Equine Assisted Therapy
Equine Assisted Therapy is a therapy developed to help people by having them interact with horses.
There is an Arabic saying ‘the horse is a mirror’ which means that a horse will mirror the way the person with him feels as well as the way they act. Horses communicate with each other using body language and are very good at reading the subtle body language signals we give. They are also very empathetic and can read how we are feeling on a much deeper level than most humans can. Have you ever had a dog, or maybe even a cat, come to you when you are sad or upset as if it knew? So if you are feeling aggressive or angry, the horse will act aggressively, if you don’t like yourself, the horse wont like you, if you don’t feel confident the horse will either ignore you or try to dominate you, and get you to do what it wants instead of the other way around. A horse will give you honest feedback on the way you are feeling and acting in a way no therapist would dare to do.
In a herd horses play ‘leader / follower’ games and their social structure is fluid. They react to signals given by other horses, a submissive horse will react to a small signal, with a more dominant horse the signals have to be more forceful. At Espire our horses are trained using Natural Horsemanship where we use the same signals to get them to work for us that horses do with each other. Working with a horse loose in a small arena we can get him to move around, stop, change direction, increase or decrease pace by directing him from the centre using small ‘pressures’ of body language. Some of our horses are fairly submissive and react to a little pressure, some of them are more of a challenge.
Working with our horses will tell you a lot about yourself and will give you an insight into how other people really view you on a subtle level. If you are being dominated or even bullied by people around you it may be because you have an aura of submissiveness which they pick up on. Working with our horses will teach you how to recognise that and how to change it. If you feel that you cannot achieve much we will show you how to be successful with the horses and that will give you such a feeling of achievement.
Whatever your reasons for coming to us, you will leave feeling relaxed and empowered and with a greater understanding of yourself.
"Being able to direct Jumbo’s movements around the arena by just using my body language was an empowering experience.” - Helen, pictured above.