August 21, 2024 • 42 mins
After listening to Cowboy Carter far too much over this summer and hearing Beyoncé tell us to “look at that horse, look at that horse, look at that horse,” it was only right to then find out about equine-assisted psychotherapy, a form of therapy that incorporates a live horse in session with a client.
To learn more about this unique type of therapy, I’m joined this week by 2nd year MSW candidate, Jasmine Morris. Jasmine works at Ebony Horsewomen Equestrian and Therapeutic Center in Hartford, Connecticut, where she serves as an Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy clinician. During our conversation we explore what a session of equine-assisted psychotherapy looks like, the potential benefits one could reap through this form of therapy, and how interacting with horses can help us build on our coping and emotional skills.
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The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy Hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for Session three seventy three of the
Therapy for Black Girl's podcast. We'll get right into our
conversation after word from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Hi. I'm Jasmin Morris and I'm on the Therapy for
Black Girls podcast. I'm in session today unpacking equine therapy.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
After listening to Cowboy Carter four too much over this
summer and hearing Beyonce tell us to look at that horse,
Look at that horse, Look at that horse, it was
only right for me to then find out about equine
assistant psychotherapy, a form of therapy that incorporates a live
horse and session with a client to learn more about
this unique type of therapy. I'm joined today by second
(01:45):
year MSW candidate Jasmine Morris. Jasmine works at Ebony Horsewoman
Equestrian and Therapeutic Center in Hartford, Connecticut, where she serves
as an Equine Assistant Psychotherapy clinician. In this role, she
provides therapeutic services on the supervision of Ebony Hartswoman's Director
of Therapy. In our conversation, we explore what a session
(02:06):
of equine assistant psychotherapy looks like, the potential benefits one
could reap through this form of therapy, and how interacting
with horses can help us build on our coping and
emotional skills. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation,
please share it with us on social media using the
hashtag TVG in Session or join us over in the
(02:26):
sister Circle To talk more about the episode. You can
join us at Community not Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.
Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jasmine.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yes, I'm so excited to chat with you. So it's
so funny because we were trying to think about, like,
what is the therapy for black girls? Tie into Cowboy
Carter and I was like, oh, equine therapy, Like, we
have been wanting to do this episode for a while,
so I'm so happy we found you. So can you
talk with us first about what is therapy?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah? So, equine assisted psychotherapy is an experiential therapy treatment
that's so far been proven to increase self efficacy, self esteem,
positive identity in individuals, along with helping them reduce symptoms
of depression and anxiety. And basically it's a form of
therapy that involves working with horses instead of just regular
(03:24):
talk therapy.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Got it? And this is such a niche type of therapy.
How did you find it and how did you become
interested in doing this work?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah? So growing up I knew I was working with animals,
and then in my junior year of college, I realized
I wanted to do something involving animal assistant therapy. A
lot of my work was with dogs. But then I
discovered Ebony Horsewomen because I started riding there and they
were like, we do equs a psychotherapy and I was
like great. And then when I was getting my master's
(03:54):
at Social work, guess who's one of the providers. I
could do an internship with Ebony horsewomen. So I started
there as a social work intern, got my caseload of clients,
so I was originally meeting with four and really learned
about the process of how equinassistant psychotherapy works, how to
use it with clients through shadowing the other therapists and
(04:15):
having my own caseload.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Got it. So what actually is happening in an equine
assisted psychotherapy session? What are you doing in relation to
the horse to actually bring about some of this change?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, so it really depends on the client. Every equans
assistant psychotherapy session has three main players. Your clinician so me,
and then you have your horse specialists, who's there to
focus on the horse because they are still big animals
with their own thoughts and feelings, so we want someone
to check in with them too. And then you have
your client. And it really depends on your client's needs
(04:48):
and wants out of the session. So I have one client,
she's there for the horse. She's there to talk to
the horse. I'm there to just foster what she needs,
but she comes for the horse. I know that because
she had a lot of barriers to therapy in general,
So it was just getting her interacting with the horse,
and finally we're at a place like seven months later
(05:09):
where she's ready to engage and start doing therapy. So
for some clients it's just breaking down a barrier to
what therapy can be. I have another client where like,
small talk is our goal. He has really bad anxiety,
really bad social anxiety. So just getting him to like, hi,
my name is X, I'm this year's old and talking
(05:31):
to the horse as if it was a person, but
building those small talk skills. He's going into high school.
So now when he goes into high school and has
to make new friends, he's like, I've done this. I
know my cues and what I need to hit to
get this conversation rolling. So in theory, he could start
making friends at his new school. I have one where
it's routine building. Every session we come in, we groom
(05:54):
the horse. There's a very specific method to grooming the horse,
and through that it's building routines. So that way, when
she got back home, she has the ability to stick
to the routines at home, because that was a big
issue that was causing conflict between her and her parents.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Got it, So jas when what I'm hearing you say
is that, like the horse really is just the backdrop
for a lot of these therapeutic interventions. The horse can
be the focus, but the horse can also be like
an avenue to like, Okay, if you're feeling anxious, like
you can talk to the horse until you feel comfortable
enough to talk to a person.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, it's kind of like play therapy or art therapy.
In play therapy, the kids playing with toys. The toys
aren't doing the therapy, but it's a tool that the
therapist can utilize to get the progress that needs to happen.
The same thing with art therapy. The art is therapeutic
to the person. They're creating, they're expressing themselves, but it's
not doing the true work. The therapist is using it
(06:49):
as a tool to get the client to the point
where they're willing to express that in a verbal way,
or express whatever they need to express in a verbal
communication for so that the therapist can engage in the
therapy to process with them.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Got it. And would you say that there is like
an ideal client for equin assistant psychotherapy.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I mean ideal client. You don't really see that in
the therapy world, everyone's going to come in with their
own issues and what they want to address. But if
you're willing to work with the horse, I'm willing to
work with you. Equity is a psychotherapy. There's a horse there,
but at ebony where you also have other animals. So
if you're just willing to work with animals, I'll meet
you where you're at. I have people who want equan
(07:30):
it's is a psychotherapy. They're afraid of horses, so I
meet them where they're at, and that's part of the process,
just building up where they can overcome their fear, so
that way they can overcome their fears and other avenues
of their life. So there's not an ideal client. It's
really about how as a therapist I can meet my
clients where they're at and use the horse as a
part of the process.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Got it, So what might a typical day look like
for you?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
So they is kind of a misnomer. You start with
your and your intake usually takes about forty five minutes.
Just come in and ask them what they want from
the process, because we get the referral. But let's say
an outside agency did the referral and then the client
has their own perspective on why they're there, they might conflict,
So we do our intake, really get to hear from
(08:16):
the client like why are you here, what do you
want from me? What do you want out of the horse,
try to understand and lay the groundwork for how our
sessions are going to be. Then every client gets to
pick their own horse. As as a therapist, don't assign
a horse to our client because sometimes they might look
at a horse in the padic and they're like, that's
the one. And so we really want clients to have
(08:37):
their own agency in the sessions, and through that is
picking which horse they want to use. And sometimes a
client might work with a horse the whole entire time
they're there. Sometimes the client's like, I'm going to switch
my horse every week, So we really operate and give
them the agency to make that decision. And then each
session lasts for sixty minutes, and as I said before,
(09:00):
goes really depends on what the client wants to address
and how they want to utilize the horse or how I,
as a therapist want to incorporate the horse to address
their needs. So it really can depend. Sometimes it's a
talk therapy session or we're chatting, they're penning the horse,
we're just standing, like the horse grays, or it's the
(09:21):
horse is an active participant in the session, through like
the client engaging and grooming the horse, through the client
talking to the horse. It really depends on what the
client needs and how I, as a therapist want to
work with them to meet their needs.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Got it? And you mentioned that there's typically a third
person there that is like tending to the horse. Can
you talk a little bit about like the collaboration with
this person, because I'm thinking about like the confidentiality concerns
and like having this third person there, what is the
relationship between the three of you as a part of
the work.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So it really depends. Most horse specialists, like I said,
they're there to focus on the horse. I've done a
horse by for a couple sessions. My job is to
make sure the horse doesn't spook, and if the horse spooks,
calm them down.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And there was.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
An incident where like the horse freaked out and we
couldn't figure out why. It's the job of the horse
specialists to remove the horse from the situation. It's the
job of the therapist to communicate to the client Hey,
the horse is having a moment. What can we do together?
So the horse therapist is there, they're really a passive participant.
Some therapists choose to engage the horse specialists, Like for
(10:28):
my client who struggles with small talk, that's a good
person who is bounded by confidentiality, who's not me the
therapist that he could talk to. So sometimes you might
incorporate them more. But they're just there. They don't fill
out the soap notes, which is how we do our
recordings of the sessions. They don't fill out anything. They
don't see it. They are there, they get the horse
(10:50):
from the paddock, they stand there, they leave. They're not
allowed to communicate. So they're bounded by the same confidentiality rules.
And if not even more that the therapist. I can
write the notes. If there's any agency providers, I'm communicating
with them. Horse specialists. They come for the hour, they leave.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Got it? And so are they a part of some
kind of like accrediting body. You said that they are
bound by the same confidentiality, So is there some kind
of body oversight? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
So Ebny Horsewoman has its own training program for clinicians,
usually who understand mental health know how to work with
people to address mental health needs, but don't know horses.
And then a horse specialist they know the horse, but
they don't know the same hippo rules or how to
deal with individuals who might have mental health issues. So
(11:39):
Ebny Horsewoman has its own kind of certification program that
they've developed to bring these two parties together and say
here's how you run a session together. So every horse
specialist has to be trained by a any horsewomen to
know that any horsewoman's confidentiality rules. Same way if you
are coming to work as a social worker and a
(11:59):
new agency, that agency is going to train you on
how they operate. Ebny Horsewoman does that for their clinicians
and for their horse specialists.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Got it. So another form of equine therapy is therapeutic
horseback riding. Can you say more about that practice?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, So that's where I started off. In my junior
year of college, I got an internship at Maine's Emotions,
which is a therapeutic riding center in Middletown, Connecticut. And
so therapeutic horseback riding is very much similar to physical
therapy occupational therapy, where you're physically engaging with the horse
(12:36):
versus the psychotherapy aspect that I do at Ebony Horse Women,
where it's very much more mental health focus therapeutic course
back writing tends to be very physical in how it's
working with patients. So at Main's I got to do
various positions where I was a horse leader, so I'm
the person walking the horse or a sidewalker, just providing
(12:56):
some physical assistance because we had individuals of all ability levels,
so sometimes they need physical support while they're on the horse,
So I got to learn different kinds of holes. I
got to learn how to take someone awful horse in
emergency situations, and it was really interesting to see a
different perspective on how to use a horse and how
(13:17):
they work with individuals of all physical, mental occupational levels.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Got it. So you've already mentioned I mean, we know
horses are big, live animals, so you've already talked a
little bit about this, But can you outline like some
of the safety concerns and like what is the I
would imagine there's some kind of like training and like
orientation to the horse that you do as a part
of becoming an equine assistant psychotherapy client. Can you talk
about that?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, So horses. They're big. For some people they're scary,
Like for me as a kid I grew up, I
looked at a horse on television and I was like,
I want one. My parents still can't figure out why.
But for some people who have never seen us, course,
especially working in Hartford, people are like, they're horses here.
So it's really just getting them to understand, like, yes,
(14:03):
this is a live animal, and getting them to understand
the different reaction horses can have. Just like how we
have different facial reactions, different body language to how we're feeling,
horses are the same. Their ears move different ways, their
tails move different ways, their stance changes depending on how
they're feeling. So in the beginning we communicate with the
(14:24):
client like, hey, this is how the horse is feeling.
Or if my client's expressing something like they're getting frustrated,
I'm like, hey, I can tell you're frustrated. Look at
your horses also getting frustrated. Because usually, especially the good
therapy horses, we have one that's just like he's on it.
You can't tell him he's not a therapist. He starts
(14:45):
building a reaction. Anytime my client's building a reaction, So
it's really interesting telling the clients about the horses and
their behavior, one to keep them safe, but two as
a part of the therapeutic process because then they start recognizing, oh,
here's how I'm feeling. The horse is telling me how
I'm feeling. If they're not in a place where they
(15:07):
can't recognize their own emotions or having issues recognizing, but
they can check in with the horse and be like,
Jasmine told me that this is what the horse does
when it's frustrated. I wonder if he's picking up on
me being frustrated. And that's what your first session with
the client, when you get in, have them pick their horse.
That's a lot of what that is all about, establishing
(15:28):
what a horse does, how it reacts, saying, hey, you
might not want to put your body there because the
horse might step on you. Because have binocular visions, so
their eyes are on the side of their head, so
they can't see directly in front of them, and they
can't see directly in back. They can see better on
their sides, so if you're standing in front of them,
they're like you're a threat, or if you're like in
(15:49):
a little blind spot, they're like, I can't see where
your feet are, but I don't want to step on you,
So telling the person, hey, it's easier for you to
move than for them to move, so maybe you want
to take up step back so they don't step on
your foot.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
More from our conversation after the break, can you say
more about the horse's behavior and like how they show
different I guess even aspects of their own person, and
like what are you looking for and observing in the
(16:23):
horse to show frustration or excitement or whatever? Can you
say more about that?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, So horses show their body language primarily through their ears,
their tails, their nostrils, and all of those kind of
work in tandem. Just like if you're observing a person,
they might have their arms cross but they're smiling. That
doesn't mean they're angry. So you have to look at
everything in tandem to understand how the horse is feeling.
So if the horse starts pitting their ears, clenching their
(16:49):
tails to their body and stiffens up, I'm like, I
need to move because they're about to flip out and
I don't need to be here. Whereas if their ears
are swiveling, they're like licking and chewing, because horses eat
when they're comfortable. So if they're looking chewing, they're like, Oh,
they're good. Their chail's just swishing. I'm like, oh, he's vibing.
He's having a good day. So you have to look
(17:11):
at everything in tandem to understand.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And you mentioned early on that some of the benefits
that have been studied are things like self efficacy and
even help with depression. Can you say more about how
equinais and psychotherapy helps with something like depression?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, we have done studies for years and no, animals
make us feel better like they just do when you're
working with animals. I believe it's a release of dopamine
and serotonin happens in the brain when you're just sitting
and like petting a dog. So we know that animals
make us feel better. So equinasis, psychotherapy and animals is
a therapy as a whole kind of took that and said, okay,
(17:49):
animals make people feel better. How do we use that
as part of the therapeutic process? And so now we know, okay,
they help people feel better. Then it comes to the
therapists that use animal or use the horse in tandem
with what the biological response is going to be to
help the client attack whatever problems they want to. So
(18:12):
that involves, especially for like depression anxiety, working with the
client to develop strategies on how to feel better using
the horse as a tool, and in that safe space
develop those strategies so that way when they go out
into the real world they have the strategies in place,
in a safe space with something that made him feel better,
(18:34):
they can in theory use those strategies. Again, just like
with the client I talked about earlier, he has really
bad anxiety. So we get him working with the horse,
which he loves to do, talking to the horse saying Hi,
I like this, I like that, getting him to lay
the foundation of the basics of a conversation, and I
play the horse and I respond as So that way,
(18:57):
when he goes into high school, he's like, Okay, hey,
I've done this. Me and my horse best friend have
done it together. I can go out and make real
friends with other people because I've already done the basics
with my horse.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So can you talk about the transition from like you
mentioned if we use anxiety as an example, so we
are getting more comfortable with the horse. I'm working through
my own social anxiety with the horse. You just mentioned
that you will sometimes then play the horse. What is
the treatment process to go from being more comfortable with
the horse to being less uncomfortable with friends in a
(19:32):
high school?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
This is where and where I use my horse specialists
a lot. So first off, we started trying to get
this kid to hold a minute conversation and he was like,
he really stuttered a lot, like he couldn't think of
things to say. And so we did every other week.
One week would be just a regular talk therapy session,
kind of a check in on how is week is going.
(19:55):
The next time it's like, all right, you did a minute,
can you do two minutes talking to this animal? And
we had, like I said, ebony horseman has a wide
range of animals, not just horses, So we would go
to different horses to mimic going to different people or
going to the other animals at the barn and just
getting him and every single time he has to talk
about something new, because every person is going to have
(20:17):
a new interest that you might relate to. And then
later on, as you started getting comfortable and getting to
the point where he could go fifteen minutes just talking
about nothing or whatever was important to him in the moment.
The turtle is his favorite. He'll go for hours with
the turtle, and I'm like, great, getting him to say,
all right, you have this horse specialist here. You know
(20:39):
who she is. She's been here this whole time. Can
you talk to her? Then our normal horse specialist was
out on leave. All right, there's a new horse specialist here.
Can you talk to her now, somewhat different, someone you
haven't really engaged with. Getting him to the point where,
no matter what situation and every situation is in this
safe space that we've created, whatever situation I put you in,
(21:03):
Let's say I say thirty minutes talk about this, he
can do it. So that way, when he goes out,
he's like, oh, I've already done these different scenarios and stuff.
I can do it out in the real world.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You also mentioned that you've had a client who has
not had good luck maybe with traditional talk therapy. Can
you say more about how people who maybe have not
benefited from it, or maybe resistant even to traditional talk
therapy might benefit from equin assistant psychotherapy.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, with her, it was a lot of working and
just meeting her where she's at. In the beginning, it
was alrighty, I know, you don't want to talk to me.
I'm fine with that. You're gonna give me a one
word answer. Great, I'm just happy you showed up. And
she really struggled with attendance because she didn't see the value.
So I was like, all right, I know you're here
for the horse. I won't push you as much, but
(21:52):
I want you to come and I want you to
work with the horse. You don't have to talk to me.
You could come groom the horse for an hour and
I'll just stay in here, but I want you to
come and show up every week. And so she started
showing up every week, and there was like one day
where she just came in and she was frustrated, and
I'm like, what are you frustrated about? Tell me. I
could see you're frustrated. The horse gets you're frustrated. It's
(22:13):
affecting how you're working with him. Tell me. And because
I had just given her the space to just show
up and be there, she was like, this is what
I'm frustrated about. And I could do the therapeutic part,
validating her feelings, checking her where she needed to be checked,
because sometimes she needs that, like, hey, you need to
step back and see the other perspective, but giving her
(22:35):
the space of being like, I'm not here to judge
you and saying she's going through a lot right now.
I don't know what it's like to be in her situation.
And unfortunately a lot of her service providers are hitting
her with the I know what it's like to be there,
and she's like, no, you don't. She's housing insecure, and
that's been a big one. A lot of her service
providers are like, I know what it's like and she's like, no,
(22:56):
you don't. You get to go home and sleep in
a nice bed. And I told her, yeah, I do,
so tell me what it's like to be you because
I don't know, and just giving her that space. And
now we're at a point where she's like, oh, this
girl sees me. The horse doesn't just see me, she
also sees me. And now we're at a point where
(23:17):
she's willing to talk. She's willing to let me go
to bat for her because I was like, I'm here
for you. I know you were here for the horse,
but I'm also here for you, and she's recognizing that
the relationship she has with the horse can also be
had with me. She's like Oh, this person won't judge me.
She's here for me. She'll support me the same way
(23:38):
I allowed her to build that relationship with her horse.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Got it. And it sounds like you're working with a
wide variety of ages. Is there like a age that's
too young to work with the horses or what are
the age requirements?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
We usually start at five, mostly because by that point
they have a little bit of sense of self, little
bit of awareness of where they're bodies at, how to
communicate and size wise. We have a miniature pony that
roughly can be dealt with by a five year old.
So we start at five and then go up. I've
(24:13):
seen clients there it's old at seventy so five to
as old as you want to be. As long as
you can physically interact with the horse, we will have
you at our agency.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Got it. I'm thinking many black people have not maybe
grown up in areas where there were access to horses.
Can you talk about some of the unique benefits for
equine therapy for black people?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Well, it's just that exposure to the animal. And then
we found it Evity Horsewomen's Research, being an urban riding center,
they found that working with horses for inner city youth
in particular, that's where a lot of their programs are developed.
They found that it was really beneficial for them to
not only address the different areas that they were being
(25:01):
affected by in their life, but also for like just
long term success coming through the program, whether through just
learning about horses and doing horseback riding, through their Junior
Mounted Patrol program, through their Dessage team, through Equalness to
the psychotherapy. They have found that youth who came through
Eveny Horsewomen versus just youth in Hartford in general had
(25:24):
long term mental health outcomes and they were better because
they came through Aveny Horsewomen. So a lot of Ebny
Horsewomen's research through the kids who came through their program
shows that versus the kids and just Hartford who didn't
come through the program, these kids have better outcomes. Ebny
Horsewomen has created a family in a safe space for
these kids. Forget the horses, it's the people there who
(25:46):
have really been the backbone of creating that space. I
give miss Kelly her props. She started Ebony Horsewomen as
a riding group first. I believe it was single bombs
in Hartford as the therapeutic thing for her because she
grew up with horses and then she said, no, the
kids need this, and that's really what drove her, and
(26:08):
just creating a family for these kids really was the
backbone of what Ebney Horsewomen was about and came to be.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Can you say more about what kinds of training is
offered at Ebony Horsewomen, Like, how are they actually training
people to become equine therapists?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, so we have our gallop certification program that was
developed by ms Kelly and I want to say an
elsus W. Don't quote me on that one, but it
was developed by someone in the mental health field. To
take a two pronged approach, you have your horse specialists
who know all about horses. These are people who came
up through Ebony and has worked with horses outside, people
(26:45):
who have like animal science degrees or worked in barns
and have like measurable interactions with horses. So you have
all these people who know horses, and then you have
your mental health professionals. These are your lmft's, your la mphs,
you have your lcsws, your lmsw's. You have all these
(27:05):
people who understand and know mental health. How do you
bring them together in a certification course to understand each
other and how to run a therapy session. So I
took gallup my senior year of college, went in as
a horse specialist only to get a master's and they
were like, all right, well you know what you're doing.
And for me, as a horse specialist who had it
(27:25):
started getting my trading in social work or in mental health,
it was really good for me as a horse specialist.
They hear the questions the mental health professionals were asking
because I was like, oh, I didn't even think about that,
And then I could give them feedback saying like, hey,
here's what your horse is telling you. There was a
(27:48):
session when I started off as a horse specialist. It's
an LMSW but he had worked at Ebony before, so
he knew what he was doing with horses. And I'm like, hey,
your horse is nitching on your client. And he was
like he had to pause a session and he was like,
what are you talking about. I'm like, look at you,
how your horse is reacting whatever. That kid was saying
(28:09):
that horse does not believe it. Come to find out,
the kid was not lying but embellishing how well his
relationship with school was at the moment, and the horse
was like getting frustrated, and I was like, hey, so
gallup allows for professionals to come together, learn about horses,
(28:30):
learn about mental health, learn about hip hoo, all that
fun stuff, but also interact so that way in the
sessions you could come together and get the best therapeutic outcomes.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
So what are some of the other questions that you
maybe listened to or heard the therapist asking that we're
very intriguing for you.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Well, a lot of them were very much focused on
how to use the horse. And Miss Malita is the
LMSW who runs the gallop training currently, and you learned
this a lot when you work in social work. There's
no specific way to run a social work secession. Yukon
is very much like, we are not going to give
you activities to do with your clients. We're gonna give
(29:08):
you the theories and it's up to you how you
use them. Miss Wilida is the same way. She's like,
I'm not gonna give you a prescribe list of activities,
but I'm gonna tell you how the horse works out
and you know how kind of the human brain works,
how mental health works. It's up to you to find that.
Mall and just hearing their questions of how they were
thinking through the content. Thinking through a horse's body language
(29:33):
really provided an interesting perspective for me to be like, Oh,
that's how a social worker would see a horse reacting,
That's how they would interpret it. That's how a social
worker would handle a spooking. Because someone asks what do
I do with my horse spooks? And I have a
client and Miss Walita was like, well, it's on the
(29:55):
horse specialist to deal with the horse, and it's on
you to communicate that to the client. And I was
really interesting to see how their verbal thought process on,
like how they would work with a client through that,
because Facilitia asked him. She was like, all right, you
have a horsepooking? What would you do? And listening to
that social worker in particular talk about her thought process,
(30:16):
talk about how it would depend on what a client
needed or like if that client had a history of anxiety,
communicating how the horse got anxious and how the horse
and the horse specialists were gonna work together to calm
down and relating it back to the therapy session while
also getting the client to move to a safe space.
Hearing that was like, oh, okay, cool, because I had
(30:39):
words with horses. I'm like, here's what I do when
a horse books. But now I have this added thing
of a client who might interpret the horsepooking in a
variety of ways. How do I deal with that? Now?
As the clinician was really interesting and I think it
gave me a leg up over other ebony horsewoment clinicians
because I was like, I knew both come in and
(31:00):
I got to do gallop from the perspective of someone
who knew horses but then came in as a clinician.
So I got to hear all the things y'all struggled with.
So now I get to do it.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Better more from our conversation after the break, and I
would imagine, you know, if you have a session where
the horse does get spooped, I think for a lot
of clients there may be enough anxiety where they're like,
I don't know if I want to come back or
(31:31):
do I want to work with the horse anymore? So
how do you deal with this?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, so, thankfully I have not had a horse spook
on me during a session. I had it spooped during
a riding lesson, and so it was this little five
year old and she's been on horses I spooped before,
but she's still little and this one just wouldn't calm down.
So I was like, hey, let's get off, let's work
together to calm him down, and just getting her to
(31:56):
see how I calmed the horse down, and I was like, hey,
sometimes we get scared, but we have to work through it.
Or sometimes our horse gets scared and we need to
respect that. But that doesn't mean the horse doesn't like us.
And she was like, oh my god, the horse doesn't
like me. And I was like, no, no, no, sweetie,
he does, but something scared him and we got to
respect that. And sure enough, next week she came and
(32:17):
she was like, went up to his stall door and
she's like this big, like she can barely see into
the staw. She's like, are you feeling better now? So
really just thinking about like how on the fly do
I communicate and get this kid who's tiny, Like she's
a small five year old, she's so precious. How do
I get her to one safely get off the horse
(32:39):
while he's freaking out. Two get her to like understand
why the horse is reacting this way, it's not her fault.
And three get her to want to come back and
get on another horse, And I think I did a
good job because sure enough she was back and she's like,
are you feeling better?
Speaker 1 (32:56):
So for the people who don't have the benefit of
maybe being in the Hartford area and getting the certification
through Ebony Hearts Woman, what does the certification process look like?
Is there a national body that people can become certified
to become equine therapists through.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So that's kind of the problem with animal cism therapy.
It's so niche right now, and so there's pockets of
people doing it, like Denver great space to be The
University of Denver has a great human Animal research Institute.
So it really depends on looking in your area, finding
what farms are around you, and doing the research. Unfortunately,
(33:31):
there's not a national accrediting service because it's so new.
We've had service dogs, we've had therapeutic writing for a while,
but the actual mental health portion to it is so new.
For a research project I did, I said that this
is the third generation of animal cisi therapy with the
big focus on mental health. So there's no nationals, there's
(33:54):
just pockets. So you really have to look for the
pockets and find who's doing what right, And honestly, if
you can't find it, but you have the background, you
have the connections, be like miss Kelly and just say
all right, we need this. I'm doing it, because that's
how these places get started. Someone was like, I know
what I'm doing, I'm gonna do it, and so if
(34:17):
you have the ability, I recommend doing it.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
How might somebody vet the legitimacy of an equine therapy practice?
Because I think that there could be people who know
horses but don't know like the mental health piece, right,
So how do you vet legitimacy.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
If you're a client who wants to do animal system therapy,
that's checking your clinician's background because in and intake, your
clinician should do their due diligence of saying hi, my
name is like all my clients, I'm like, I am
a social work intern. Here's what that means. It means
everything I do is being checked by somebody else. All
my notes are going to be checked by a clinical supervisor.
(34:54):
I work hand in hand with a clinical supervisor. Here's
what I can do. Here's what I can't do. Because us,
through Yukon, we do get clients for our internships, but
we are still learning. We don't have our degrees, we
don't have our certifications yet. And they're like, here's how
you be upfront with your clients. So you have to
do your due diligence. Check what your credentials of your
(35:17):
clinician are, check the history of the organization. Check who's
involved with the organization, like Gallop from Ebity Horsewomen. National
Assodociation of Social Workers list it as continuing education credits
for social workers. That is something that lets you know, okay,
(35:38):
a national board is checking what they're doing. We have
culturally competent equinances to psychotherapy with a focus on veterans
that we're doing. That training's coming up soon. That one
is also we filled out our application. The National Academy
Social Workers checked it out. They said, all right, you're
listed as a provider to do continuing education credits. So
(35:59):
that's one way check if they're getting those in. They'll
be listed on the National Association of Social Workers website.
You can see what providers are on there as continuing
education credits. That's one way to know if your agency
is getting checked by somebody. So do you have to
do your due diligence and do your research, but checking
who is involved with the agency, checking the credentials, and
(36:21):
just unfortunately you have to do the legwork because it's
so niche, there's no real association overseeing it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
How common is it, Jasmine for equinicist and tycho therapy
to maybe be covered by insurance? Are you aware if
it's covered?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Actually was doing a paper on this, so it's a
good question. So animals is a therapy technically has no
billing code by insurance. No form of animalsis the therapy does. However,
agencies can bill it. So like for ebony horsewomen, we
partner with Husky, which is Medicare in Connecticut it's called Cusky,
(37:01):
and then we're starting a partnership with ETNA so we
can take and bill Husky insurance for psychotherapy sessions. And
when I was doing kind of my research for this project,
I found that in the United States there's no billing
codes for animal SISS therapy And there's been a lot
of pushback on that and creating that because insurance providers
(37:25):
want to prove the efficacy of animal CISIS therapy and
want to spend years doing research, but then not paying
for anybody to do the research, So they're saying, well,
there's not enough research out there, we're just not going
to create billing codes. And then the actual mythology of
creating billing codes, do you build separately based on animals?
(37:47):
Do you build separately based on clinicians degree? And so
figuring that out so agencies can bill insurance, they just
have to be a little more creative on how they
build insurance. But evityhorsemen, we do take insurance. As part
of my research for this project that I was doing,
I did find that there were some places billing insurance
(38:08):
in other areas. One research report that I found was
in California, they were billing insurance. So it really depends
on the agency and the agency's partnership with insurance companies.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Got it, And if somebody is not using insurance, what
might be the range of what they can expect to
pay out of pocket for a session.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I think that's very much in line with typical therapy
sessions for emany. We do have self pay, which is
you pay us, but your insurance company could write the check.
So it depends on if you can establish that relationship
with your insurance say hey, I'm gonna pay for this
and the insurances companies like, okay, we'll pay part of it.
(38:51):
You are covered in this sense, we just don't have
a partnership with that agency. So it really can depend
on the client's insurance company how much then clients insurance
company is willing to work with them, and the agency
that I's typically in line with typical psychotherapy sessions.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Got it. So let's say somebody's enjoying our conversation and
they're therapists and they're thinking, hey, I think I want
to be an equin therapist. What suggestions would you have
for them? And maybe reflections or things you wish you
would have known before you started.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
You got to learn how a horse works. I think
that was the strongest asset that I brought into working
as an equinisis a psychotherapist was I know how my
horse worked because I don't need the horse specialists to
check in with me and be like, here's how the
horse is reacting. I can pick up on that and
use that as a therapeutic tool. I'm like, Hey, whatever
(39:42):
you just said, this horse has reacting to it. Why
do you think that is? I don't need the horse
specialists to clue me in. Another big thing was being
willing to just meet your clients where you're at, because,
like I said, sometimes they'll sign up for equinus to
psychotherapy and then you come into the first session or
you do your and take it there like I am
terrified of horses and you're like, okay, we'll figure it out.
(40:06):
So it really depends. And then for like the therapeutic
horseback riding aspect, because I know we touched on that
a little bit. Once again, it's very much being willing
to meet them where they're at and being willing to
work with anyone and just recognize that the horse is
an animal too. They will react in their own way.
So how do you communicate to a client why the
(40:27):
horse fighter reacted in a way to what they're saying
or doing and just being willing to have that bounce
back of here's what the horse is doing, here's what
the person's doing, and fostering that conversation of why things
are happening in the session the way they.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Are got it. So where can we stay connected with you? Jasmine?
Do you have a website and please share the website
for Ebny Horsewoman and any social media handles you'd like to.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Share so you can find me on LinkedIn Jazmine Morris.
Ebony Horsewomen can be found at Ebnyhorsewoman dot org. The
official agency name is Ebny Horsewoman Therapeutic Riding Center. Type
us into Google and you can read all about the
wonderful programs a any horsewoman has to offer.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Thank you so much for spending some time with us today,
Jazz and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Thank you so much for having me. I could talk
for hours about horses analysis and therapy. I'm really glad
that it's getting the recognition that it deserves. And maybe
now that the conversation's happening about how important animals is
the therapy can be, we'll see a lot more progress
in the certifications or accessibility of these programs for people
(41:37):
who need it.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Let's hope. So thank you, so much, thank you. I'm
so glad Jasmine was able to join us for this episode.
To learn more about her and the work she's doing,
visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com
says session three seventy three, and don't forget to text
this episodes to two of your girls right now and
tell them to check it out. If you're looking for
(42:00):
a therapist in your area. Check out our therapist directory
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory and if
you want to continue digging into this topic or just
be in community with other sisters, come on over and
join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner
of the Internet designed just for black women. You can
join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.
(42:22):
This episode was produced by Elise Ellis and Zaria Taylor.
Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all so much
for joining me again this week. I look forward to
continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good
care
Speaker 2 (42:38):
What
Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy Hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
(00:32):
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you
love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is
not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with
a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much
(00:57):
for joining me for Session three seventy three of the
Therapy for Black Girl's podcast. We'll get right into our
conversation after word from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Hi. I'm Jasmin Morris and I'm on the Therapy for
Black Girls podcast. I'm in session today unpacking equine therapy.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
After listening to Cowboy Carter four too much over this
summer and hearing Beyonce tell us to look at that horse,
Look at that horse, Look at that horse, it was
only right for me to then find out about equine
assistant psychotherapy, a form of therapy that incorporates a live
horse and session with a client to learn more about
this unique type of therapy. I'm joined today by second
(01:45):
year MSW candidate Jasmine Morris. Jasmine works at Ebony Horsewoman
Equestrian and Therapeutic Center in Hartford, Connecticut, where she serves
as an Equine Assistant Psychotherapy clinician. In this role, she
provides therapeutic services on the supervision of Ebony Hartswoman's Director
of Therapy. In our conversation, we explore what a session
(02:06):
of equine assistant psychotherapy looks like, the potential benefits one
could reap through this form of therapy, and how interacting
with horses can help us build on our coping and
emotional skills. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation,
please share it with us on social media using the
hashtag TVG in Session or join us over in the
(02:26):
sister Circle To talk more about the episode. You can
join us at Community not Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.
Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jasmine.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yes, I'm so excited to chat with you. So it's
so funny because we were trying to think about, like,
what is the therapy for black girls? Tie into Cowboy
Carter and I was like, oh, equine therapy, Like, we
have been wanting to do this episode for a while,
so I'm so happy we found you. So can you
talk with us first about what is therapy?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah? So, equine assisted psychotherapy is an experiential therapy treatment
that's so far been proven to increase self efficacy, self esteem,
positive identity in individuals, along with helping them reduce symptoms
of depression and anxiety. And basically it's a form of
therapy that involves working with horses instead of just regular
(03:24):
talk therapy.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Got it? And this is such a niche type of therapy.
How did you find it and how did you become
interested in doing this work?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah? So growing up I knew I was working with animals,
and then in my junior year of college, I realized
I wanted to do something involving animal assistant therapy. A
lot of my work was with dogs. But then I
discovered Ebony Horsewomen because I started riding there and they
were like, we do equs a psychotherapy and I was
like great. And then when I was getting my master's
(03:54):
at Social work, guess who's one of the providers. I
could do an internship with Ebony horsewomen. So I started
there as a social work intern, got my caseload of clients,
so I was originally meeting with four and really learned
about the process of how equinassistant psychotherapy works, how to
use it with clients through shadowing the other therapists and
(04:15):
having my own caseload.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Got it. So what actually is happening in an equine
assisted psychotherapy session? What are you doing in relation to
the horse to actually bring about some of this change?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, so it really depends on the client. Every equans
assistant psychotherapy session has three main players. Your clinician so me,
and then you have your horse specialists, who's there to
focus on the horse because they are still big animals
with their own thoughts and feelings, so we want someone
to check in with them too. And then you have
your client. And it really depends on your client's needs
(04:48):
and wants out of the session. So I have one client,
she's there for the horse. She's there to talk to
the horse. I'm there to just foster what she needs,
but she comes for the horse. I know that because
she had a lot of barriers to therapy in general,
So it was just getting her interacting with the horse,
and finally we're at a place like seven months later
(05:09):
where she's ready to engage and start doing therapy. So
for some clients it's just breaking down a barrier to
what therapy can be. I have another client where like,
small talk is our goal. He has really bad anxiety,
really bad social anxiety. So just getting him to like, hi,
my name is X, I'm this year's old and talking
(05:31):
to the horse as if it was a person, but
building those small talk skills. He's going into high school.
So now when he goes into high school and has
to make new friends, he's like, I've done this. I
know my cues and what I need to hit to
get this conversation rolling. So in theory, he could start
making friends at his new school. I have one where
it's routine building. Every session we come in, we groom
(05:54):
the horse. There's a very specific method to grooming the horse,
and through that it's building routines. So that way, when
she got back home, she has the ability to stick
to the routines at home, because that was a big
issue that was causing conflict between her and her parents.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Got it, So jas when what I'm hearing you say
is that, like the horse really is just the backdrop
for a lot of these therapeutic interventions. The horse can
be the focus, but the horse can also be like
an avenue to like, Okay, if you're feeling anxious, like
you can talk to the horse until you feel comfortable
enough to talk to a person.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, it's kind of like play therapy or art therapy.
In play therapy, the kids playing with toys. The toys
aren't doing the therapy, but it's a tool that the
therapist can utilize to get the progress that needs to happen.
The same thing with art therapy. The art is therapeutic
to the person. They're creating, they're expressing themselves, but it's
not doing the true work. The therapist is using it
(06:49):
as a tool to get the client to the point
where they're willing to express that in a verbal way,
or express whatever they need to express in a verbal
communication for so that the therapist can engage in the
therapy to process with them.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Got it. And would you say that there is like
an ideal client for equin assistant psychotherapy.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I mean ideal client. You don't really see that in
the therapy world, everyone's going to come in with their
own issues and what they want to address. But if
you're willing to work with the horse, I'm willing to
work with you. Equity is a psychotherapy. There's a horse there,
but at ebony where you also have other animals. So
if you're just willing to work with animals, I'll meet
you where you're at. I have people who want equan
(07:30):
it's is a psychotherapy. They're afraid of horses, so I
meet them where they're at, and that's part of the process,
just building up where they can overcome their fear, so
that way they can overcome their fears and other avenues
of their life. So there's not an ideal client. It's
really about how as a therapist I can meet my
clients where they're at and use the horse as a
part of the process.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Got it, So what might a typical day look like
for you?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
So they is kind of a misnomer. You start with
your and your intake usually takes about forty five minutes.
Just come in and ask them what they want from
the process, because we get the referral. But let's say
an outside agency did the referral and then the client
has their own perspective on why they're there, they might conflict,
So we do our intake, really get to hear from
(08:16):
the client like why are you here, what do you
want from me? What do you want out of the horse,
try to understand and lay the groundwork for how our
sessions are going to be. Then every client gets to
pick their own horse. As as a therapist, don't assign
a horse to our client because sometimes they might look
at a horse in the padic and they're like, that's
the one. And so we really want clients to have
(08:37):
their own agency in the sessions, and through that is
picking which horse they want to use. And sometimes a
client might work with a horse the whole entire time
they're there. Sometimes the client's like, I'm going to switch
my horse every week, So we really operate and give
them the agency to make that decision. And then each
session lasts for sixty minutes, and as I said before,
(09:00):
goes really depends on what the client wants to address
and how they want to utilize the horse or how I,
as a therapist want to incorporate the horse to address
their needs. So it really can depend. Sometimes it's a
talk therapy session or we're chatting, they're penning the horse,
we're just standing, like the horse grays, or it's the
(09:21):
horse is an active participant in the session, through like
the client engaging and grooming the horse, through the client
talking to the horse. It really depends on what the
client needs and how I, as a therapist want to
work with them to meet their needs.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Got it? And you mentioned that there's typically a third
person there that is like tending to the horse. Can
you talk a little bit about like the collaboration with
this person, because I'm thinking about like the confidentiality concerns
and like having this third person there, what is the
relationship between the three of you as a part of
the work.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
So it really depends. Most horse specialists, like I said,
they're there to focus on the horse. I've done a
horse by for a couple sessions. My job is to
make sure the horse doesn't spook, and if the horse spooks,
calm them down.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And there was.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
An incident where like the horse freaked out and we
couldn't figure out why. It's the job of the horse
specialists to remove the horse from the situation. It's the
job of the therapist to communicate to the client Hey,
the horse is having a moment. What can we do together?
So the horse therapist is there, they're really a passive participant.
Some therapists choose to engage the horse specialists, Like for
(10:28):
my client who struggles with small talk, that's a good
person who is bounded by confidentiality, who's not me the
therapist that he could talk to. So sometimes you might
incorporate them more. But they're just there. They don't fill
out the soap notes, which is how we do our
recordings of the sessions. They don't fill out anything. They
don't see it. They are there, they get the horse
(10:50):
from the paddock, they stand there, they leave. They're not
allowed to communicate. So they're bounded by the same confidentiality rules.
And if not even more that the therapist. I can
write the notes. If there's any agency providers, I'm communicating
with them. Horse specialists. They come for the hour, they leave.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Got it? And so are they a part of some
kind of like accrediting body. You said that they are
bound by the same confidentiality, So is there some kind
of body oversight? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
So Ebny Horsewoman has its own training program for clinicians,
usually who understand mental health know how to work with
people to address mental health needs, but don't know horses.
And then a horse specialist they know the horse, but
they don't know the same hippo rules or how to
deal with individuals who might have mental health issues. So
(11:39):
Ebny Horsewoman has its own kind of certification program that
they've developed to bring these two parties together and say
here's how you run a session together. So every horse
specialist has to be trained by a any horsewomen to
know that any horsewoman's confidentiality rules. Same way if you
are coming to work as a social worker and a
(11:59):
new agency, that agency is going to train you on
how they operate. Ebny Horsewoman does that for their clinicians
and for their horse specialists.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Got it. So another form of equine therapy is therapeutic
horseback riding. Can you say more about that practice?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, So that's where I started off. In my junior
year of college, I got an internship at Maine's Emotions,
which is a therapeutic riding center in Middletown, Connecticut. And
so therapeutic horseback riding is very much similar to physical
therapy occupational therapy, where you're physically engaging with the horse
(12:36):
versus the psychotherapy aspect that I do at Ebony Horse Women,
where it's very much more mental health focus therapeutic course
back writing tends to be very physical in how it's
working with patients. So at Main's I got to do
various positions where I was a horse leader, so I'm
the person walking the horse or a sidewalker, just providing
(12:56):
some physical assistance because we had individuals of all ability levels,
so sometimes they need physical support while they're on the horse,
So I got to learn different kinds of holes. I
got to learn how to take someone awful horse in
emergency situations, and it was really interesting to see a
different perspective on how to use a horse and how
(13:17):
they work with individuals of all physical, mental occupational levels.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Got it. So you've already mentioned I mean, we know
horses are big, live animals, so you've already talked a
little bit about this, But can you outline like some
of the safety concerns and like what is the I
would imagine there's some kind of like training and like
orientation to the horse that you do as a part
of becoming an equine assistant psychotherapy client. Can you talk
about that?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, So horses. They're big. For some people they're scary,
Like for me as a kid I grew up, I
looked at a horse on television and I was like,
I want one. My parents still can't figure out why.
But for some people who have never seen us, course,
especially working in Hartford, people are like, they're horses here.
So it's really just getting them to understand, like, yes,
(14:03):
this is a live animal, and getting them to understand
the different reaction horses can have. Just like how we
have different facial reactions, different body language to how we're feeling,
horses are the same. Their ears move different ways, their
tails move different ways, their stance changes depending on how
they're feeling. So in the beginning we communicate with the
(14:24):
client like, hey, this is how the horse is feeling.
Or if my client's expressing something like they're getting frustrated,
I'm like, hey, I can tell you're frustrated. Look at
your horses also getting frustrated. Because usually, especially the good
therapy horses, we have one that's just like he's on it.
You can't tell him he's not a therapist. He starts
(14:45):
building a reaction. Anytime my client's building a reaction, So
it's really interesting telling the clients about the horses and
their behavior, one to keep them safe, but two as
a part of the therapeutic process because then they start recognizing, oh,
here's how I'm feeling. The horse is telling me how
I'm feeling. If they're not in a place where they
(15:07):
can't recognize their own emotions or having issues recognizing, but
they can check in with the horse and be like,
Jasmine told me that this is what the horse does
when it's frustrated. I wonder if he's picking up on
me being frustrated. And that's what your first session with
the client, when you get in, have them pick their horse.
That's a lot of what that is all about, establishing
(15:28):
what a horse does, how it reacts, saying, hey, you
might not want to put your body there because the
horse might step on you. Because have binocular visions, so
their eyes are on the side of their head, so
they can't see directly in front of them, and they
can't see directly in back. They can see better on
their sides, so if you're standing in front of them,
they're like you're a threat, or if you're like in
(15:49):
a little blind spot, they're like, I can't see where
your feet are, but I don't want to step on you,
So telling the person, hey, it's easier for you to
move than for them to move, so maybe you want
to take up step back so they don't step on
your foot.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
More from our conversation after the break, can you say
more about the horse's behavior and like how they show
different I guess even aspects of their own person, and
like what are you looking for and observing in the
(16:23):
horse to show frustration or excitement or whatever? Can you
say more about that?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, So horses show their body language primarily through their ears,
their tails, their nostrils, and all of those kind of
work in tandem. Just like if you're observing a person,
they might have their arms cross but they're smiling. That
doesn't mean they're angry. So you have to look at
everything in tandem to understand how the horse is feeling.
So if the horse starts pitting their ears, clenching their
(16:49):
tails to their body and stiffens up, I'm like, I
need to move because they're about to flip out and
I don't need to be here. Whereas if their ears
are swiveling, they're like licking and chewing, because horses eat
when they're comfortable. So if they're looking chewing, they're like, Oh,
they're good. Their chail's just swishing. I'm like, oh, he's vibing.
He's having a good day. So you have to look
(17:11):
at everything in tandem to understand.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And you mentioned early on that some of the benefits
that have been studied are things like self efficacy and
even help with depression. Can you say more about how
equinais and psychotherapy helps with something like depression?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, we have done studies for years and no, animals
make us feel better like they just do when you're
working with animals. I believe it's a release of dopamine
and serotonin happens in the brain when you're just sitting
and like petting a dog. So we know that animals
make us feel better. So equinasis, psychotherapy and animals is
a therapy as a whole kind of took that and said, okay,
(17:49):
animals make people feel better. How do we use that
as part of the therapeutic process? And so now we know, okay,
they help people feel better. Then it comes to the
therapists that use animal or use the horse in tandem
with what the biological response is going to be to
help the client attack whatever problems they want to. So
(18:12):
that involves, especially for like depression anxiety, working with the
client to develop strategies on how to feel better using
the horse as a tool, and in that safe space
develop those strategies so that way when they go out
into the real world they have the strategies in place,
in a safe space with something that made him feel better,
(18:34):
they can in theory use those strategies. Again, just like
with the client I talked about earlier, he has really
bad anxiety. So we get him working with the horse,
which he loves to do, talking to the horse saying Hi,
I like this, I like that, getting him to lay
the foundation of the basics of a conversation, and I
play the horse and I respond as So that way,
(18:57):
when he goes into high school, he's like, Okay, hey,
I've done this. Me and my horse best friend have
done it together. I can go out and make real
friends with other people because I've already done the basics
with my horse.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So can you talk about the transition from like you
mentioned if we use anxiety as an example, so we
are getting more comfortable with the horse. I'm working through
my own social anxiety with the horse. You just mentioned
that you will sometimes then play the horse. What is
the treatment process to go from being more comfortable with
the horse to being less uncomfortable with friends in a
(19:32):
high school?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
This is where and where I use my horse specialists
a lot. So first off, we started trying to get
this kid to hold a minute conversation and he was like,
he really stuttered a lot, like he couldn't think of
things to say. And so we did every other week.
One week would be just a regular talk therapy session,
kind of a check in on how is week is going.
(19:55):
The next time it's like, all right, you did a minute,
can you do two minutes talking to this animal? And
we had, like I said, ebony horseman has a wide
range of animals, not just horses, So we would go
to different horses to mimic going to different people or
going to the other animals at the barn and just
getting him and every single time he has to talk
about something new, because every person is going to have
(20:17):
a new interest that you might relate to. And then
later on, as you started getting comfortable and getting to
the point where he could go fifteen minutes just talking
about nothing or whatever was important to him in the moment.
The turtle is his favorite. He'll go for hours with
the turtle, and I'm like, great, getting him to say,
all right, you have this horse specialist here. You know
(20:39):
who she is. She's been here this whole time. Can
you talk to her? Then our normal horse specialist was
out on leave. All right, there's a new horse specialist here.
Can you talk to her now, somewhat different, someone you
haven't really engaged with. Getting him to the point where,
no matter what situation and every situation is in this
safe space that we've created, whatever situation I put you in,
(21:03):
Let's say I say thirty minutes talk about this, he
can do it. So that way, when he goes out,
he's like, oh, I've already done these different scenarios and stuff.
I can do it out in the real world.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You also mentioned that you've had a client who has
not had good luck maybe with traditional talk therapy. Can
you say more about how people who maybe have not
benefited from it, or maybe resistant even to traditional talk
therapy might benefit from equin assistant psychotherapy.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, with her, it was a lot of working and
just meeting her where she's at. In the beginning, it
was alrighty, I know, you don't want to talk to me.
I'm fine with that. You're gonna give me a one
word answer. Great, I'm just happy you showed up. And
she really struggled with attendance because she didn't see the value.
So I was like, all right, I know you're here
for the horse. I won't push you as much, but
(21:52):
I want you to come and I want you to
work with the horse. You don't have to talk to me.
You could come groom the horse for an hour and
I'll just stay in here, but I want you to
come and show up every week. And so she started
showing up every week, and there was like one day
where she just came in and she was frustrated, and
I'm like, what are you frustrated about? Tell me. I
could see you're frustrated. The horse gets you're frustrated. It's
(22:13):
affecting how you're working with him. Tell me. And because
I had just given her the space to just show
up and be there, she was like, this is what
I'm frustrated about. And I could do the therapeutic part,
validating her feelings, checking her where she needed to be checked,
because sometimes she needs that, like, hey, you need to
step back and see the other perspective, but giving her
(22:35):
the space of being like, I'm not here to judge
you and saying she's going through a lot right now.
I don't know what it's like to be in her situation.
And unfortunately a lot of her service providers are hitting
her with the I know what it's like to be there,
and she's like, no, you don't. She's housing insecure, and
that's been a big one. A lot of her service
providers are like, I know what it's like and she's like, no,
(22:56):
you don't. You get to go home and sleep in
a nice bed. And I told her, yeah, I do,
so tell me what it's like to be you because
I don't know, and just giving her that space. And
now we're at a point where she's like, oh, this
girl sees me. The horse doesn't just see me, she
also sees me. And now we're at a point where
(23:17):
she's willing to talk. She's willing to let me go
to bat for her because I was like, I'm here
for you. I know you were here for the horse,
but I'm also here for you, and she's recognizing that
the relationship she has with the horse can also be
had with me. She's like Oh, this person won't judge me.
She's here for me. She'll support me the same way
(23:38):
I allowed her to build that relationship with her horse.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Got it. And it sounds like you're working with a
wide variety of ages. Is there like a age that's
too young to work with the horses or what are
the age requirements?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
We usually start at five, mostly because by that point
they have a little bit of sense of self, little
bit of awareness of where they're bodies at, how to
communicate and size wise. We have a miniature pony that
roughly can be dealt with by a five year old.
So we start at five and then go up. I've
(24:13):
seen clients there it's old at seventy so five to
as old as you want to be. As long as
you can physically interact with the horse, we will have
you at our agency.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Got it. I'm thinking many black people have not maybe
grown up in areas where there were access to horses.
Can you talk about some of the unique benefits for
equine therapy for black people?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Well, it's just that exposure to the animal. And then
we found it Evity Horsewomen's Research, being an urban riding center,
they found that working with horses for inner city youth
in particular, that's where a lot of their programs are developed.
They found that it was really beneficial for them to
not only address the different areas that they were being
(25:01):
affected by in their life, but also for like just
long term success coming through the program, whether through just
learning about horses and doing horseback riding, through their Junior
Mounted Patrol program, through their Dessage team, through Equalness to
the psychotherapy. They have found that youth who came through
Eveny Horsewomen versus just youth in Hartford in general had
(25:24):
long term mental health outcomes and they were better because
they came through Aveny Horsewomen. So a lot of Ebny
Horsewomen's research through the kids who came through their program
shows that versus the kids and just Hartford who didn't
come through the program, these kids have better outcomes. Ebny
Horsewomen has created a family in a safe space for
these kids. Forget the horses, it's the people there who
(25:46):
have really been the backbone of creating that space. I
give miss Kelly her props. She started Ebony Horsewomen as
a riding group first. I believe it was single bombs
in Hartford as the therapeutic thing for her because she
grew up with horses and then she said, no, the
kids need this, and that's really what drove her, and
(26:08):
just creating a family for these kids really was the
backbone of what Ebney Horsewomen was about and came to be.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Can you say more about what kinds of training is
offered at Ebony Horsewomen, Like, how are they actually training
people to become equine therapists?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, so we have our gallop certification program that was
developed by ms Kelly and I want to say an
elsus W. Don't quote me on that one, but it
was developed by someone in the mental health field. To
take a two pronged approach, you have your horse specialists
who know all about horses. These are people who came
up through Ebony and has worked with horses outside, people
(26:45):
who have like animal science degrees or worked in barns
and have like measurable interactions with horses. So you have
all these people who know horses, and then you have
your mental health professionals. These are your lmft's, your la mphs,
you have your lcsws, your lmsw's. You have all these
(27:05):
people who understand and know mental health. How do you
bring them together in a certification course to understand each
other and how to run a therapy session. So I
took gallup my senior year of college, went in as
a horse specialist only to get a master's and they
were like, all right, well you know what you're doing.
And for me, as a horse specialist who had it
(27:25):
started getting my trading in social work or in mental health,
it was really good for me as a horse specialist.
They hear the questions the mental health professionals were asking
because I was like, oh, I didn't even think about that,
And then I could give them feedback saying like, hey,
here's what your horse is telling you. There was a
(27:48):
session when I started off as a horse specialist. It's
an LMSW but he had worked at Ebony before, so
he knew what he was doing with horses. And I'm like, hey,
your horse is nitching on your client. And he was
like he had to pause a session and he was like,
what are you talking about. I'm like, look at you,
how your horse is reacting whatever. That kid was saying
(28:09):
that horse does not believe it. Come to find out,
the kid was not lying but embellishing how well his
relationship with school was at the moment, and the horse
was like getting frustrated, and I was like, hey, so
gallup allows for professionals to come together, learn about horses,
(28:30):
learn about mental health, learn about hip hoo, all that
fun stuff, but also interact so that way in the
sessions you could come together and get the best therapeutic outcomes.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
So what are some of the other questions that you
maybe listened to or heard the therapist asking that we're
very intriguing for you.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Well, a lot of them were very much focused on
how to use the horse. And Miss Malita is the
LMSW who runs the gallop training currently, and you learned
this a lot when you work in social work. There's
no specific way to run a social work secession. Yukon
is very much like, we are not going to give
you activities to do with your clients. We're gonna give
(29:08):
you the theories and it's up to you how you
use them. Miss Wilida is the same way. She's like,
I'm not gonna give you a prescribe list of activities,
but I'm gonna tell you how the horse works out
and you know how kind of the human brain works,
how mental health works. It's up to you to find that.
Mall and just hearing their questions of how they were
thinking through the content. Thinking through a horse's body language
(29:33):
really provided an interesting perspective for me to be like, Oh,
that's how a social worker would see a horse reacting,
That's how they would interpret it. That's how a social
worker would handle a spooking. Because someone asks what do
I do with my horse spooks? And I have a
client and Miss Walita was like, well, it's on the
(29:55):
horse specialist to deal with the horse, and it's on
you to communicate that to the client. And I was
really interesting to see how their verbal thought process on,
like how they would work with a client through that,
because Facilitia asked him. She was like, all right, you
have a horsepooking? What would you do? And listening to
that social worker in particular talk about her thought process,
(30:16):
talk about how it would depend on what a client
needed or like if that client had a history of anxiety,
communicating how the horse got anxious and how the horse
and the horse specialists were gonna work together to calm
down and relating it back to the therapy session while
also getting the client to move to a safe space.
Hearing that was like, oh, okay, cool, because I had
(30:39):
words with horses. I'm like, here's what I do when
a horse books. But now I have this added thing
of a client who might interpret the horsepooking in a
variety of ways. How do I deal with that? Now?
As the clinician was really interesting and I think it
gave me a leg up over other ebony horsewoment clinicians
because I was like, I knew both come in and
(31:00):
I got to do gallop from the perspective of someone
who knew horses but then came in as a clinician.
So I got to hear all the things y'all struggled with.
So now I get to do it.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Better more from our conversation after the break, and I
would imagine, you know, if you have a session where
the horse does get spooped, I think for a lot
of clients there may be enough anxiety where they're like,
I don't know if I want to come back or
(31:31):
do I want to work with the horse anymore? So
how do you deal with this?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, so, thankfully I have not had a horse spook
on me during a session. I had it spooped during
a riding lesson, and so it was this little five
year old and she's been on horses I spooped before,
but she's still little and this one just wouldn't calm down.
So I was like, hey, let's get off, let's work
together to calm him down, and just getting her to
(31:56):
see how I calmed the horse down, and I was like, hey,
sometimes we get scared, but we have to work through it.
Or sometimes our horse gets scared and we need to
respect that. But that doesn't mean the horse doesn't like us.
And she was like, oh my god, the horse doesn't
like me. And I was like, no, no, no, sweetie,
he does, but something scared him and we got to
respect that. And sure enough, next week she came and
(32:17):
she was like, went up to his stall door and
she's like this big, like she can barely see into
the staw. She's like, are you feeling better now? So
really just thinking about like how on the fly do
I communicate and get this kid who's tiny, Like she's
a small five year old, she's so precious. How do
I get her to one safely get off the horse
(32:39):
while he's freaking out. Two get her to like understand
why the horse is reacting this way, it's not her fault.
And three get her to want to come back and
get on another horse, And I think I did a
good job because sure enough she was back and she's like,
are you feeling better?
Speaker 1 (32:56):
So for the people who don't have the benefit of
maybe being in the Hartford area and getting the certification
through Ebony Hearts Woman, what does the certification process look like?
Is there a national body that people can become certified
to become equine therapists through.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So that's kind of the problem with animal cism therapy.
It's so niche right now, and so there's pockets of
people doing it, like Denver great space to be The
University of Denver has a great human Animal research Institute.
So it really depends on looking in your area, finding
what farms are around you, and doing the research. Unfortunately,
(33:31):
there's not a national accrediting service because it's so new.
We've had service dogs, we've had therapeutic writing for a while,
but the actual mental health portion to it is so new.
For a research project I did, I said that this
is the third generation of animal cisi therapy with the
big focus on mental health. So there's no nationals, there's
(33:54):
just pockets. So you really have to look for the
pockets and find who's doing what right, And honestly, if
you can't find it, but you have the background, you
have the connections, be like miss Kelly and just say
all right, we need this. I'm doing it, because that's
how these places get started. Someone was like, I know
what I'm doing, I'm gonna do it, and so if
(34:17):
you have the ability, I recommend doing it.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
How might somebody vet the legitimacy of an equine therapy practice?
Because I think that there could be people who know
horses but don't know like the mental health piece, right,
So how do you vet legitimacy.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
If you're a client who wants to do animal system therapy,
that's checking your clinician's background because in and intake, your
clinician should do their due diligence of saying hi, my
name is like all my clients, I'm like, I am
a social work intern. Here's what that means. It means
everything I do is being checked by somebody else. All
my notes are going to be checked by a clinical supervisor.
(34:54):
I work hand in hand with a clinical supervisor. Here's
what I can do. Here's what I can't do. Because us,
through Yukon, we do get clients for our internships, but
we are still learning. We don't have our degrees, we
don't have our certifications yet. And they're like, here's how
you be upfront with your clients. So you have to
do your due diligence. Check what your credentials of your
(35:17):
clinician are, check the history of the organization. Check who's
involved with the organization, like Gallop from Ebity Horsewomen. National
Assodociation of Social Workers list it as continuing education credits
for social workers. That is something that lets you know, okay,
(35:38):
a national board is checking what they're doing. We have
culturally competent equinances to psychotherapy with a focus on veterans
that we're doing. That training's coming up soon. That one
is also we filled out our application. The National Academy
Social Workers checked it out. They said, all right, you're
listed as a provider to do continuing education credits. So
(35:59):
that's one way check if they're getting those in. They'll
be listed on the National Association of Social Workers website.
You can see what providers are on there as continuing
education credits. That's one way to know if your agency
is getting checked by somebody. So do you have to
do your due diligence and do your research, but checking
who is involved with the agency, checking the credentials, and
(36:21):
just unfortunately you have to do the legwork because it's
so niche, there's no real association overseeing it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
How common is it, Jasmine for equinicist and tycho therapy
to maybe be covered by insurance? Are you aware if
it's covered?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Actually was doing a paper on this, so it's a
good question. So animals is a therapy technically has no
billing code by insurance. No form of animalsis the therapy does. However,
agencies can bill it. So like for ebony horsewomen, we
partner with Husky, which is Medicare in Connecticut it's called Cusky,
(37:01):
and then we're starting a partnership with ETNA so we
can take and bill Husky insurance for psychotherapy sessions. And
when I was doing kind of my research for this project,
I found that in the United States there's no billing
codes for animal SISS therapy And there's been a lot
of pushback on that and creating that because insurance providers
(37:25):
want to prove the efficacy of animal CISIS therapy and
want to spend years doing research, but then not paying
for anybody to do the research, So they're saying, well,
there's not enough research out there, we're just not going
to create billing codes. And then the actual mythology of
creating billing codes, do you build separately based on animals?
(37:47):
Do you build separately based on clinicians degree? And so
figuring that out so agencies can bill insurance, they just
have to be a little more creative on how they
build insurance. But evityhorsemen, we do take insurance. As part
of my research for this project that I was doing,
I did find that there were some places billing insurance
(38:08):
in other areas. One research report that I found was
in California, they were billing insurance. So it really depends
on the agency and the agency's partnership with insurance companies.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Got it, And if somebody is not using insurance, what
might be the range of what they can expect to
pay out of pocket for a session.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I think that's very much in line with typical therapy
sessions for emany. We do have self pay, which is
you pay us, but your insurance company could write the check.
So it depends on if you can establish that relationship
with your insurance say hey, I'm gonna pay for this
and the insurances companies like, okay, we'll pay part of it.
(38:51):
You are covered in this sense, we just don't have
a partnership with that agency. So it really can depend
on the client's insurance company how much then clients insurance
company is willing to work with them, and the agency
that I's typically in line with typical psychotherapy sessions.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Got it. So let's say somebody's enjoying our conversation and
they're therapists and they're thinking, hey, I think I want
to be an equin therapist. What suggestions would you have
for them? And maybe reflections or things you wish you
would have known before you started.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
You got to learn how a horse works. I think
that was the strongest asset that I brought into working
as an equinisis a psychotherapist was I know how my
horse worked because I don't need the horse specialists to
check in with me and be like, here's how the
horse is reacting. I can pick up on that and
use that as a therapeutic tool. I'm like, Hey, whatever
(39:42):
you just said, this horse has reacting to it. Why
do you think that is? I don't need the horse
specialists to clue me in. Another big thing was being
willing to just meet your clients where you're at, because,
like I said, sometimes they'll sign up for equinus to
psychotherapy and then you come into the first session or
you do your and take it there like I am
terrified of horses and you're like, okay, we'll figure it out.
(40:06):
So it really depends. And then for like the therapeutic
horseback riding aspect, because I know we touched on that
a little bit. Once again, it's very much being willing
to meet them where they're at and being willing to
work with anyone and just recognize that the horse is
an animal too. They will react in their own way.
So how do you communicate to a client why the
(40:27):
horse fighter reacted in a way to what they're saying
or doing and just being willing to have that bounce
back of here's what the horse is doing, here's what
the person's doing, and fostering that conversation of why things
are happening in the session the way they.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Are got it. So where can we stay connected with you? Jasmine?
Do you have a website and please share the website
for Ebny Horsewoman and any social media handles you'd like to.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Share so you can find me on LinkedIn Jazmine Morris.
Ebony Horsewomen can be found at Ebnyhorsewoman dot org. The
official agency name is Ebny Horsewoman Therapeutic Riding Center. Type
us into Google and you can read all about the
wonderful programs a any horsewoman has to offer.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Thank you so much for spending some time with us today,
Jazz and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Thank you so much for having me. I could talk
for hours about horses analysis and therapy. I'm really glad
that it's getting the recognition that it deserves. And maybe
now that the conversation's happening about how important animals is
the therapy can be, we'll see a lot more progress
in the certifications or accessibility of these programs for people
(41:37):
who need it.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Let's hope. So thank you, so much, thank you. I'm
so glad Jasmine was able to join us for this episode.
To learn more about her and the work she's doing,
visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com
says session three seventy three, and don't forget to text
this episodes to two of your girls right now and
tell them to check it out. If you're looking for
(42:00):
a therapist in your area. Check out our therapist directory
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory and if
you want to continue digging into this topic or just
be in community with other sisters, come on over and
join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner
of the Internet designed just for black women. You can
join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.
(42:22):
This episode was produced by Elise Ellis and Zaria Taylor.
Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all so much
for joining me again this week. I look forward to
continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good
care
Speaker 2 (42:38):
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