In the News

I am excited that a former student, Deborah Withers, LCSW, opened the Ho‘ola Ola Healing Life Center: Equine Assisted Psychotherapy for Trauma in Hawaii. Click the image link to read the article, see images from the blessing of the horses, and learn more about Deborah and the work being done at Ho’ola Ola Healing Life Center.

This week join Mickenzie and Lindsey for a fascinating conversation with Certified EMDR Therapist Sarah Jenkins. Sarah is brilliant and a pioneer in the modality of Equine Assisted EMDR. Together the three explore how trauma impacts our bodies and how this profound therapeutic method can benefit individuals who have experienced adversity experience presence and healing.

How can EMDR therapists teach presence and centeredness to clients? Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC, CPsychol, suggests using a four-legged friend. Equine therapy is not a new concept. It’s been used for decades to help people with physical disabilities. So, how can these beautiful creatures help EMDR therapy clients? Can equine-assisted therapy with EMDR help clients with complex PTSD? What about EMDR therapists who don’t have access to horses but want to integrate equine-assisted therapy into their practice? Learn more about this approach to EMDR therapy.

I am so grateful to have my article on Equine-Assisted EMDR featured in EMDRIA’s Go With That Magazine. Thank you EMDRIA, so much for bringing EA-EMDR to Go With That Magazine with such unwavering support. Humbling and truly inspiring to have worked with EMDRIA’s team to make it happen! Thank you to all of my horses, clients, students, and colleagues who are so key to this work.

Veterans and family members attended an open house to learn about the Equines for Freedom program. The nonprofit organization offers free equine-assisted PTSD treatment to current and former US service members. The idea of an open house started with EMDR certified equine specialists Heather Stage and Ann Marie Lewis, founder of Equines for Freedom, to share more about what their program can do for clients.

A love for horses from a young age, and her passion for human health inspired Sonja Bigalke-Bannan to create her own business. The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Thompson School of Social Work & Public Health alumna owns and runs Heart Horses, a unique therapy facility on Oʻahu’s North Shore that offers therapeutic horseback and equine-assisted psychotherapy.

I will never forget the first time I felt like I had really failed a person I was providing therapy to. It wasn’t an error in thinking. I wasn’t being hard on myself. I really did mess up. But through a true, deep, painful realization of the error I had made, I learned so much. It was one of the most vulnerable experiences of my career. Even now, in fact, it feels quite vulnerable to share in this writing.

When he left the Marines in 2012, R.J. Lacelle never expected his battles to follow. But two years after discharge, the firefights and homemade bombs that had threatened him in Afghanistan returned. Panic attacks and anxiety turned the trained warrior into a recluse.

Fourteen years ago, when I was first trained in EMDR therapy, there was less of an understanding of its benefits, as well as a lot of confusion about what eye movement desensitization and reprocessing actually was. One thing it’s never been is a quick fix.

As you may know, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a research- and evidence-based therapy created by Francine Shapiro, Ph.D., over 20 years ago. An integrative model, EMDR is comprehensive, including aspects of multiple psychotherapeutic approaches. With this in mind, equine experiential activities, such as those found in equine-assisted psychotherapy (EAP), support and help to facilitate EMDR’s eight-phased model, while also maintaining fidelity to standard protocol.