Horse Sense

By Guest Blogger John Phillips, Msc. PhD. DC.Hyp.

Any pet owner will regale you with tales of how clever their animal is. How, when you are almost home, your partner will tell you how man’s best friend knew before they did of your impending arrival, as your four-legged friend is waiting at the front door to greet you a minute or more before you actually arrived. We have all heard these stories or experienced them ourselves, and although we are convinced of man’s best friend’s extra sensory abilities, we have never been able to prove it.

Until now!

The benefits of inter-species communication are something that horse owners have always known. Scores of studies have shown that the non-verbal communication between horses and humans provides a learning environment that allows the individual to acquire emotional sensitivity, encourage self and social awareness, increase self-confidence, and develop communication skills and management abilities. In a herd, horses establish their positions – including leadership - by the use of body language and other non-verbal cues, with evidence supporting that collaboration with a horse teaches effective leadership competency.

• Alan Hamilton, a horseman and Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Arizona, developed a programme that used horses to address the difficulty in teaching non-verbal skills to medical students.
• For the past decade, Stanford University medical students, under the direction of Beverly Kane MD, have participated in a programme called Medicine and Horsemanship. Dr Kane currently consults with medical and nursing schools across the US in developing Equine Assisted Learning programmes for their students.
• There are now over seven hundred centres in the US that provide some kind of Equine Assisted Learning programmes.

Most Equine programmes in the UK tend to focus on very specific areas, such as Psychotherapy or children with disabilities. However, an EAD centre at Clyro Hill Farm in Herefordshire is unique, in that they will tailor-make their programme to satisfy the needs of an individual, a large organisation or educational institutions.

They will cater to those who require help with grief or anger issues, have special learning needs or addictions, or require emotional support and an increase in self confidence. They have also worked with adoptive and child fostering committees.

Large organisations will have the advantage of a staff that has experience that encompasses global communications, life coaching, corporate NLP development, certified teaching, conference organising, financial planning, industrial management and school governorship.

The empowering experience of Equine Assisted Development is enjoyable and life-changing. Whether individual, corporate or institutional, it just makes good sense. Horse sense.