Certainly we all want to be more authentic — that is to say what we mean and mean what we say. Further, although there a number of approaches, and no less written about becoming more authentic, there are not so many ways to understand how to feel authentic. Enter equine therapy. For when working with horses, very little is communicated verbally, and instead the relationship with the horse is almost exclusively conducted through feel.

Because of this felt communication that exist between horses and humans, equine therapy presents a unique opportunity for a person to experience what is authentic for him/her. However, in order to do this, it is first necessary to understand and interpret the responses of the horse correctly. The horse’s behavior must not be analyzed through our narrow lens. When this occurs, interpretations become not only our own projections, but also fall into the category of anthropomorphism.

So we must look at the horse first in his natural environment — that is, in a herd of other horses. Then we must be able to know what is meant by his behaviors in this setting. For example, when the horse circles another, raises his head, shakes his head, paws at the ground, what is he trying to say to the horses around him? However subtle all of these behaviors may seem, they all have a very distinct purpose.

Recognizing and understanding the horse’s behavior in the herd is imperative because to a horse, being around people does not dictate another language. Instead, when with people, the horse uses the same communication system that is adopted in the herd. And while watching a herd of horses, is should also become evident that again, this communication system is nonverbal. What this means is that the horse relies on what is felt — through his physiological system — to understand what is being “said” to him, and what he is “saying” in return.

Continue reading Equine Therapy: A Path to Authenticity, by Claire Dorotik →

While we know that horses are tremendously hypervigilant animals, much less is known about how it is this state of heightened awareness is resolved.

It is actually through fleeing — often the very thing that scares humans — that the horse keeps himself safe, serving as not only as an adaptive survival response but also as a way to continuously regulate his physiological system, keeping him well prepared to signal future danger.

In matching their behavior to their physiological responses, horses not only regulate their physiological system, but also find resolutions for threats in their environment.  This fleeing, in response to a heightening in the physiological system is not only the horse’s first response in enacting his defense system, but is also a way to resolve the threat.  In thinking about what resolution is, it is helpful to think about the purpose of a heightening response in the physiological system.  A heightened response in the physiological system alerts the horse to a threat in his environment.  Should the horse remain in this state, alerted to a threat nearby, he would continue looking for the source of the threat, in an effort to resolve the danger.

Clearly this would not be a comfortable state for the horse to remain in for an extended period of time.  The horse would not only remain frightened and hyper vigilant, but it would not be adaptive to his survival.  Because a horse’s defense system overrides all other physiological systems, to remain in this heightened state, would be to the detriment of all other necessary tasks of survival, such as finding food, shelter, remaining with the herd, reproducing, and tending to young.  Therefore, in order to survive, the horse needs to find resolutions for threats in his environment.  Resolving the threat means first engaging the defense system, by fleeing or fighting, and then disengaging the defense system.  This disengagement, or resetting allows the defense system to regulate, therefore remaining balanced.

Continue reading Resolution of Hyper-Vigilance, by Claire Dorotik →

Thanks to the seminal work of Robert Sapolsky, in “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” we know have a much better understanding of the disparity between the way animals in their natural environment handle stress and the way humans do. As a result of this intensive study, we can also ascertain that both the value of identifying and responding to, the physiological triggers of alarm. And with all that being said, one would not be stretching too far to hypothesize that horses also do not get ulcers. However, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Horses, like zebras, do live in a natural environment. That is, roaming wild and fending for themselves. Yet, on the other hand, a vast number of horses do not enjoy this lifestyle. And here, we have a very interesting study. The truth is, not one case of ulcers in wild horses has been found. On the other side of the equation, racehorses, whose lifestyle is extremely demanding, exhibit ulcers in 1 out of every 5 horses at the track. Looking at the difference between the life of a wild horse, which is relatively serene, with healthy social group dynamics, and allows for freedom of response, and that of a racehorse, which is intensely demanding both physically and mentally, is lived in near complete isolation, and restricts freedom of movement, it is not hard to understand why these numbers would be so far apart. It is, indeed, a bit like comparing life in rural Colorado to downtown New York City.

But why then, do some racehorses get ulcers, and some do not? Well this phenomenon is best explained by the same principle that explains why some people suffer mental illness and others do not, when raised in similar environments. Called the “diathesis stress model,” this theory states that some people have a genetic predisposition for certain mental illnesses, and with enough environmental stress, these conditions will develop. Therefore, in turn, we can say that some horses are predisposed to develop ulcers, but require the right situational conditions to do so.

Continue reading Why Horses Do Get Ulcers, by Claire Dorotik →

While the concept of rapport is not at all foreign to therapists, counselors and psychologists, for some the notion that horses are equipped with the mental hardware with which to communicate emotionally is pretty tough to swallow.

For centuries horses have served us — in military pursuits, farming endeavors, and now today in the show ring and on the race track. To be sure, the inequality displayed in thoroughbred racing is one of the most atrocious sins of our relationship with horses today. Let’s compare, for example, the median price of a yearling at the Keeneland Thoroughbred sale — one of the nation’s most prestigious marketplaces for young thoroughbred stock — which is $200,000, to the median price of a thoroughbred that can no longer run, which is $600. And the second figure of this comparison does, of course, not reflect the astronomical number of thoroughbreds who are donated, given away, and hauled away to slaughter. The number of thoroughbreds whose fate goes down this road is evidenced by the fact that finding an adoption program with room and funding to take and care for a “used” racehorse is a near impossibility.

And yet, for all this use the horse provides, many of us still shirk at the possibility that he too has emotions. But the horse can give rise to a powerful emotional response in a person, and anyone who has felt this would attest to its feeling of awe. So how can we be so quick to assume that the horse doesn’t feel the same way we do? How can we be so certain that the emotion we feel when around a horse doesn’t rely wholeheartedly on expressed emotion from him?

Continue reading Equine Therapy: Rapport with a Horse? by Claire Dorotik →

While elaborating on Freud’s notion of denial, Robert Firestone was the first to describe what is now known as fantasy bonding. Fantasy bonding is characterized by the psychological adjustment made by children when enduring physical, psychological or sexual abuse, and involves idealization of the abuser, denial of the abuse, and pseudo-attachment to the abuser. Often, the primitive bond to the abuser is the only hope the child holds for the warmth or nurturance typically promised through human connection.

While the phenomenon of fantasy bonding is now well understood in the therapeutic community, what is much less understood is that of fantasy bonding in horse-human relationships. Under these circumstances, the adult is experiencing the same dynamic of abuse that would be expected in the parent-child relationship where fantasy bonding occurs. That is to say, that the person looks to the horse for comfort, care, nurturance, and warmth, just as a child would a parent. Yet the horse acts in ways that endanger the person. He may, for example, bite, kick, buck, or run off with his human companion. However, like a child who denies his caretaker’s abuse and forms a fantasy bond that allows him to disconnect from the abuse and foster the fantasy of a nurturing caregiver, the person who forms a fantasy bond with the horse also denies both the maltreatment by the horse, as well as, the potential for danger.

While the person’s friends, family, trainers and coaches may express concern for his/her welfare, the person will repeatedly deny the dangerous behavior of the horse and offer alternative explanations, such as, “He was just in pain,” or, “He was scared; that’s why he bit me.” Obviously, the deleterious effects of this sort of denial are evident in the often successive injuries the person may suffer.

Continue reading Fantasy Bonding in Horse-Human Relationships, by Claire Dorotik →

Arriving at a prestigious mansion overlooking the picturesque Pacific Coast Highway, the Clinical Director quickly ushered me into her office, as I attempted to disguise my disbelief that this, of all places, housed some of humanity’s most psychologically challenged individuals.

“So,” she began slowly, “we have already purchased three horses for our equine therapy program.” She pointed out her sliding glass door at a small barn and white fenced pasture extending down the hill toward the house. “They have all suffered extreme trauma,” she paused again and turned toward me. “We thought that the clients would be able to connect with traumatized horses better.”

I looked out toward the three horses grazing on the hill, a buckskin gelding, gray gelding, and dark bay mare, and wondered if it is true that traumatized horses do make good candidates for equine facilitated psychotherapy programs.

Continue reading Do Traumatized Horses Makes Good Therapy Horses?, by Claire Dorotik →

I slid off his back and as I hit the ground, me knees buckled, sending me right down to the ground, beneath Nimo. I just sat there. I didn’t want to move. And I couldn’t, really. Sitting under a 3 year old stallion is hardly safe under any circumstances, but just then, I didn’t care. I didn’t feel any fear, and couldn’t stop crying in any event.  I must have been there for almost an hour, and Nimo just stood over me, nuzzling my hair. I had never seen this side of him. He was so concerned and caring, I’d had no idea he had that in him. He didn’t seem to care about the other horses. It was like he knew he, like all the rest of the horses, depended on me, just like one of their own. And if I weren’t ok, they wouldn’t be either.

I don’t think I had ever felt that cared for in my life. It was as if this was the first moment of clarity in a lifetime of confusion. I had trained and shown all sorts of horses, of course, and the years had taught me a lot about horses, and life; still I had never understood just how profoundly intuitive they were. All this time, I thought they didn’t know what I was trying to hide from everybody else. Yet Nimo was trying to tell me he couldn’t not know.

As equine therapy is truly a modality that is best experienced, as opposed to described, sometimes it is helpful to share a personal accounting of a way in which a horse can help a human. Therefore, this blog post is actually an excerpt from my book, ON THE BACK OF A HORSE: Harnessing the Healing Power of the Human-Equine Bond. This is part one in a series.

My introduction to what equine facilitated psychotherapy really is was one that, like most moments of sagacity, left me utterly speechless. Even of more consequence to me was the fact that I had known horses my entire life, having ridden for almost as many years, and been involved in every aspect of the horse business from training, breeding, showing, transporting and mending horses, from the age of five. Yet I had, as many so often do, failed to consider my horses’ capacity for any awareness beyond that of my own.

While I recognized horses were highly intuitive and had even had moments with them that evidenced this, I had never once imagined that they knew more about me, than I knew about me. In fact, it was the other way around – I thought I knew more about them, than they knew about them.

Continue reading Equine Therapy: A Personal Experience, Part One, by Claire Dorotik, LMFT →