EAP Services

What is EAP?

Equine Assisted Psychotherapy 

In 2008, Animal Assisted Therapy was endorsed by the American Psychological Association (APA), Section 17, Division 13; and by the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association (EAGALA) as a viable option for self-exploration, self-awareness and healing…
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About Equine Assisted Psychotherapy


What is EAP?

Psychologically the path to emotional freedom is not always smooth or pleasant. At Spring Reins of Hope, we have integrated Equine Assisted Psychotherapy to help people identify problems, overcome obstacles, and find their own path to living a full and enriched life. We believe that our clients already have their best solutions within themselves. With the help of the horses, our team, and by trusting the process of EAP these solutions can be brought to light in a way that is useful to the client, transferring these ideals into real life outside of the arena. Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) incorporates horses to help humans accomplish emotional regulation and unique coping skills on the journey toward healing and strong mental health. EAP is a collaborative effort between a licensed Mental Health Professional, a certified Equine Specialist, and the Horse(s) working as a team focused on client goals to address emotional and behavioral issues within an agreed upon treatment plan. Often times, we will work in collaboration with the client’s current therapist where EAP can be utilized as a catalyst or intervention toward working through therapy ruts or blocks. 

What's to Gain

EAP is an experiential process where we discover and learn about ourselves by doing as opposed to watching, reading, listening, or talking. Horses offer a unique interactive experience because of their ability to mirror and reflect clients' emotional states, allowing clients to recognize negative emotional or behavioral patterns and replace those with healthier choices through increased self awareness. Horses bypass underlying trust issues which can complicate human relationships or belief systems as they offer a non-judgmental view into our self-inflicted limiting beliefs and provide new perspectives about how to overcome them. It is through the interactions and activities with the horses (as defined by treatment goals), where clients learn about themselves, their relationships, and their reactions. Our professional team of facilitators helps to guide, discuss, and process these discoveries into positive behavioral and emotional patterns. 
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    Spring Reins of Hope employs the efforts of our Herd to help people with their personal growth, positive healing and lasting change. With the assistance from horses we are able to provide the following opportunities for our clients:


    Build Confidence

    Learning and mastering new skills with large animals such as horses enhances the client’s confidence and ability to tackle new projects/challenges.


    Renew or Establish Self-Efficacy

    Learning to communicate and achieve an aspect of harmony with a horse promotes renewed feelings of empowerment, replacing feelings of hopelessness with motivation.


    Increase Self-Awareness

    Interacting with the horses offers the client many opportunities to become aware of their size, spatial boundaries and also the causes and effects of their thinking and actions.


    Improved / Assertive Communication

    The horses’ sensitivity to non-verbal communication and signals assists the client in developing greater awareness of their emotions, body language, motives and is easily integrated toward other relationships in life. Communicating effectively with horses requires the client to demonstrate assertiveness, direction, focus and initiative. These are important traits that enable the client to express their needs, boundaries, and rights more effectively.


    Trust (Send–Receive–Build)

    Learning to interact with, communicate to, and work with horses is ultimately a lesson in building trust. With the horses trust starts with honesty, much like that in human relationships. Horses can lead the way to an understanding of trust, especially for those who have their trust violated in the past.


    Gain Perspective

    Through grooming and other focused activities with the horses, clients are able to put aside any tormenting or limiting beliefs for a moment and focus their attention toward a safe and caring interaction, which can then act as a stepping stone in other situations.


    Decrease Anxiety

    Many research studies have shown that human-animal interaction significantly reduces physiological anxiety levels. Even if the client is initially fearful of the horses – the horses’ genuineness and affection puts the fear to the background and allows an open door to embracing the calming effects the horses offer so freely.


    Realize Acceptance and Assurance

    For many individuals with emotional or behavioral problems there is either a long term or recent history of feeling isolated and rejected by others. The horses, with their non-judgmental and unconditionally accepting approach invites the clients back into the spirit of life. Also, sometimes there is a fear of embarrassment to try new things, so when clients observe the comfort that the horses show “just being themselves” they are able to relax with them and start to feel that too.


    Gain Personal Control

    Particularly for those whose issues involves the loss of control over impulses the need to communicate with a horse in a calm and non-aggressive manner promotes the skills of emotional awareness, emotion regulation, self-control, and impulse modulation.


    Improve Social Skills

    For those individuals who experience social isolation or withdrawal, a positive relationship with a horse is often a stepping stone toward practicing the social skills needed to build relationships and friendships with people. Horses are also social beings so they understand the need to belong.


    Establish Healthy Boundaries

    Safe emotional boundaries can be a challenge for individuals who have experienced prior relationships that were controlling or abusive. Clients discover that interacting with the horses, within the context of a respectful and trusting relationship, can be healing. Also the size of the horse puts some effective physical boundaries to the forefront immediately. Horses utilize their size to teach ‘respect’ for physical boundaries and also provide opportunities to create and maintain your own healthy boundaries.


    Creativity, Intuition and Freedom

    Oftentimes, people with emotional, behavioral or social issues have been inhibited, over-controlled or intimidated to the point that they have lost some measure of spontaneity and freedom. The playful aspects that naturally occur when interacting with the horses can help to restore a spontaneous ability for healthy recreation and play. Having some fun and games with the horses can open up creative thinking, intuition and a chance to feel the freedom of the moment.

Length of Sessions

EAP is a powerful and effective therapeutic approach that can have an incredible impact on individuals, couples, families, and groups as it addresses a variety of mental health and developmental needs. Due to the intense effectiveness of EAP, it is considered a “brief or short-term” approach to revealing core issues and finding workable solutions. When set as an adjunct to traditional therapy we may only need 1 or 2 sessions at various intervals to accomplish very specific goals. When EAP is used as an alternative form of therapy, we generally see improvement within 4 sessions and closure within 12 sessions – of course every case is its own unique timeline. The focus if EAP is not about horsemanship, but rather “life-man-ship”. SRoH offers 0% riding in our practice, and clients need 0% horse experience to participate and benefit from EAP sessions. 
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Our Services

Below are the services that we currently provide. However, we can fully customize a treatment plan to meet your needs. EAP can serve equally well as an adjunct (or alternative) to traditional therapy, and we will gladly collaborate with your current therapist. All visits are by appointment only - we cannot allow walk-in or drop by visits. Please contact us with any questions you may have or to set up a pre-screening consultation.

Individual Private

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Couples Private

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Family Private

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Adult Groups

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Private EAP Sessions 

$250

Per hour 

For Individuals, Couples, & Families
(1 hour)
Minimum 3 sessions

Group EAP Sessions 

For Pricing, Group Topic, & Availability 

For Children, Teens, & Adults
(1.5-2 hours)
Minimum 8 sessions

Custom EAP Group Services

For Pricing, Group Topic, & Availability 

First Responders & Cancer Survivors
(3.5 hours)
Minimum 10 people per group

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