Hooves healing hearts: Manitoba equine therapy program helping people recover from trauma – Winnipeg

A farm just east of Winnipeg is helping people recover from past trauma through human-horse connections.

Symatree Farm partners with Peace of Mind Therapy and Consultation to help people heal from trauma, anxiety, or depression through equine-assisted therapy.

“Being in nature, working with the animals — there’s just a magic to it,” said Kelly Penner Hutton, a clinical psychologist with Peace of Mind Therapy and Consultation.

Penner Hutton says people can come aware of their own inner struggles or actions through the horse’s reactions.

“There’s a beauty to it because the animals — they can just sense what’s going on around them,” Penner Hutton told Global News.

“They have this attunement to the environment that we just don’t have. They can sense our own inner experience and reflect it back to us, that means we can learn from the horses about what we’re experiencing.”

The program does both individual and group sessions with people of all ages and backgrounds, including veterans, first responders, nurses, children in care, school divisions, and people who have survived cancer, car accidents, and childhood and sexual abuse. They also work with corporate groups and Penner Hutton says they are hoping to do more women group sessions in the fall.

The clients spend time with the animals, getting to know their personalities. They are also walked through different exercises to connect with the horses, working to get the horses to move forward, stop, back away, trot, or even getting them to walk through obstacles. The program focuses on teaching children to be good friends, encouraging teenagers to be themselves, and helping adults connect or reconnect with their passion.

Penner Hutton says horses are often the best healers.

“The great thing about horses is that they live in the here and now, they’re present all the time, they’re grounded,” she said.

“We are typically in the past if we’ve experienced trauma, or in the future if we’re really anxious. So when we’re working with the horses it brings us back into the here and now, and you really have to work because horses (can) pick up what is going on inside of (someone). So that means that you have to tune into yourself to figure out what you need to change to get that horse to move.”

Penner Hutton also says she and Symatree Farm owner and founder Kathy Asseiro have witnessed many remarkable moments through the equine-assisted therapy program that leaves them with chills.

“We were sitting down and processing some of the trauma a client had been through and she had to sit because she had chronic pain and this horse came up and in the middle of nowhere put her nose on our clients back and sat there for a couple of sets of what we call bilateral stimulation as we’re processing,” Penner Hutton recalled.

“Horses intervene for a reason, and at the end of the session we were debriefing and the client told us that as she was processing that accident she had been in, she was experiencing that pain in her back and the horse knew and the horse came and put its nose right where it needed to go so that it could heal. And then she felt this wonderful release and after that release this horse moved along.”

Asseiro says the clients are also partnered up with horses based on their personalities, and the horses choose who they get to work with.

“The more you get to know the person, the more you see that the horse’s story and the person’s story are just like parallels to one another, and I think that’s why they feel so connected to that horse,” Asseiro told Global News.

“Here, (the clients) are accepted in the herd as soon as they come into the paddocks. The horses are already curious and they want to come up to them and now (the clients) feel, ‘Oh, the horse likes me, it’s coming up to me.’ Yes the horse likes you, the horse feels comfortable with you. You’re already showing that you can be a good friend. And it just lets them stand a little taller, they start to grow confidence right in that first hour.”

Asseiro says the therapy can also be healing to the horses themselves, as 18 of the 21 horses at Symatree Farm are rescues, many of them with a troubled past.

“These horses are such heroes, just because they have come from situations that weren’t great. And so for them to be willing to trust again and show the respect and to be able to rebuild that, I think it’s just remarkable,” she said, adding that she and Penner Hutton feel such a rewarding feeling when they see the horse changing a client’s mood, mindset, or behaviour.

“When people who never look for a challenge before, because they spent their life hiding, start looking for challenges, you know they’re on the road to recovery,” Asseiro said.

“(You get) goosebumps, smiles, can’t believe this gets to be our life.”

&copy 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.