The Journal of Animal Consciousness Vol 1, Issue 2 Vol 1 Issue 2 | Page 9

horse from participating in this kind of structured,
intentional therapy? This is a question that must be asked.

sessions without at least one day ‘off’ during a given week.
That policy in itself speaks volumes.

Many EAP sessions are aimed toward the adult with
various emotional/psychological issues, including
substance abuse and crime victim rehabilitation; some
facilities concentrate solely on these same issues in
younger generations – teens and pre-teens. There is also
movement within the US prison system to use horses in
prisoner rehabilitation. Equine Assisted Learning sessions
are generally conducted under the framework of ‘life
coaching’, such as in corporate/business coaching. Unless
the particular facility is operating under the EAGALA
model, they may also utilize riding therapy; a web search
shows that most facilities appear to utilize the EAGALA
model to some degree even if not certified by that
organization. Therefore, a typical equine assisted therapy
or coaching session may begin with some structured
ground exercises done as a team effort or individually. For
example, trying to get a horse to move from point A to
point B, or perhaps getting the horse to follow you. Other
times, a session may begin with simply being in an
enclosed area with the horse and allowing the human to
observe the horse and vice-versa with some exploratory
questions tendered by the therapist or coach. It is not
unusual for a client to have a display of intense emotion
during a life-coaching session, and structured
psychotherapy sessions can find patients becoming quite
emotional.

Equine facilitated sessions are generally done within a
restricted area such as an arena, round pen, etc.; many
times only one or two horses are used depending upon the
situation. Horses are very much a social species and they
can form deep attachments with their herd members over
time; they can as well form attachments to humans. Even
though some patients/clients may become ‘regulars’ in
these so-called healing sessions, they typically do not
interact enough with any one horse to nurture any kind of
lasting inter-species bond. A restricted area is typically
utilized for safety purposes; yet the result is that the horse
has no escape route unless the handler specifically allows
it. In other words, the handler has to be cognizant and
empathetic enough to know when to remove the horse
from what could become a potentially emotionally
stressful situation for them. The reality is that any benefit
to the patient/client generally takes precedence in these
situations and the horse may be ignored as the attention is
turned to resolving the human issues. The result being the
horse is subjected to prolonged periods of forced ‘human
directed’ therapy in an enclosed area.
It is through
knowledge of the living form that we can begin to
understand the emotional impact upon the horse in any
kind of therapy situation.

Language used within this industry is very sensorial and
emotive - “mirror”, “reflective”, “discovery”,
“experiential”; we are told that the interactions with the
horse can present us with metaphors that reflect or put us
“in touch” with our “real” daily lives. One of the mantras
in equine assisted therapy is that there should be no
expectations; the human is coached to “let go”, do not
expect anything. Yet the entire profession is built upon the
basic expectation that one can use another sentient being to
assist a healing process of some kind within the human.
So we are essentially interacting with a highly sensitive
being within a basic contradiction. Would this not have
the potential to cause some amount of conflict in a
sensitive, consciously-aware animal from the very
beginning? Many people that have participated in equine
therapy sessions have been helped in some way by them.
These people speak of the “magic” of horses and how they
can “take” people to places of enlightenment and
absolution; based upon my experiences with my own
horses, I do not doubt this. But this “healing” has the
distinct potential to come from the taking of something out
of or away from another being. It is recognized in the
profession that horses should not be “used” in therapy

The Enlightenment period gave us scientists and
philosophers such as Newton, Descartes, Galileo, Bacon,
Locke, et al. While they all differed in their individual
philosophies to varying degrees, their works shaped and
molded our current quantitative, materialistic approach
within the sciences. Modern science attempts to
understand the world and everything in it through a veil of
mathematics breaking it down into parts, quantitatively
analyzing each phenomenon in (primarily) artificial
settings in attempt to understand cause and effect, with the
ultimate purpose of prediction and control. This is a
science in which human perception is regarded as
untrustworthy. It is one in which the methods to achieve
the results have become the ends in themselves rather than
a means toward extrinsic value (Robbins 2005, p. 115).

What is Gothean Science?

In the century following the birth of the Enlightenment
period (~mid-17th century), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832) gave us another approach to scientific
investigation – a participative one that makes a distinction
between living, growing, developing forms, and dead ones.
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Modern science on the other hand loves to perform
scientific investigations by dissecting dead organisms and/
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© The Society for Animal Consciousness 2016.

Issue 2, Vol 1, April 2016.