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The Riding Academy at Good Shepherd provides therapeutic riding series to clients with physical and or mental disabilities.
Horseback riding is widely recognized for its physical, psychological, recreational, and motivational benefits. Through a horse's gait, the rider's posture, balance, and coordination are strengthened. Students who use wheelchairs are prime candidates for this type of physical exercise. Persons who do not respond to traditional therapy in a clinical setting are motivated to endure the mental and physical discomforts of therapy in the riding program. Children and adults with developmental disabilities are eager to participate. This increased motivation urges them to pursue goals once thought impossible, even when it hurts.
What We Do and Who We Serve The use of horses for healing has demonstrated effectiveness for persons with physical disabilities for more than 50 years. In the last several years, the use of horses for mental/emotional/behavioral issues has gained prominence in the United States. The North American Riding for the Handicapped Association (NAHRA) developed the Equine Facilitated Mental Health Association (EFMHA) in 1995. GSTC is a NARHA Premier Center and the program, Cisco’s Gift, is established under EFMHA national guidelines and standards.
Equine Experiential Learning/Therapeutic Horsemanship EEL/TH is the use of the discipline of horsemanship as a teaching tool that enables a client to learn about him/herself through his/her interactions and relationships with his/her environment. This includes relationships with people, animals, nature and any situation therein. EE/TH promotes personal exploration of feelings, behaviors, and repetitive patterns in one’s life. Activities may include horse grooming and handling, leading, games, Natural Native American horsemanship techniques, feeding, injury care, barn management, tack and equipment maintenance, and other necessary fundamentals for a working farm setting. The experiences gained teach students about horses and also about themselves.
Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy EFP is the synergistic team of a licensed mental health professional working as/with a certified therapeutic riding instructor to co-facilitate the therapeutic relationship between the client and horse. Due to past emotional difficulties, people often find it difficult to bond or attach and then to remain attached, to humans (i.e., the present divorce rate in our country). We are socialized to run away from relationship difficulties, and tend to project our problems onto other people. Although part of relational difficulties might be "their" fault, some of it is certainly ours to claim, as well. What we do not resolve in one relationship, we carry (and repeat) in the next – be it a parent-child or life partner relationship. However, since horses offer a "pure" relationship in which to bond and to resolve our own conflicts, they are incapable of lies and deceit, and, therefore, honesty and trustworthiness are "a given." If there is a problem in a horse/human relationship, the problem is the human’s to fix.
Equine Facilitated Mental Health Due, in part, to high clinical standards, clients of Cisco’s Gift who have previously been unsuccessful in more traditional outpatient therapy settings, often respond to treatment at Good Shepherd. Clinical evidence suggests that EFMH helps clients with depression, low self-esteem, learning disabilities, anxiety, ADHD, conduct disorders, attachment disorders, substance abuse, body image disorders including anorexia and bulimia, memory impairment, sensory deficits, autism, Tourette’s Syndrome, schizophrenia, PTSD and trauma from sexual/physical abuse. However, some restrictions and contraindications apply. Thus, a thorough evaluation, physician approval, and treatment planning process are necessary before services can begin.
