Horse therapy helps youth deal with life issues

The teens frantically wave their arms, snap their fingers and make clicking sounds with their tongues in an attempt to get the horse to follow them and step over a piece of plastic pipe suspended across two overturned plastic buckets. Unexpectedly, the pipe rolls from its perch onto the ground and the horse unintentionally steps over it. Psychotherapist and registered nurse Pat Dubois reminds the kids that the verbal instructions were quite simply to get the horse to step over the pipe without touching the animal with their hands or pretending they were holding food. The teens from A New Day Youth & Family Services, a short-term shelter for at-risk children, were engaged in exercises as part of Raising Hands for Horses, a program that Dubois operates out of her Corrales home. The "equine-assisted psychotherapy" program focuses on emotional issues, while a related "equine-assisted learning" program focuses on life skills and issues related to academics and behavior. The interactions between people and horses are useful in helping individuals and families deal with such issues as grief and loss, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, addictions, depression, anxiety, learning disorders and more...High Plains Journal