The older boy had his brother in a headlock demanding he say "mercy" before he let him go. Their mother patiently told them to cut it out. At first glance, they looked like any other pre-pubescent boys. But something wasn't quite right. They had a very large vocabulary— maybe they were just highly intelligent. They asked a great deal of questions about how things worked and why things were they way they were— maybe they were just very curious. They were full of unfocused energy— maybe they were just boys being boys. But there was such an intensity, some kind of "over-the-top-ness" about their behavior. Then they saw the horses, and almost all traces of slightly abnormal behavior went away.
Dakota, thirteen, and his brother Gabriel, eleven, have PDNOS, or Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. "Basically," says their mother Christine, "their disorder falls under the umbrella of autism." She explains that their most challenging symptom is their lack of focus. Their distractibility makes it hard for them to complete tasks and follow directions, but they are not like stereotypical autistic children. They are extremely outgoing and social. In fact, Christine tells me their incessant chatter has lessened as they have learned to become more focused during their equitherapy sessions.
The Horse Whispers Back
Equitherapy is therapy using equines, or horses. Although the therapeutic benefits of interacting with animals, in particular horses, were known long before science acknowledged them, only recently have horses been used to help treat everything from common emotional problems like "I'm having marital difficulties" to the most severe emotional diseases such as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) in soldiers. According to NARHA (North American Riding for the Handicapped Association), there are currently over eight hundred Equine Assisted Activity and Therapy centers available throughout the United States and Canada that help over 42,000 people each year. Although therapeutic horseback riding has been around since the late 1960's, only in the last ten to fifteen years has it grown in popularity, perhaps because science has started to tout its benefits even if they cannot be quantified or dissected. The medical community's long-standing aversion to the therapy could be attributed to the fact that nobody knows exactly why or how it works. But most of the families who have had relatives in the programs don't really care why it works. They just know it does. And in the dawning of the resurgence of holistic and alternative medicine, most doctors are giving in.
Judith L. Tyler, a doctor of psychology candidate and a clinical therapist, writes in her article "Equine Psychotherapy"that therapeutic riding is a good option for clients "who need a 'boost' therapeutically." Some clients who have had severe trauma are adept at spacing off during a traditional one-on-one session in a doctor's office. Tyler writes,"Additionally the therapist may not know during verbal dialogue which words or phrases may be triggering dissociative episodes in the traumatized client." However, the horse forces them to stay present. Because the client is continually bombarded by stimuli—the movement of the horse, the wind, outdoor sounds, he or she must stay focused on the "here and now." By having to stay in control of his or her mount, and therefore be aware of the horse's movements and tuned into subtle changes in its mood or behavior, the rider learns focus, empathy, and patience.
In her book, The Tao of Equus, Linda Kohanov also describes how effective horses are as therapeutic resources. She developed a method called Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy where, in addition to being a non-critical animal people feel comfortable opening up to, horses act as a sort of biofeedback mechanism for patients. This occurs because, as Kohanov notes, "The common human habit of suppressing negative or socially unacceptable feelings is notoriously unsettling to a species that survives by being able to gauge a predator's presence and intentions at a distance. A person who is 'emotionally incongruent,' who acts one way while feeling the opposite, appears dangerously out of focus to the equine awareness system." When a horse senses that someone is incongruent, he will act out the person's authentic emotions for her. Anyone who has ever been to a horse show has likely unknowingly witnessed this phenomenon on more than one occasion. The young girl who has been threatened by her parents and trainer to come out of the ring with a blue ribbon, consistently goes in and performs poorly. She enters the arena looking cool and confident, but her horse tears around the ring, refuses jumps, and has a terrified look in his eyes. Once a client becomes "congruent" and "owns" her true emotions, the horse will relax. Then the real healing can begin.
Kohanov speaks of how so many therapists get bogged down in set theories. If a client says she feels x then she must really be feeling y. But in a world where, as Rupert Isaacson writes in The Horse Boy, "...we in the west make such a cult of rationality, applying the same fundamentalist, obsessive approach to rationality, or science, that we previously applied to religion," feelings often take a back seat to the almighty logic and routine ways of thinking. Kohanov writes, "Our culture denies the wisdom of the body and the senses, deifying the mind in a vacuum, training us to stand in production lines or sit in cubicles at computers and sublimate our physical and emotional needs in service to the cold, objective logic of consumerism and competition." If a person can once again get in touch with her emotions, listen to them, and use them as a gauge as to how to proceed with all matters in life, Kohanov's research has shown that ultimately, that person will lead a much happier, more fulfilling, and abundant life. But the road to such successful psychological healing starts with the horse, an unassuming animal who seems to have endless patience with and desire to help the human race.
Equine Equanimity
Several healing horses live at Wings of Hope, a therapeutic riding center in Cleburne, Texas. Julie Rivard, the program director, tells me the center sees all kinds of patients. One girl fell off her own personal horse and shattered her leg as well as her confidence. "She was alright here," Julie says, pointing to her leg, "but she wasn't okay here," she says, pointing to her heart. The girl needed to regain her confidence on horseback, and Wings of Hope's calm and steady horses were just the animals to help her do that. These patient souls help hundreds of people per year. Julie tells me of an older gentleman who is partially paralyzed due to a stroke. It takes him nearly half of the forty-five minute lesson to get on the horse. He climbs on a stool and sits down on the saddle as if he is sitting in a chair. Then, with the help of several staff members, he swings his leg up over the neck and to the other side of the horse. Then he is ready to ride. The horses have been more of a physical benefit to him than anything else. His range of motion has greatly improved.
Wings of Hope sits on several acres dotted with pine trees. The entrance is the most heavily treed portion of the land, which makes for a physical reminder of the separation between the sometimes ugly and cruel outside world and the constantly positive, loving atmosphere that can be an oasis to families of the disabled as well as the disabled themselves. The drive winds through the piney entrance to a clearing where there is a large barn with a covered arena.
Julie tells me one of their biggest challenges, besides finding volunteers to help brush, saddle, and lead the horses for the riders who are unable to steer, is finding reliable horses. The majority of horses are donated to the program. Their backgrounds vary from ranch horse to world champion show horse. Before being accepted into the program, the he must pass a very rigorous trial period. Staff members lead and ride him around all kinds of scary objects, they get on him and poke and prod and scream. Anything they can do to potentially scare or annoy him they do. They want the horse to be basically unflappable since he will need to be around unpredictable and occasionally emotionally erratic people. If a horse cannot pass the multi day test, they send him back to his owner. If he can, everyone walks away happy. The owner gets a tax write-off for the donation, the center gets a new horse, and the horse gets a chance to help someone in need.
Roger, Gabriel's horse, is one who passed the stringent test. "I can always tell it's Roger because he has one white leg and a white patch on his nose," Gabriel tells me. "Oh Roger" he croons as he mounts up, his affection for the animal quite obvious. In fact, all of the children in the session seem to have a very strong bond with their horses. Larisa, whose speech is fairly limited, dances around excitedly before being called to mount Kate, a Belgian/Mule cross whose head itself is close to two feet long. Even though I stand five-foot-two and Larisa is several inches taller than I am, Kate towers over her rider. With one stomp of her foot this fifteen hundred pound animal could have the upbeat, perpetually smiling Larisa down on the ground afraid to come near her again, but instead she stands patiently as the girl situates herself in the saddle. Kate plods off as Larisa, at Julie's prompting, says "Walk on, Kate." As she rides by me, Larisa looks me in the eye, smiles, and says "Watch."
Although Larisa and Gabriel hold onto the reins, the horses are actually led by volunteers called "leaders." The riders do most of the steering but the leaders are there to make sure things don't get out of control. Volunteers can also serve as "sidewalkers" who help steady the rider's leg or prop them up if they have trouble maintaining balance in the saddle. Leaders and sidewalkers also serve a vital role in the therapeutic process. Because the riders generally have the same volunteers working with them each week, they can form a very special bond as the volunteers encourage the riders. For a while Gabriel was paired with Olin as a leader. But Gabriel became so chatty with his volunteer that he had to be paired with someone else so that he could once again connect with the horse and focus on the lesson.
In an effort to mix things up, keep riders focused, and give them challenges, several obstacles are set up around the arena. There's a bean bag toss, a basketball hoop, barrels to walk around, and landscape timbers to trot over. Dakota's focus has improved so much that he is able to ride Red through the obstacles by himself. He walks his mount up to the bean bag toss and throws one through the plywood cutout exclaiming, "He shoots, he scores!" Julie congratulates him and then turns her attention to Gabriel who is trying to walk Roger in a circle around a barrel. "Pull with your right rein." "ROGER," Gabriel grumbles as his horse tries to stay straight. "It's alright, just be persistent and clear about what you want," Julie says patiently. Gabriel pulls harder and Roger makes the turn. "What a good boy," Gabriel says lovingly, his frustration immediately gone.
Next, Julie helps Larisa work on her mobility. She turns around in the saddle and tries to touch the top of Kate's tail. Julie congratulates her when she comes close. She faces forward and tries to touch Kate's ears. When she does, Larisa smiles and leans down to pet her horse. Her mother, Sherry Watts, turns to me and says, "This summer, two weeks before the first class, she asked me what day it was and I said 'It's Wednesday.' She went in and got her helmet and boots out and put them by the front door. I said 'sweetie it's going to be two more weeks.' But she left them there and she didn't want anybody moving those until she got to come to see the horses." She laughs and says, "She really does look forward to it."
Christine comments that a year ago when her boys started equitherapy she was very leery of the two extra hours that would have to be found in an already hectic school day in the middle of the week. Before the equitherapy sessions, she and her husband would be up until eleven or twelve at night doing homework with the boys. "What would take a 'normal kid' twenty to forty minutes to finish, would take us four or five hours to finish." The boys would be up and down and need to take breaks. They would have meltdowns and be frustrated and tired. But then we decided to try therapeutic riding. "I've noticed that during the sessions they follow directions, pay attention, and their focus improves." This carries over into the homework session following their therapy. "The same amount of homework goes much faster." This is a huge relief to Christine. She is adamant that they "not become wards of the state or retread tires or something." Thus, as soon as they proved themselves in school, both boys were enrolled in "mainstream" classes.
In addition to these benefits, there have been some unexpected ones. Dakota is at the point where he really wants friends and a connection with his peers. But his peers decided a long time ago they did not want a part of that. So, the horses are good because they aren't judgmental and are always here for him. This connection between horse and rider is undeniable even if it is indescribable, ineffable. It heals broken bones, souls, and minds. As Winston Churchill so aptly said, "The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man."
