Equine Assisted Social Work Sessions are a professional, evidence based and empowering approach to Counselling, Psychotherapy, and Mental Health that supports clients of all ages in addressing therapeutic or life goals, using horses or animals as assistants and teachers in this process.
I was drawn to this modality after working in the disability and child protection sector for over 13 yrs. Over this time it became apparent to me that room based therapies were not suited to every participant and that we were not able to reach and connect with a large proportion of our community because of this.
With this in mind, I set out to find an approach and modality that felt right for me as a practitioner and that would connect with our community. I stumbled across Equine Assisted Psychotherapy and Social Work Sessions and after reading journal articles about the positive outcomes for those who had experienced trauma, rehabilitation in detention centres and war veterans.
I realised this was what I had been searching for, and went on to train with the Equine Psychotherapy Institute based here in Australia.
I have found there is some confusion as to what Equine Assisted Social Work sessions are, and always find it helpful to highlight what it is not. Whilst many horse related activities can have positive outcomes they are not Equine Assisted Social Work sessions.
This includes Horsemanship classes or lessons (even if facilitated by a mental health practitioner), therapeutic massage and treatment of horses, horse riding lessons and Hippotherapy.
Equine Assisted Social Work sessions are suited to children 5 years and older, adults and young people and does not require that participants have previous horse or animal experience.
Sessions can focus on the following areas:
Children with diagnoses including Autism Spectrum Disorder or ADHD
Children and Adults with a disability or mental health diagnosis
Support for neurodivergent adults and children
Trauma and PTSD
Grief and loss
Anxiety and or Depression
Social and life skill development
School groups
Work place groups/teams
Group Sessions
Sessions occur in a paddock and safety guidelines are shared to ensure the safety of all participants including the horses and animals.
Each session begins with grounding and mindfulness exercises to assist participants in utilizing their awareness. Equine Assisted Social Work sessions can provide experiential learning via mindful, relational experiences with the horses and each other including herd meets, liberty meets, mounted or ridden sessions, grooming and leading. Some of these experiences may also include projective experiences where participants can create a feeling or experience they wish to explore with objects such as rocks, rope, witches hats, poles and tyres and then explore it with a horse.
These experiments are experiential and relational meaning that they encourage new neural pathways to develop. These relational experiences are always tailored to meet the needs and goals of the participants and are co-created so that participants are in control of their sessions and can set boundaries and limits when needed.
Here at Sunshine Coast Equine Assisted Therapy we ensure all of our sessions are trauma informed and client centred. This means it is vital that all participants have an ability to set limits, boundaries and share when something is or isn’t working for them.
What drew me to this modality was that facilitators model healthy and safe relationships with our animal and equine teams so our animals are also afforded choice, control and an ability share how they feel and set limits.
The Equine Psychotherapy Institute has created a model and theory of change that incorporates many evidence-based theories and practices.
Some of these include
Gestalt Therapy
Buddhist Psychotherapy
Mindfulness Psychotherapy
Somatic Experiencing and Neuroscience based Trauma Practice
Trauma Informed Practice
Narrative Therapy
Play Therapy
Strengths Based Therapy
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Of course each practitioner brings their own therapeutic tool kit to the foundational model and theories as well as their own horsemanship skills and equine/animal team.
Each session is created around this model with the horses or animals at the center and meaningful and authentic relationships are modelled throughout. Horses are fantastic role models for healthy functioning, learning and living.
Horses model and can teach us about the following ways of being:
Being present, in the moment and living in the here and now
Being in the breath and the body
Being congruent and authentic
Using feelings as information
Confirmation/ no judgement
Belonging and herd life
Life as a process of living – there are no mistakes
Thoughts create behaviours
Animals, and specifically horses, can offer humans so much more than service. They can teach us, challenge us and support us.
This work is inspiring and challenges me every day to learn and grow as a human. In the words of one of our wonderful young participants;
"equine assisted therapy is when the horses help me learn about myself while I look after and learn about them."