And how You know, crossing this divide, being brave enough, being open minded enough to see what's really out there. It benefits everybody. It just benefits everybody. And I hope, you know, my hopes are that at some point we start realizing the real value of the horse, that we start realizing what. The horses in the wild who are cold. They're still cold. Like a lot of them are killed off because there's not enough food because their leases are their government leases for these animals to be wild and preserved that are such a part of our heritage, such a part of our country. Such meaningful help for us and the human species are competing with cattle leases. I'm not saying that cattle aren't important, too. But the politics that get involved are messy and unfair and there's just, there's a lot of work to do. Thanks for listening. I love to hear questions and comments. And if you think you would like to be interviewed on my show, I would love to hear from you. If you haven't subscribed, please subscribe. There is a YouTube channel. It is Irene Abel Horse Human Connection on YouTube. There is the podcast, The Horse Human Connection Matrix, available lots of places. And there's also a button to donate if you feel so moved. Although, I would much rather have you tell three friends than I would have you donate. Again, thanks for listening.