Doctors would be far more respectful of their body language and bedside manners if their patients all weighed 1200 pounds; horses help medical students and professionals learn non-verbal communication skills demonstrating the powerful voice of our body's language
The Horse Medicine Wheel ©
75% of patients complain that their medical providers do not communicate well...
How are your bedside manners?
Are you and your patients on the same communication platform?
Maybe you are a great health care provider;
do your patients trust you?
The Horse Medicine Wheel is a specifically designed workshop for medical and healthcare professionals whom are currently practicing such as; medical technicians, nurses, doctors, surgeons, ER staff, residency programs, fellowship programs, psychology internship programs, mental health professionals, physical therapists, and the alternative medical venues of chiropractic, acupuncture, and energy healers. Because health science education stresses most of its training on intellectual excellence, much less attention is placed on proficient communication, both verbal and non-verbal.
Learning to communicate with horses requires an appreciation for all the messages we send and receive as it demands patience, gentleness, self-confidence, sensitivity, focus and a keen awareness. Horses are large but also easily frightened - their survival as prey animals depends upon them being finely tuned to body language, emotional tone and to the position or movement of objects and other beings within their sensory fields.
Interacting with a flighty, aggressive, or dissociative horse brings health care personnel to a place where they can discuss their frustrations, fears, and insecurities and learn to manage their own conflicting feelings by actually practicing more effective ways to manage and deal with various states displayed by their patients. Through this work, professionals are able to see firsthand the effects of emotional incongruence and increase their sensitivity to non-verbal awareness. As they develop the poise and self-control to deal with a 1000 pound being, their ability to monitor and modulate the arousal levels in their human clients is refined.
By reflecting back to us the most subtle signals of our intent (that we may not be conscious of) the horses can teach us to be much more aware of the messages that we convey. Horses also can help us refine our instinctual, intuitive and sensory faculties that may have dulled due to pressure of exams/schooling, scientific reasoning, logical diagnosis, and clinical decision making. As horses can be fast, mighty and sometimes unpredictable animals - they can challenge us to overcome our fears/indecision and develop confidence, courage and conviction.
Horses also help medical professionals in that they remain true to their essence - they each have distinct personalities and moods - an approach that works with one horse may not work with another (much like your patients), we therefore have to find other ways to communicate, and generate respect within that relationship in order for it to be based on compassion and trust. Because horses react to the subtlest of our human signals, it is as if they are holding up a magnifying glass to our styles and behaviors. It is in this mirror that we can see our truest image and a path to professional development and growth.
Spring Reins of Hope has customized exercises enlisting horses to help medical professional with:
- Improved rapport and communication with patients
- Enhanced bedside manner and an improved understanding of your non-verbal messages
- Develop confidence building and awareness of your presence
- Manage stress of time constraints with patients and maintain valued rapport
- Learn congruent, non-intimidating ways to interact
- Defining appropriate personal space and boundary setting
- Learning strategies for effectively managing challenging clinical situations with poise and self-control
- Identifying patterns of interaction, the reactions elicited by the horses and how that relates to both professional and personal identity
Resources on Professional Training and Development with Horses
Coming Soon… Additional SROH Workshops in Development
- THE HORSE COUNCIL OF JUSTICE
(Body Language and Courtroom Awareness for Legal Professionals)
Please check back with us periodically, or call/email us for more information as these develop further.