The Journal of Animal Consciousness Vol 1, Issue 2 Vol 1 Issue 2 | Page 7

understanding of consciousness we can look again at
Goethe’s work, and particularly as developed out through
Rudolf Steiner and his concept of the four-fold
organization. His work showed us that understanding the
differences between animal and human consciousness is
much more than just neural substrates.

and that in fact, the human/equine relationship has
traditionally been very much weighted in favor of the
human. Understanding the horse and his lifeworld from
this phenomenological perspective will allow us a better
advantage point with which to discern this and thus
incorporate these aspects into the human/equine encounter.

The second major concept is understanding the lifeworld
of the horse.
Within this concept I introduce five
overarching determining factors that we can use to assess
the welfare of the horse at any given time, in any given
situation. While it is obviously vicarious to completely
understand horses’ lifeworld from their perspective,
through the foregoing concepts of threefoldness and the
four-fold organization, we can come to imaginative
perspective in true phenomenological understanding in this
regard.

It is acknowledged that none of these concepts are fleshed
out in their entirety – to do so would take a rather
voluminous book! It is the intent of this paper to introduce
these concepts with EAP/L in the effort to open curiosity
and further discussion. In many ways this paper is critical
of the extant EAP/L profession, however it is not without
resolution.

The third overall concept is that of relationalities. For this
I briefly introduce the work of Slife, Wiggins, Seamon, et
al. Relationships are the framework of psychology and
thus equine assisted therapy, and in fact, we could say that
is true of all of life.
Relationality is generally
distinguished into two forms: weak and strong, the terms
of which are explained in the closing section of this paper.
It should be noted that I use a couple of terms
interchangeably:
weak and analytical; strong and
synergistic. While these terms can mean the same they
also may carry slightly different meanings depending upon
the context one is speaking within. I stress that the
importance within equine assisted therapy is recognizing
that any given ‘parts’ (e.g. patient/client and horse) are in
actuality identified by the contextual relationship at that
given time. This is to recognize the dynamic flow of
changing relationships.
The further importance of a
relational ontology is being able to see how the foregoing
two broad aspects of threefoldness and the four-fold
organism may mold and shape the relationship as it flows
from the horse’s side of the partnership once the therapy
session is engaged. Furthermore, the understanding of
contextual relationships from these existentially-based
phenomenological aspects are important toward
understanding how a therapy session may be structured so
as to respect both the human’s needs as well as those of the
horse. Even though the concept of relationalities is rather
restricted in this paper, it is important to understanding
what true phenomenological psychology would look like,
and I attempt to show that what is commonly referred to as
phenomenological psychology is in actuality a weak or
analytical relationship. I assert that to continue viewing
the horse/human relationship within this analytical
understanding of relationality will not allow us to fully
engage the dynamics of the human/equine relationship,

Horses have been a part of human culture and have been
used by humans for various functions for thousands of
years; numerous recent anthropological findings continue
to move the initial horse-human relationship back in time.
Equestrian sporting activities have existed since at least
ancient Roman and Grecian empires, with horse racing
becoming an established professional sport by the mid-17th
century.
While the initial stages of the industrial
revolution actually brought about an increase in work for
horses, including even more varied jobs, the machine age
eventually caused a decisive shift in the human-equine
relationship. No longer were horses needed for mobility
purposes and their job as farm workers declined to the
point that today we typically only see novel uses of horses
working on the farm. After the industrial revolution was
firmly established and machines replaced literal horse
power humans began to shift their focus, relating to horses
as routes for leisure. Thus pleasure riding along with
various sporting activities became much more dominant.
In recent years, a new segment has emerged, that of using
horses in various human therapeutic functions. Various
labels are applied:
Equine Assisted or Facilitated
Psychotherapy (EAP/EFP) is utilized primarily within the
psychotherapy field; and Equine Assisted or Facilitated
Learning (EAL/EFL) is utilized mainly in the business or
personal coaching area. Others may use variations of these
names, such as Intermediate Intervention, etc. For the
purpose of this paper, I will use the terms ‘Equine Assisted
Psychotherapy’ and ‘Equine Assisted Learning’ (EAP/L).
Horses are also now being utilized in physical therapy
such as with young handicapped children involving short
riding sessions, typically with two people in attendance –
including at least one physical therapist a