David is a 14 year old boy who has resided in various group homes for the last ten years. He has no family, friends, or consistent caregivers. David attends an “alternative school” due to running away, which really means leaving without permission, but always returning, stealing, and other self-destructive behaviors. David has attended equine-assisted psychotherapy at Hope-thru-Horses, Inc. since July 2006. David’s name has been changed and the names of the horses used in this article are the names David has chosen for the horses.
David’s biggest challenge is to gain and maintain his interest and commitment to the individual therapy sessions. David has made significant achievements in that he is remaining with the horses and was no longer leaving the sessions. Today, the group home staff reported that David’s stealing has gotten much worse. He stole the group home manager’s credit cards. While quickly thinking of how we could combine the use of horses with stealing, we devised the following.
David choose a horse that he would use in the task. David chose the mini donkey, Amethyst. We put the 3 horses and orange cones in the smaller pen which is 50X50 ft. We told him the objective of the task was to teach Amethyst to steal the orange cones from his friends. The orange cones symbolized “horse money”. David responded, “I don’t want to do this. Why does the staff tell you my business? I don’t like stealing. It isn’t good for me.” We asked him to do his best at the task. He first attempted to figure out a way for Amethyst to steal the cones i.e. placing them on his head, ears, and nose. Then, he decided to carry them himself. As we watched the situation transpire, I decided to “steal” the cones he had stolen and place them back in the pen. After a few minutes, David replied, “I’m done. I stole all of the cones.” I said, “Really? Tell us where you are in your task?” David said, “I’m not doing this anymore. I’m not stealing the cones that you stole from me. I’m not going to keep doing this. I do not want to teach Amethyst to steal.” He released Amethyst and walked out of the pasture. I asked him what he was doing. He said, “I’m finished with horse therapy.” I asked him to return to the pasture and sit on the bench until his time was complete. He walked away. Megan and I proceeded to let the other horses out of the pen. David walked through the gate, back into the pasture, and toward the bench.
Megan turned around and said, “Heather! The horses are out.” Megan and I went toward the horses. Megan later stated that she saw Feisty facing the 4 foot deep trench along the driveway. I asked David to help us return the horses to the pasture. I asked David, “Do you know how the horses got on that side of the fence?” He stated, “I left the gate open.” At a snail’s pace, David wandered around the pasture. David arrived with a pair of braided rope reins. He clipped them around “Feisty’s” neck. (Megan did a great job at holding her desire to tell him to remove the reins that were tightly wrapped around our horse’s neck.) A halter lay at Feisty’s feet and David continued to tug on his neck. I made a decision to break the non-directive model and tell David to remove the reins and use the halter and lead rope as he has done during dozens of other visits. After being haltered, Feisty refused to move away from the green grass. David removed the halter and lead rope and said, “I’m not doing this anymore. I cannot do this.” He wandered off looking for alternative ways to lead the horses back to the pasture. The horses were calm and grazing on the new winter rye grass. Megan, being the safety conscious Equine Specialist, stated in a worrisome voice, “Heather, please let me get the horses back into the pasture. They could get hurt.” I signaled with my hand that everything would be fine. I asked her to let David do his best to return them to the pasture. David put some grain in a bucket and placed it by the gate. The remaining horses inside the pasture began pushing on the fence and pawing the gate. Seeing that David was making an effort to assist and due to time constraints, Megan and I brought the horses to the fence. The more dominant Alex stood at the gate while leaning toward the bucket of food. Submitting to Alex, Feisty refused to go through the gate. David said, “Oh, maybe I should move this so that Feisty can go through the gate.” Finally, everyone was returned home and all was good. I said, “David, let’s go do our journaling.
Wait. Where are the gloves I lent you?” David replied, “I don’t know. I’m going home.” I told David that I would appreciate it if he would find the gloves. Once again, David wandered around the front 5 acres of land. I asked the group home staff if he minded if I asked David to “work” off the value of the gloves. The staff member said, “No, that is a great idea.” I asked the staff not to leave until I signaled even if David stated that he was done. I told David that he could spend 30 minutes locating the gloves or filling the manure spreader. David told me that he would not work. To link the effects of his behaviors to emotions of others, I told him that I was very sad. I told him that it seemed as though he did not care to help me find the gloves. Bringing the session back to the horses, I told him that the horses are his friends, share their things, care about him, and thought he might be cold. David replied, “If I work, you’ll have to pay me $1 per …” I told him fine, “I’ll pay you $1 per…, but then you’ll pay it back to me for the value of the gloves.”
David wandered off. A few minutes later, David exclaimed, “I found them! I told you they were in the feed bin!” He walked toward the group home van. I asked David to come back to me. We were on opposite sides of the fence. I put my hands on his shoulders and asked him to look into my eyes. I said, “David, I’m very proud of you. I appreciate you sticking with us and finding the gloves. The easy thing to do would have been to leave, but you chose to do the right thing and for that I’m very proud of you. I’ll see you next week.” David hung his head low and kicked rocks as he headed toward the van.
While processing, Megan explained that she was very nervous with the horses being out of the fence because as a horse person she was taught that when horses are loose, one puts them back. She asked me how I could be so calm. I stated, “Plus, I trust the therapeutic process and the EAGALA model”. Megan also stated that as a horse person she always considers all of the bad things that could happen. I asked her to consider all of the good things that might have been missed or the therapeutic value that might not have occurred if we would have “rescued” David from just another episode of complacency. This is a great example of how our therapy using horses focuses on the here and now and can be wonderfully linked to our everyday lives using metaphors.
