Equine Assisted Psychotherapy and your coupleship

Suzanne an EAP therapist received a referral from a couple who lived 300 miles away. They had heard that EAP often had miraculous results for couples. The couple had been to so many therapists that they were embarrassed to say how many. The wife said she could not count all of them on her 10 fingers. They drove the 300 miles as a last ditch effort to save their marriage. The wife, Shellie, had been doing some “inner child work” which is a way of getting in touch with emotional issues that begin in childhood. She had been talking to her husband, Chuck, about her “inner child work”, and he thought it was a unique way to be in touch with his feelings. He had grown up in a home where all feelings were taboo. So, Suzanne began the session asking the couple to each pick a horse to represent their inner child and a horse to represent their relationship. They were eager to move through the herd and find these horses. Shellie picked a large Palomino mare and Chuck picked an older gray horse that he said had a “wise look but was actually very sensitive”. Suzanne asked the couple to pick a horse to represent their relationship. They both agreed on an older white mare. (The couple did not know that this horse had been ill with a cough but was healing nicely and had not coughed for over a week). They were asked to take the three horses for a walk. They started out by putting the “relationship horse” in the middle of the other 2 horses. The relationship horse immediately began to cough; Shellie’s horse began to kick out at her and the husband’s horse turned his rump toward Shellie’s horse and was showing signs that he would kick her horse at any second. The Equine Specialist called a time out and asked the couple what they thought was going on. After discussing what they believed was happening, the therapist asked them to consider another way of walking the horses all together and to experiment if necessary. Shellie suggested that they put their individual horses on the outside of them and allow the relationship horse to walk between them. They decided to implement this idea and the couple was amazed at how “ all of a sudden”, they were able to walk around the arena all together. Each adult was tending to their own horse with the relationship horse between them. After they walked around the arena for several times; Suzanne asked them to stop and talk about what was different. This time Chuck spoke up and said he finally understood what this “inner child work was about”. He said “the individual horses as our inner children needed to be taken care of by ourselves; and when we do this, the relationship gets the attention it deserves from the adults”. Long story short, this couple went home the next day and they were able in this brief EAP intervention to understand what each adult needed to do in order to save their marriage: TAKE CARE OF THEIR OWN INNER CHILD OR FEELING NATURE AND LEARN TO BE AN ADULT IN THE MARRIAGE.

2013-06-17T19:16:58-06:00