You may have heard the phrase “Equine Therapy”, “Equine Assisted Therapy” or “Horse Therapy”.
So, what is Equine Therapy?
Equine Therapy is a form of experiential therapy that involves interacting with horses to promote emotional growth and healing for people. It involves a therapist working with horses and their handlers to provide an environment that aids a person’s mental health.
Research has proven, over and over, that interacting with animals is very good for our mental and emotional health!
It reduces stress and anxiety, helps lower blood pressure, improves depression, and a whole lot more besides.
Whilst most animal assisted therapy programmes use small animals, like dogs and cats, there is a growing number of equine assisted therapy programmes.
However, because most normal sized equines aren’t exactly as portable as your average cat or dog, it begs the question – what happens in Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT).
Where does equine therapy take place?
How does it work given that you can’t really cuddle a horse, or even a pony, on your lap like a dog or cat!
What is Equine Therapy and How does it Work?
Let’s start with an explanation of what Equine Therapy or Equine Assistd Therapy is.
As the name suggests, EAT is an umbrella term that covers a range of therapies that use interaction with horses in some form to help promote cognitive, emotional, and physical wellbeing in people.
EAT can involve riding, grooming, general care and maintenance, or just working with them.
Therapeutic Riding Or Riding For The Disabled
Riding for the disabled programmes are probably amongst the oldest, and better-known types of equine assisted therapy.
Also called adaptive or therapeutic riding.
It offers people with disabilities the opportunity to improve a range of core motor skills through riding horses.
Here in Australia there are a number of these groups in every state.
Riding therapy horses can give disabled people a sense of freedom they can’t experience any other way. It also helps them…
Build core strength
Improve fitness and muscle tone
Increase joint movements
Improve balance and posture
Improve physical co-ordination and reflex responses
Limber up and stretch tight muscles
Improve sensory assimilation
Build confidence
It also provides an opportunity for able-bodied people to get their own therapy by helping to look after, prepare, and work with the horses.
What Happens In Equine Assisted Therapy – Hippotherapy
Although Hippotherapy might sound like therapeutic riding, there are some key differences.
Therapeutic riding is more about teaching people with disabilities to ride and interact with horses to improve a range of physical, psychological, and motor skills.
Hippotherapy on the other hand uses the specific rhythmic vibrations produced by a horse’s movement to improve sensory, cognitive, and neurological function by way of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS).
How it works…
The SNS controls our flight and fight response. It triggers the physiological changes within our body that help us respond to danger (i.e. it increases our heart beat, blood circulation, oxygen absorption, and oxygen delivery to muscles).
If you’ve ever consciously monitored yourself during an emergency, you’ll know you have super heightened senses, and feel 10 feet tall and capable of jumping tall buildings in a single bound!
That’s your SNS at work.
The nerves that make up the SNS are located in our thoracic and upper lumbar vertebrae. The thoracic vertebrae start just below the neck vertebrae and meet up with the lumbar vertebrae in the lower back.
When we ride a horse, these vertebrae all absorb the rhythm and movement of the horse and this stimulates the SNS. Hippotherapy taps into this stimulation and the way it enhances our cognitive skills and our ability to execute behavioural tasks.
Equine Assisted Therapies – EA Psychotherapy
If you’ve ever just sat in a paddock and interacted with horses, you’ll understand how mentally and emotionally calming and therapeutic it is. Just sitting there, watching them eat, talking to them, stroking inquisitive noses, and breathing in their unique scent…
EA psychotherapy uses these aspects of interaction with horses to help people suffering from mental health disorders like addiction, PTSD, anxiety, depression etc.
Equine Assisted Therapies – EA Learning
Equine Assisted Learning uses non-riding interaction with horses to help build confidence. This can improve communication and teamwork, and teach a range of life skills. Participants learn how to handle horses, look after them, and generally interact with them.
Equine Therapy Has Many Benefits And Several Models
The benefits of any type of therapy that involves animals are many.
However, because horses have a particularly good affinity with humans. Equine Assisted Therapies are gaining ground as mainstream treatments for a range of physical and psychological disorders.
What is equine therapy though very much depends on the goals of the participant, and the therapeutic model being used.
