Equine Experience
Creating and Experiencing New Patterns of Interaction
Includes:
- Ground Activities Only
- Family/Caregiver(s)
- Respectful equine activities
- Team approach
~ Horse, Client, Mental Health Professional& Equine Specialist
- Careful Observation of the horse's non- verbal cues
Does NOT Include:
-It is NOT a Therapeutic Riding Program
-It is NOT client directed
~Therapist and Equine Specialist provide careful instruction and direction throughout the activities
-We do NOT include any activities that place the client or Horse in an uncomfortable or un-natural position of reactionary purposes
-When any member becomes uncomfortable, a "time-out" is called and the team regroup
until all are comfortable again.
Therapeutic Objectives
-Use equine behavior to teach, model, and practice relaxation, relationship skills, respectful leadership, use of appropriate boundaries and regulation of affect
-Integrate skills as part of cohesive narrative to assist in development of new patterns of interaction
Boundaries:
Identify personal space and learn and practice techniques to increase and decrease this "bubble" in order to create flexible interactions with others.
Identity:
Develop awareness of body's physical and emotional response to experiences. Create opportunity for experiencing self in a new way. Separate experience from beliefs about self and develop new concepts based on this separation.
Leadership:
Create experiences of respectful and responsible leadership.
Non-Verbal Cues:
Create new interpretation of non-verbal cues and learn and practice skills for integrating these assumptions into non-verbal communication with others.
Regulation:
Develop awareness of internal states and learn and practice skills for transitioning between various states of arousal.
Relationships:
Participate in a reciprocal relationship and learn and practice skills for transferring this pattern to family relationships.
Relaxation:
Engage in centered breathing and visualization in order to experience the effects of this state of self and others.
All faces you see in the pictures are volunteers for Natural Freedom and have given permission for these pictures to be on this website and on our facebook page.
<--- click here to take you to our facebook page
