Navigating Equine Assisted Supports

Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) is a non therapy skill-based service that focuses on teaching life skills, social skills, communication skills or leadership skills while facilitating personal growth and increased self-awareness through mounted and/or non mounted interactions with horses. 

Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT) is therapy or treatment that includes equine interactions activities or treatment strategies provided by a service that is regulated by healthcare laws and provided by appropriately educated, trained and credentialed licensed or registered healthcare professionals. It describes the clinical application of including horses in human healthcare.

Equine Assisted Mental Health (EAMH) more specifically, is the provision of equine therapy by a licensed mental health provider, tailoring the therapy to the unique needs and abilities of each client, to support achievement of client goals and improvement in their mental health and well-being outcomes. 

So what is a Mental Health and Equine Assisted Counsellor?

While other mental health professionals approach mental health using a medical model, counselling uses a non-medical, bio-psycho-social model, working therapeutically, with empirically supported interventions and specialised interpersonal skills to facilitate change and empower clients. ​​Working with horses, allows pairing of traditional counselling frameworks, with horses as sentient beings that support co-regulation with a regulated nervous system, to provide attuned relationship.

Experiencing in real time, to process in a trauma informed, culturally aware and client paced process, emotions, trauma and story, from the bottom up - incorporating the body and whole brain to establish safety and connection, to integrate healing. #solaceandsanctuary