Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy

Spending time with horses can heal your mind and heart.

Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy is a unique and powerful way to access and understand your feelings, resolve past trauma, and help you cope with life’s challenges.

About the benefits of Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy

“Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience”
                                                        Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
When therapy is facilitated by the presence of horses a powerful and healing space is created that fosters growth and enhances resilience. We can practice, in real time, the healthy life skills and perspectives that promote wellness.  Through our connection with horses we learn to shift our relationship with our thoughts, regulate our nervous system and navigate powerful emotions.  We increase  our ability to live life more fully and develop the  confidence to navigate life’s challenges. When therapy occurs in partnership with horses we learn from them and heal through them.

At Be Well Better Counseling, we see equine work is an important alternative or addition to in-office psychotherapy. Traditional talk therapy is incredibly effective. Sometimes, however, you can benefit from something different.

EFP is a well-studied and proven approach to healing trauma, anxiety, depression, and other psychological issues. With the help of a skilled therapist and a horse, you receive insights and build skills that help you set boundaries, process emotions and develop stronger connected relationships to yourself and others.

Are you interested in Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy? We now have several therapists who are providing  EFT to our clients at Horses with Hearts, a farm located in Martinsburg, WV. Our therapist, Rhonda Jackson, currently has openings. Read more about Rhonda here.

equine facilitated psychotherapy, girl brushing a horse's head

Colleen’s Story

There are certain experiences in life that seem almost impossible to put into words. My experience with horses – as an individual, as a therapist, and as a mother – fits into that category.

When my son was nine years old, everything felt like a struggle. He was struggling with his emotions. Our entire family was struggling to be supportive. In-office therapy was helpful, but we needed another way to get through to him.

That’s when a trusted colleague recommended Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy.

We had to drive an hour and a half to get to a barn that offered the services we needed, but after just the first few minutes, we knew it was worth it. The sessions combined his love of animals and nature with an effective approach to therapy that took all of his needs and gifts into account.

Regular sessions with the horses led to a profound, beautiful change in our boy. And it opened me up to a whole new chapter in my own story, too. I realized how much I was looking forward to our time at the barn. I needed a chance to change my own rhythm, to be outside, and to be truly present, but it was more than that…

To be honest, the first time I looked into a therapy horse’s eyes, I cried.  When I try to explain the power of this work, words often fail me. I can only describe it as a “soul thing.” Being with the horses makes so much of the emotional and psychological healing I have done through my life into something real. 

Soon after, I began training to offer Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy services myself. And because sometimes the fates seem to align in order to show you that you’re on the right track, a facility not far from Martinsburg, WV is opening its doors to EFP practitioners and clients.

We are now offering Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy sessions at Horses with Hearts. Please contact us to schedule! 

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