# Motivation and emotion/Book/2023/Equine therapy and emotion

How does human interaction with horses, impact emotion? How can this be used in therapy?
* Multimedia presentation (3 min)

## Overview

The social herd, prey nature and ensuing heightened sensitivity to reading energy and subtle changes in their environment, enable horses to co-facilitate teaching a wide range of life and coping skills. Due to their sensitivity, horses react and respond to people differently based upon the person’s current, and ever-changing, emotional state. The horse supplies biofeedback, providing the clients and the therapeutic team or coach with information regarding the clients’ mood, somatic experience and changes within those moods/experiences This provides an opportunity for learning and skill building. https://rdansw.org.au/programs/rda-nsw-connections/
* Suggestions for this section:
* Engage the reader with a scenario, example, or case study, and an accompanying image
* Explain the problem and why it is important
* Outline how psychological science can help
* Present focus questions
* What is Equine Therapy?
* What is Emotion?
* How do horses and humans express emotion?
* How can this be used in therapy?

## Animals and Therapy - History

* Summarise (briefly) the history of using animals as human companions and in human therapy. Link to Wiki page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal-assisted_therapy Motivation and emotion/Book/2011/Animals and emotion Motivation and emotion/Textbook/Motivation and emotion/Animals
* Illustrate with two examples (Canine Assistance Animals and Riding for the Disabled Link Pegasus RDA and Guide dogs). https://pegasusact.com.au/ https://guidedogs.com.au/

## Equine Therapy - Why horses?
### What makes equines appropriate for human therapy?

Give a brief history of horses as human ‘partners’.

#### Equine Social Order and Herd Behaviour

* Explain horses as a herd animal with a social order. Link to Pat Parelli and Buck Brannaman clips. EAL Greg Kirsten & Sheez Like the Wind

#### Equine Communication

* Explain how horses communicate their emotions with each other? Link to interviews with horse owners on YouTube. (Evidenced in herd behaviour - non-verbal communication cues i.e. affect, and response to natural instinct). Link to videos of home herd..

#### The horse as a prey animal

* Highlight that horses are a prey animal with an automotive flight response. Link to videos of examples from home herd.

## Emotion - Universality (Horses and Humans)
### Eckman's Six Basic Emotions

* Explain the universality of happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger and surprise as expressions.
* Illustrate humans expressing the six emotions (Link to photos)
* Illustrate horses expressing the six emotions. (Link to photos and videos of untouched brumbies in home herd exhibiting Eckman’s six basic emotions – in their natural state).

### Experiencing Emotion - psychological and neurobiological processes

* In horses
* In humans

## Equine Human Experiential Learning Therapy
### How do horses communicate their emotions with humans?

* Answers in link to questionnaire results from (horse trainers, riders and enthusiast)
* Link to YouTube video of home herd and Case Study: Lexi and Rex (Feature Box)

### Interview Questions

* What types of therapy are horses used for? How? Why? (examples: Gestalt Therapy, DBT, CBT and Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation).
* What impact can this have on human emotion?
* Link to Bronwyn's interview with https://www.racinghearts.com.au/ on YouTube
* Link to Bronwyn's interview with Remount https://remount.org.au/ on YouTube
* Link to Bronwyn's interview with EAT Australia https://equineassistedtherapyaustralia.com.au/ on YouTube
* Link to Bronwyn's interview with practitioners and clients of Tumut RDA - Equine-facilitated psychotherapy (EFP) and equine-facilitated learning (EFL) https://rdansw.org.au/programs/rda-nsw-connections/ on YouTube
* Link to YouTube video of home herd and Case Study: Lexi and Rex (Feature Box) and Amelia and Honor - Kosciusko Brumbies.

## Conclusion

* Suggestions for this section:
* Present in alphabetical order
* Use sentence casing
* Include the source in parentheses