Horses and healingHorses and healing
All In The Mind
Potential mutual benefits of equine assisted therapy.
28:50•2 Aug 2015
Horses for Hope: How Equine Therapy Supports Healing and Recovery
Episode Overview
- Horses can act as mirrors for human emotions, helping people recognise and manage their feelings through body language and trust-building.
- Animal-assisted therapy often works best as an adjunct when traditional talking therapies struggle to create a strong therapeutic alliance.
- Equine programmes that support both the person and the horse may strengthen the bond and avoid treating animals as mere tools.
- Taking on the role of helper to a traumatised horse can shift a person’s identity from victim to capable contributor, boosting confidence and self-efficacy.
- More carefully designed research is needed to clarify which people and problems benefit most from equine-assisted therapy and how programmes should be structured.
“Animals tend to be unconditional support. So animals don’t judge you. They don’t care whether you’ve arrived with bed hair or you’ve arrived with mismatched clothes.”
How do different strategies aid in addiction recovery? This episode of All In The Mind shifts the focus to horses, showing how equine-assisted therapy can support people living with trauma, anxiety and other mental health challenges. The discussion kicks off with anthropologist and keen horse rider Dr Kirli Thompson, who explains how animals help humans understand themselves. Horses, she says, can act as “metaphorical mirrors” and also as active partners in “transformational processes for people that need healing”.
Their symbolic role in rites of passage sits alongside very practical therapeutic work. Associate Professor Tanya Signal brings a psychologist’s lens, talking about why animals can be such powerful allies, especially when traditional therapy struggles to connect. She points out that “animals tend to be unconditional support” and notes how horses, as large prey animals, push people to manage their emotions and body language, building trust and confidence in the process.
Team leader Colin Emerson from Horses for Hope in Kinglake, Victoria, walks you through a typical session with at-risk young people, where clients learn to become a calm, non-aggressive leader for a horse. The twist? Many of these horses are themselves traumatised, so participants move from being helped to being helpers, a subtle but important shift in identity. You’ll also hear from 17-year-old Jordie, who arrived with anxiety, depression and anger, and now calls herself “a happy-go-lucky type person”.
Her description of facing a huge horse as “like facing those big problems in life that you haven’t been able to face” shows how this work speaks directly to people wrestling with emotional pain. Researcher Angie Nelson highlights how varied equine programmes are and why clearer evidence is needed, while Tanya stresses that therapy must benefit the animals too, treating them as co-therapists rather than tools.
If you’re curious about how human–animal relationships might support recovery and healing, this thoughtful conversation offers plenty to reflect on — could a horse ever help you see yourself differently?
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