Horse Therapy Helps Veterans Break Through PTSD

Horse Therapy Helps Veterans Break Through PTSD
By Terri Moon Cronk
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2012 – A Pentagon Channel documentary sheds light on how military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are finding help through the power of horse therapy.

"Recon: Unbridled" highlights “Horses for Veterans,” at Flag is Up Farms in California, an intensive three-day program designed to help veterans of all ages who have PTSD, free of charge.

“I think No. 1 is to work with veterans who have given up on life,” said Monty Roberts, a renowned horse whisperer. Roberts uses his horse-friendly “Joining Up” techniques on abused and mistreated horses, and adapts it for self-isolating veterans who have post-traumatic stress.

Roberts’ program is about learning to trust people by choosing to, rather than by force, he said. By using the language of the horse or the stress of the veteran to communicate, he added, his program engenders trust.

“When they trust you, they will migrate toward you, rather than going away [out of fear],” he said. “Horses are flight animals. They are frightened of everything they don’t understand. If they don’t trust it, they need to get away from it, and that’s how a veteran feels, too.”

The old style of “breaking” horses often involved using violence to force them into submission, but Roberts' style, which he calls “gentling” or “natural horsemanship,” is nonviolent.

“They get nothing from the fight, so they literally give up,” he pointed out.

Veteran Alejandra Sanchez is on her fourth visit to Flag is Up Farms, but remembers her first time like it was yesterday.

“I have never been so scared in my life,” she said. “I wasn’t even that scared when I was in Iraq. My anxiety was through the roof, because I had to face that I had post-traumatic stress.

“Every night you knew when the sun set, action was going to happen,” she continued, recalling her service in Iraq. “I remember coming to the oddly weird term of ‘I might not make it.’” Sanchez faced her fears head-on in the “Horses for Veterans” program.

“You have to work with people you don’t know, and you already have trust issues,” she said. “It definitely brought out all of the symptoms I face, but at an intense level I normally haven’t dealt with.” Sanchez said she had to learn to calm herself down for the horses to learn to trust her. “The horses would not respond to me if I was anxious, angry or violent,” she said.
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If you live in Florida, there is a great program here for you too!
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy South Florida Veterans Multi-Purpose Center