The healing power of horses

SUMMIT COUNTY — Driving the two miles from Highway 9 through the hilly, former ranchland took concentration, as the narrow dirt road curved and peanut-shaped prairie dogs scampered randomly in front of the car.

In some ways, I welcomed the challenge of avoiding an accident. It helped keep my mind off where I was headed — to the barn of Colorado West Mental Health’s “Reins of Change” program for a session of equine-assisted psychotherapy.

Despite the stunning beauty of a perfect summer day in Summit County’s horse country, I was both curious and apprehensive about the appointment.

Having read the program’s brochure, I knew I could expect, “an innovative treatment modality in which horses are used as a medium for emotional growth and learning.”

It didn’t sound like traditional therapy in an office, but I didn’t know exactly what it would entail.

“How much experience have you had in the past with horses?” therapist Helen Royal asked first thing when I showed up at the barn.

I confessed to a brief stint at riding camp as a child and basic fear of the enormous animals.

Apparently unfazed by my nervousness, Royal’s co-facilitator — horse professional “B” Casapulla — handed me a helmet and took me outside to meet the program’s six “special” horses.

The three of us stood in the sunny pasture watching the horses graze as the two women took turns describing each one’s history and personality. They told me that I needed to choose a horse to “partner” with during the session.

“Horses are honest,” Royal explained, noting that they’re social creatures, and they’ll respond to emotions and nonverbal communication with immediate feedback.

Working one-on-one with a horse can help a client gain insight into a variety of life problems, she went on.

Examples of issues that lend themselves to horse-assisted therapy include anxiety, depression, eating disorders, attention deficit disorders, impulse-control disorder and relationship problems.

Although all six Reins of Change horses have demonstrated willingness to work with humans in the therapeutic environment, they vary widely in age and temperament, Royal said.

Briar is very empathetic, for example. R.J. is a trickster, and Summer tries to intimidate, but is a marshmallow at heart.

Not knowing what it meant to “partner” a horse, I was confused at first about which one to select.

Some clients, they told me, choose on the basis of which horse they think is the “prettiest.” Others pick a partner whose characteristics they think will help them work on their “issues.”

All my worry about which horse would be right for me flew out of the window when they got to the description of the last horse.

Bird — a dark brown Appaloosa — had once been a show horse doted on by two little girls, Royal said. When the girls lost interest, their father tried to convert him into a pack animal for hunting. With little aptitude for the role, Bird fell off a ledge and damaged his leg badly during a hunting trip. According to Royal, he recovered from his physical injuries but he remains wary of further emotional hurt.

For some reason, I knew Bird was for me.

Casapulla showed me a halter and demonstrated the safest way to hold the lead rope. Then she handed it to me and told me to go put it on Bird.

Partnership with Bird

Figuring out how to get a halter on an unfamiliar 1,200-pound horse was the session’s first major challenge. I kept up a constant stream of low-volume conversation with Bird, as I fumbled with the rope contraption and tried to ignore my fear.

To my surprise and relief, he was very patient with me — holding his head still while I worked it out.

Afterward, Casapulla told the story of a 12-year-old former Reins of Change client who was unable at first to get a harness on Bird.

“The kid stood there for the entire hour, crying, waiting for him to pick his head up,” she said. “It was painful to watch.”

What the incident illustrated to the facilitators was the young client’s expectation that others read her mind and her frustration when they didn’t.

“She expected everyone to take care of her, and she expected the horse to know what she wanted,” Casapulla added.

While the client eventually formed an effective partnership with Bird, her initial problems gave her valuable insight into her family relationships.

Allowing the process to unfold without intervening can be the facilitators’ biggest challenge, Royal admitted.

“The painful part for us is letting that experience happen,” she said.

Once the halter was on, I was instructed to lead Bird in a figure-eight pattern around the yard while Casapulla and Royal observed from a distance.

I found my anxiety decreasing somewhat as I walked next to the huge animal, although I was still too nervous to stop talking or to look him in the eye.

After a few laps, the next step was to take the horse into the barn to be groomed.

Royal and Casapulla took time explaining how horses feel when they’re tied in a confined space. They demonstrated the best way to secure the rope and the safest distance to stand from a horse’s hindquarters to avoid being kicked.

Despite feeling reassured about the kicking issue, being in the barn increased my awareness of Bird’s great size and power. I hoped he felt friendly toward me, but I wasn’t about to count on it.

Casapulla handed me a brush and encouraged me to give the horse a good once-over. Just when my strokes started to become less tentative, she upped the ante.

“Horses need to have their feet checked regularly,” she said, and my heart sank. Even with two skilled facilitators nearby, a well-meaning horse and a nearly completely controlled environment, the thought of picking up a horse’s foot made me extremely nervous.

Again, Casapulla demonstrated proper technique. Royal asked me to evaluate how many inches away from Bird’s hooves I needed to be to feel safe.

Safety can be a significant issue for Reins of Change clients who have substance-abuse problems, Royal said later.

“A lot of them don’t have a gauge of their safety zones,” she said. They tend to jump right into relationships without considering their own security. Working with horse partners and taking the time to consider what feels safe can give recovering substance abusers important information about themselves.

“It can help them cue in to good choices,” Royal said.

Somehow, I managed to pick up and check all four of Bird’s hooves. Again, he was very patient and cooperative. After deciding on a personal safety zone, I proceeded to ignore it entirely as I focused on the task at hand.

In a very gentle and non-judgmental tone, Royal challenged me to examine the easy abandonment of my self-defined safety zone.

“What does that tell you?” she asked.

Hoof-checking turned out to be the final assignment of the session. With some encouragement from Royal and Casapulla, I gave Bird some treats and a hug, and led him back into the pasture, where I liberated him from the halter.



The benefits of horse-assisted therapy

“How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?” the old joke asks. “Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change,” the punchline goes.

Healthy personal change is the focus of most psychotherapy, and Royal believes horse-assisted therapy offers something not available in traditional talk-therapy.

“You see how people are, rather than what they say they are,” she said.

The hands-on, experiential nature of the process allows people to discover what’s true for them. Royal’s goal is to facilitate that discovery rather than to direct it.

“It’s better if you interpret for me,” she said during my post-session debriefing. “You don’t need someone to tell you what you are.”

She and Casapulla sat down with me for a few minutes after I said goodbye to Bird and shared some of their observations with the lightest of therapeutic touches.

“I would tell you what I saw, and ask: ‘Where is that working for you?’” Royal said.

The full impact of the session won’t set in for several days, she added. Because so much of it is non-verbal, it doesn’t lend itself easily to immediate analysis.

While Royal makes formal notes on every session, she and Casapulla try to keep the process as fluid as possible. Because of their long professional partnership, they’re able to merge their different sensitivities and approaches as they go along.

“We have a number of different exercises,” Casapulla said. “But we’ll wing it if we have to. We keep adapting.”

Future sessions for a client like me might include activities such as lunging exercises — putting the horse on a long line and exercising it from the ground — working with a horse-partner in the ring and even riding.

Sometimes it can be very valuable to change horses, she added.

Although I have no plans to return, the memory of my hour with Bird remains sharply etched in my mind.

Undeniably magnificent in my mind, the big brown Appaloosa seemed to take his role as my “teacher” very seriously. Gentle yet direct, he communicated with me in a way only horses can.

As I drove away from the barn that day, I knew I’d learned things about myself from him I could never learn from a lifetime of talking.