What Happens in Equine Therapy: Activities That Change How You See Yourself | Madison, WI

People always want to know what actually happens in an equine therapy session. And I understand the curiosity since it's not like traditional therapy where you sit in a chair and talk. This is experiential work. You're outside, you're with a horse, and the learning happens through what you experience, instead of what someone tells you. I view myself as just the facilitator in equine assisted therapy sessions. Gemma, my horse, does the communication, and the client does the work — even when they may not realize they're doing it.

The Chaos Exercise

One of my favorite activities starts with setting up a lot of chaos in the arena. Buckets, balls, cones, obstacles — just scattered around everywhere. Just chaos. 

Once the chaos is set, I will have the client come out and just notice. What does this feel like? Is it creating anxiety? Does it bring up feelings like, oh well, this is kind of how I live ? Whatever comes up, that's where we start.

Then we bring Gemma in, and we watch what she does. In some cases, she might run around like crazy because she's feeling the chaos too. All these obstacles, all these colors, all this stuff everywhere — it's too much. Once we take in Gemma’s reaction, I will ask the client: do anything you want in the space that might help shift whatever's happening with Gemma. Anything that comes to mind or heart. 

And so they might go in and create some kind of order — put all the balls in one bucket, line the cones up. Or they may create something entirely new. Whatever they do, we observe the horse. And sometimes we will see that Gemma calms. She settles. We experience this visible shift.

Then we talk about it. Where in your life have you felt very chaotic? What would help you feel less scattered? You cleaned it up. You made that choice and even followed through on the intention by going through this exercise with Gemma. Now we would notice how we feel different. What I see is that clients can really feel it after an exercise like this. There's less noise, more structure, they feel like they can step through life differently. The obstacles in the arena become the obstacles in their life, and they just experienced themselves navigating through them.

Getting the Horse to Come to You

This one is deceptively simple. Gemma's out in the pasture, doing her thing — eating grass, walking around, not paying attention to you. Your job is to get her to come to you. How do you do it?

Some people try to coax her. Some people stand there waiting. Some people get frustrated. And some people realize they need to change something about themselves — their energy, their approach, their willingness to be seen — before the horse will respond.

With an exercise like this, I follow up with reflective questions: How is this experience indicative of your life? Who pays attention to you? How do you get other people to notice you? What do you do when you feel invisible? These are real questions that surface naturally through the interaction. And the moment the client shifts — relaxes, becomes more present, finds their own ground — Gemma often responds. She comes in close. She joins.

And that's when they feel it. Oh, my whole demeanor just changed. I was more relaxed and I got results. You see, the more frustrated they get, the more the horse avoids them. When they find that middle ground — not aggressive, not passive, just present and clear — everything changes. It's like butter how it all flows.

Why It Works

The thing about horses is they're not judging you. There's a vulnerability with them that most people can't access in a therapy office. They're peaceful. They're not saying anything — they communicate differently, which opens us up to a different communication system too. A different awareness.

And no one walks away not feeling successful with what they just experienced. That's the joy of this work. It's empowerment. They feel empowered. They feel more peaceful in the nervous system. Whatever needed to come up came up, and it came up naturally, through the experience — not because I told them what to feel or what to think about.

It's just such a natural, organic way of doing therapy. 

If you're curious about what equine therapy actually feels like, the best way to understand is to experience it. Book a consultation to talk about working with Gemma just a few minutes drive from Madison, WI.