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Benefits

Working with a horse can lead to intense discussions and insights.  Horses respond to body language, muscle tension, heart rate, blood pressure, and incongruence’s when an individual is near them.  This offers the individual constant feedback and mental focus.  What makes our program unique is that each of the horses, which each have their own stories, is paired with one counselor and one individual for a private counseling session. The sessions are flexible, allowing the time to best serve the unique needs of the individual. Instead of being lost in a group setting, each individual is guided by a counselor who shares in his or her individual challenges and triumphs.  It is our hope that through hands-on experience, individuals will learn values of life, family, faith, and trust at home, in school, or in the community.

The Benefits of Equine-Assisted Counseling

Individuals and groups learn how to recognize emotional, behavioral, or social patterns that influence their behavior and find healthy personal answers through exploratory interactions with horses in a safe setting. Through exploring, questioning, challenging, validating, changing, and learning more about themselves, their relationships, and the world around them, results in gaining a fresh perspective on life.

CoachHorse can help:

Improve self-confidence and self-esteem	Develop appropriate assertiveness skills
Build healthier relationships through self-awareness	Promote change from dysfunctional patterns to successful ones
Diminish fear and self-doubt	Have fun
Enhance social skills	Enhance leadership skills
Develop the awareness of patience	Promote teamwork

Some Key Benefits

Equine-Assisted Counseling works with Emotional, Social, or Behavioral issues.
Working with a horse can lead to intense discussions and insights.  Horses respond to body language, muscle tension, heart rate, blood pressure, and incongruence’s when a client is near them.  This offers the client constant feedback and mental focus. 

Individuals not responding well to “Talk Therapy”
Anecdotal research shows that children and teenagers are much more open to Equine Assisted Therapy as sitting in an office with a therapist can be very intimidating. In addition to the child or teenager does not want to be there.  Horses are great gateways to opening the door to building a relationship with the therapist. Activities and interactions with the horses combined with therapy fosters motivation and commitment to the therapeutic process.

Individuals with Anxiety
Research has shown that tactile touch, grooming, petting, and breathing awareness when with a horse reduces anxiety.  Simply spending time in their presence creates a calming influence. These activities combined with therapy help the client learn how to replace dysfunctional and harmful responses to anxiety.

Individuals facing Depression
Depression often follows a period when we did not listen or pay attention to our emotions. Depression is our attention grabber. Horses naturally teach us how to pay attention to our thoughts and feelings that we have ignored. Through reflective round pen work, a horse will teach us to become aware of our body language as well as the messages behind the emotions.  The relationship and activities when working with a horse combined with therapy creates opportunities to motivate and understand the issues the client is faced with.

Self Esteem
Horses make wonderful healers. They are non-judgmental and enter into relationships to please. They have no predetermined expectations or hidden agendas where as humans often feel as if they have to hide their true-selves and their imperfections, in order to feel accepted by others. Living in such an unauthentic sense of self can create self criticism and negative personal judgment.   When a client hangs out with a horse and acknowledges her imperfections she starts to be more forgiving, accepting, and less judgmental of herself as she realizes that the horse also has imperfections.  As the self criticism slowly dissolves, the positive awareness of self grows helping the client to become more receptive to new possibilities, new ideas, new experiences, and new ways of viewing the world. Learning from a horse combined with therapy promotes positive healthy thinking and a sense of connection to humanity.

Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Violence
Safe emotional boundaries can be a challenge for individuals who have experienced prior relationships that were controlling or abusive. Clients discover that interacting with the horses, within the context of a respectful and trusting relationship, can be healing. Also the size of the horse puts some effective physical boundaries to the forefront immediately. Horses utilize their size to teach 'respect' for physical boundaries and also provide opportunities to create and maintain your own healthy boundaries.

Attention Deficit Disorder
Trying to stay on task or concentrate for many children can be very frustrating. Disappointment sets in and the child many times gives up. Both you and your child feel helpless and hopeless. Equine Assisted Therapy increases the child’s ability to slow down and evaluate. Problem solving and identifying what needs to be done when caring for a horse helps to control his impulse control and decrease his anxiety when confronted with a new and challenging situation.

Trauma
Due to life experiences, trauma, your emotions become overwhelming and you shut down.  You may feel stagnant, depressed, unproductive, and alone. Working with a horse is ideal for you when combined with therapy. You can be yourself, the horse does not judge you as you try something different to help increase physical mobility and decrease fatigue.  You desire to move closer, building a bond, and stay longer, moving out of your comfort zone. A sense of control and accomplishment is felt.

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