Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy and
Equine Facilitated Learning
What is Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy (EFP)?
Eric E. Mueller, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Martin Buber (February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) the well known Austrian-born Jewish Philosopher wrote extensively on the healing qualities of connected relationships. Best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a religious existentialism centered on the distinction between I-thou and I-it relationship, he was the author of the now famous essay “I and Thou”. But did you know that it was a broad dapple-grey horse, who he affectionately referred to as ‘my darling’ that taught him to distinguish between a connected relationship (I-Thou) and a disconnected (I-It) one.
In Buber’s book Between Man and Man (1st published in 1947) he describes a formative experience at age 11 with ‘my darling’. On his grandparents estate at age 11, Buber states “I used, as often as I could do it unobserved, to steal into the stable and gently stroke the neck of my darling, a broad dapple-grey horse. It was not a casual delight but a great stirring happening…(the horse) did not remain strange like the otherness of the ox and the ram, but rather let me draw near and touch it…it let me approach, confided itself to me, placed itself in the relation of Thou and Thou with me”. (Between Man and Man, 1965. The Macmillion Co. p. 23)
Equine-facilitated Psychotherapy (EFP) makes the most of this powerful equine ability to relate and connect. EFP encourages individual congruence and well being and the enhancement of connected human-to-human relationships. Clients in EFP learn to be aware of (through mindfulness training, Sensorimotor, individual and group therapy) and modulate (through the building up of emotional resources) their own arousal and affective states. In one-on-one round pen work, they then learn to resonate and connect with the horse.
The unique advantage of horses over canines and other animals is that they display confusion, avoidance or nervousness in the face of incongruities in affect and behavior in humans. As the individual sorts out and owns their feelings and expresses them appropriately, the horse responds with cooperation and generosity (they join up), providing immediate reinforcement for positive changes in affect, cognition and behavior. The resulting interactions are exhilarating and liberating and create a horse to human connection that unleashes the healing effect of what Daniel Siegel, M.D. calls resonance (see Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, body, and brain, W.W. Norton & Company, 2003).
The combination of both the immediacy of the connection and the by-passing of often more complicated human interaction, allows for the individual to experience quickly the healing effect of being connected in a relationship with another and of being mindful and personally congruent with their own emotional state (a key component of connected human- to-human relationships).
What clients gain through their individual, group, and round pen work, deepens their awareness of a whole and healthy self which in turn allows them to be more present and connected in their human–to-human relationships. The goal of EFP is not better relationships with horses, though this is a wonderful side benefit, the goal is the healing of emotional pain and confusion and enhancement of healthy human-to human-relationships.
For more on EFP see these helpful books:
The Tao of Equus, Linda Kohanov. New World Library, 2001
Riding Between The Worlds: Expanding our potential through the way of the horse, Linda
Kohanov. New World Library, 2003
More inormation about Equine Assisted Therapy can be found at:
Human-Equine Alliances for Learning (HEAL)
Epona Equestrian Services