William Shatner
Veterans, victims of abuse, people with special needs, eating disorders OR PTSD—tHEy ALL MAy BENEfit FROM HANGING wItH tHE HERD.
In 1991, 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted while walking from her home to a nearby school bus stop. She was sexually assaulted and confined for 18 years before she and the two daughters she had in captivity were recovered from kidnappers Phillip and Nancy Garrido.
How do you start to heal after a trauma like that? One of the things that helped the most, Dugard says, was horses. She and her children and mother did equine-facilitated therapy (EFT) with Rebecca Bailey, a clinical and forensic psychologist who specializes in complex trauma. Dugard was so impressed with the experience, she went on to found the JAYC Foundation to give other families in crisis the same access to healing.
“Horses have the special ability to make you be totally in the moment, making talking about the trauma I went through so much easier and less painful,” says Dugard, now 38. “The work Dr. Bailey was doing really resonated with me. The way she incorporated horses into our sessions was so much more impactful than just regular talk therapy.”
In fact, EFT is a fastgrowing therapeutic mental health treatment being used across the nation for everything from trauma and addiction recovery to therapeutic riding for special needs, including autism. The therapy can involve learning to care for a horse, riding or simply being around and learning to trust the animals. A mental health counselor and equine specialist are often present.
Veterans, inmates and first responders are all finding benefits in getting off the couch and into the stables.
Although equine therapy itself hasn’t been deeply studied, research shows that horses are acutely tuned in to human emotions, and anecdotal accounts of their therapeutic impact abound. These are just a few of the heartwarming success stories. How Horses Heal
“Horses are nonjudgmental and they don’t obsess,” says Linda Kohanov, author of
The Tao of Equus and Way of the Horse and a pioneer in the field of equine-facilitated learning. “Horse wisdom is concerned more with the present than the past or the future. If they sense danger, horses race to safety, then go right back to grazing. They don’t stay up all night worrying about lions. They go right back to enjoying life, taking it minute by minute, and they can teach us to do that.”
Enjoying life was not something that U.S. Air Force veteran Ron Hathaway thought he’d ever do again. Before being introduced to equine therapy in 2014, the Wisconsin man was in a major slump.
“I was in my chair in my garage, smoking cigars all day, figuring out ways to kill myself and when and how I’d do it,” Hathaway, now 56, says. “I couldn’t talk to my family, couldn’t go anywhere, didn’t shower or bathe and I had a baby granddaughter I couldn’t be around. My life was spiraling down. I was losing my family.”
Desperate, his wife got him into an inpatient mental health program at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center. “I had no intention of opening up to anyone,” he recalls. “Just do my time and get back to the garage.”Then a recreational therapist told him to pick two activities. “Just checking boxes, knowing it wouldn’t help, I pointed to the first two on the list: a gym program and a twohour-a-week horse thing,” Hathaway says.
He kept to himself on the bus to the BraveHearts therapeutic riding and educational center, located outside Harvard, Ill. It’s the largest
equine program in the country for veterans—providing free riding, ground activities and work with wild mustangs to veterans and a member of their family or a caregiver. (Elizabeth and William Shatner’s All Glory Project sponsors several programs at BraveHearts; see page 18.) “When I got there, someone with a big smile and an Irish accent stuck his hand out and said, ‘We’re so happy you’re here.’ I just went off on my own, not interested in horses, the people or anything.”
In spite of his protests, he eventually got on a horse called Boone. “I didn’t know nothin’ about horses. We walked around, and I was just looking at his mane and back of his head and, I don’t know how else to say it, I just had this deep sigh of relaxation and in a split second knew that everything would be OK, which hadn’t happened for years. That feeling was so alien to me.”
The next day Hathaway’s mind started wandering back to Boone and the farm, and over the next weeks he and Boone got up to a trot, everyone cheering him on. “It was just totally freeing and such a release. I started talking to people on the bus, started talking to my wife and kids.
“Those horses are a miracle. People who haven’t been through what veterans go through just don’t understand it,” Hathaway says. “They see the results [of military service], but they don’t know what happens inside your mind and your heart to get there. I would not be here today if it weren’t for BraveHearts and Boone. That is a fact. The program works so hard with each individ-
ual to be better and find a niche as a working part of society again.”
Last year, BraveHearts (where Hathaway is now barn manager, caring for 33 horses) served 835 veterans in 19,673 sessions at no charge.
Harnessing the Power
“Horses lend you their power, which helps when you’re trying to heal. The moment you’re on a horse, you’re bigger, stronger, more powerful, more beautiful,” says Rupert Isaacson, whose 2009 documentary, The Horse Boy, followed his then-5-year-old autistic son, Rowan, on a ride through Mongolia. “When Rowan was on the horse, more speech happened. Science shows that autistic people have heightened fight or flight—high levels of cortisol—so you act and don’t think. When a horse trots, it rocks its hips and the rhythmic movement releases oxytocin, the feel-good hormone.”
Inspired by Rowan’s progress, Isaacson created the Horse Boy Method of equine therapy and the Movement Method, which uses play equipment instead of a horse to help special needs kids.
Acceptance & Love
In the golden light of a warm Southern California day, a young woman sits alone on a folding metal chair in the middle of a pasture in the small town of Ramona, just east of San Diego. Slowly, from the far corner of the field, a large bay quarter horse named Bruno breaks away from his small herd and ambles over. The 1,000-pound animal stops, gently faces her and lowers his forehead to hers. The woman (we’ll call her Nicole to protect her privacy) knows he won’t hurt her. Through the equine therapy here at the nonprofit Rebels Farm, Bruno has become her friend and confidante.
Bruno stands with her, keeping her safe, while she shares a letter she wrote from her future self to the woman she is today. They are words that only she and he will know in the bond of trust gained during therapy.
Rebels Farm founder and equine therapy counselor Rachel Brodsky looks on from a nearby picnic table, beaming. Six weeks earlier, Nicole had arrived from Solara Mental Health Center in San Diego.
“Nicole came to Solara to get treatment for her symptoms of psychosis, including intense and uncontrolled episodes of anger,” says Solara program director and licensed marriage and family therapist Allison Brownlee. “She has suffered from abuse and many negative life experiences, and was stuck in her own mind, internally torturing herself. When I heard what Rachel offered at Rebels Farm, I thought it would be helpful. What’s incredibly valuable is the amount of information we get about where the patients really are
emotionally when they sit and process at the ranch. You can’t get that from an office-setting counseling session.” (Visit rebelsfarm.org for more information and to donate.)
Today, Nicole is a changed woman. “I love horses and they eased my anger,” she says. “Being with Bruno has helped me relax and get in touch with my feelings more.”
On another day, a young man struggling with depression and selfharming behaviors stands listlessly in the same field of horses, his posture defeated, his eyes closed.
“Nobody’s coming, right?” he mutters. Nobody does. The morning is silent for what seems like a slow-motion forever. “Nobody came yet,” he mutters again, deflated. “Nobody ever does.”
Then, slowly, a donkey walks quietly over behind him. A miniature horse follows, then two larger horses. They stand, not moving. The man is unaware they’re there or that three coyotes are approaching the fence line. The coyotes stand motionless in a brief stare-down with the herd. “Open your eyes. Look who came today!” shouts counselor Brodsky with a smile. The man sees the coyotes run off and feels the horses’ breath as they move in closer. He puts his hands over his face, crying, then throws them up to the sky, laughs and hollers, “Just look who damn came today!”
The horses protected him. The session moves on. The man keeps coming back. Brodsky nods. “Small steps, big results. This is what equine healing success looks like.”