Posted on 11/08/2005 4:46:01 AM PST by linkinpunk
A Horse to Heal
Monday, November 07, 2005 By Matt King
San Martin - Atop Rocky there’s no couch, no tissues, no stern Jungian waiting for my life story and nothing to hang on to.
Martha McNiel has me recite the alphabet, a trick - she calls it a technique - to get me to breathe. She asks about my favorite nursery rhyme, and tells me to sing my favorite song.
“Reach forward and tug on his ears, hug him, tell him he’s a good boy,” McNiel says. “You’re a good boy, Rocky!”
I do. Rocky, a stout pony with a shaggy blond mane, is a good boy. Even though I probably weigh too much for him, he’s not going to drop me.
I begin to relax and so does Rocky. He lets out a breath that sounds like’s he’s flapping his lips. Plbblbbllllbbb.
“Did you hear that?” McNiel asks. “He’s relaxed. When you relax, he relaxes.”
Then it’s time to go. My first ride on a horse, and my first therapy session at DreamPower Horsemanship, in the role of a 10-year-old Romanian adopted from my homeland when I was five.
I’m suffering from reactive attachment disorder, a common problem with adopted children. I don’t want to be close to anyone, least of all my new parents.
So McNiel puts me on a horse in her office in San Martin - if a riding arena at Taylor Made Farms can be called an office.
A true believer in the healing power of horses, McNiel is pioneering the field of equine-assisted psychotherapy. Whether it’s children with severe emotional problems, former gang members or adults with relationship troubles, McNiel, a licensed marriage and family therapist, helps them on horseback.
“Instead of going into your therapist’s office and sitting in a chair and looking at each other, we do the same thing in a more experiential way,” McNiel said recently. “There are a lot of programs that use animals to assist in therapy. The interesting thing about a horse is that people recreate their human relationships.”
McNiel says grief, depression, anxiety, abuse and nearly every other psychological ailment and disorder can be treated as effectively on a saddle as on a couch. In a single day last week, she and her staff worked with a 7-year-old autistic girl learning motor skills, a 57-year-old woman taking confident rider classes, an 80-year-old retarded man who dreams up growing up to be a cowboy and a handful of teens with a variety of serious emotional and mental problems.
“We work with a lot of teenagers,” McNiel said. “Some we work with are from court-ordered drug treatment programs, gang members, kids with a violent past. Some are referred by teachers and some come from other therapists. Often, they’ve tried other kinds of psychotherapy and it hasn’t worked.”
Small Successes
McNiel, who’s been a therapist since 1993, created DreamPower in 2002. She was inspired to start the program, she said, by Sept. 11. At the time, she was commuting from the North Bay to her practice in San Francisco.
“I really expected that the Golden Gate Bridge was the next thing that was going to be blown up,” McNiel said of the day the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked. “I really feel like I was placed on this earth by God to have an equine-facilitated therapy program. I decided that if I was going to be blown up I didn’t want to go to heaven and never get around to doing the thing I was sent here to do.”
So inspired, McNiel became certified with the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association and moved to San Martin. DreamPower is one of five NARHA-certified programs in California and one of just two where therapists work primarily with mental health patients. NARHA representative Ainslie Kraeck called McNiel one of the leaders of her field.
“She’s absolutely wonderful,” Kraeck said. “She has a lot of training and experience and is very willing to help people coming up who are interested in the field.”
McNiel relies on a volunteer staff, all of whom are certified equine therapists or interns working toward certification. Jessica Pinto, who grew up in Mill Valley, began working at DreamPower just a few weeks ago.
“Working with these kids in incredible,” she said in a break between lessons this week. “First of all they’re teenage boys, who are hard to reach anyway, and you see them down on their knees talking baby talk to the minis. One kid chose the puniest mini to be his horse and said he did it because all the other horses ganged up on him, and that’s how he felt. They open up without realizing it.”
Those small steps, the connection with an animal, the ability to talk about their past or their feelings, is how progress is measured at DreamPower, Pinto said. “Those little things are why we’re all here. Everything here is in baby steps and small successes. If you can’t focus on small successes, it’s overwhelming.”
For Jakki, a 7-year-old autistic girl, the small success is that she’s now brave enough to let go of the reins and raise her arms as her therapists lead her horse in circles. In just a few weeks, she’s gained balance and motor control. She’s having fun on the horse.
“Her mom’s biggest goal is for her to have balance,” said Garry Stauber, who volunteers dozens of hours a week at DreamPower and leads its board of directors. “Sometimes our goals are different. We also want to build confidence so later in life she’ll be comfortable on a horse.”
Stauber also works with Marsha Larson, a 57-year-old San Jose woman who’d been riding for 17 years, but lost her confidence after a series of falls from her Arab, Spark. Larson still loves to ride, but she’s terrified of falling.
“I love horses and they are my passion, but it’s not natural for me “ she said. “They are very sensitive to my fear. I get fearful, I clinch up, I lose my balance and I lose my seat.”
Stauber said that Larson has no “kinetic awareness.” When she closes her eyes she loses track of her relationship to her surroundings. He has her riding T.C., a 21-year-old quarter horse known for being “too cool.” He’s the right horse for Larson because he’s calm and predictable, and will help her be comfortable.
“All of our clients come here with a dream,” Stauber said. “It’s our desire to make those dreams come true, no matter what they are.”
Lasting Effects
The kids who attend DreamPower must complete an eight-week course with miniature horses before they can ride a full-size horse. And before they can ride, they have to learn to groom, lead and halter.
“What I want to know is that they can control their temper and follow directions,” McNiel said. “In three years, I’ve only asked two kids to leave and they were kids who threatened to hurt the horses. We work with risky kids, kids many places wouldn’t take, but have to be very bad [to leave the program].”
People give themselves way with horses, McNiel said. Teenagers with a rough and tumble background tend to be rough with the horses. Kids with a poor self-image are afraid of even the minis. Adults act with horses the way they do with people.
“If you are very passive and allow yourself to be walked over by the other people,” a horse will do the same, McNiel said. “Horses will swing their head and bump into you, step on your feet, push you of the way. Many times women will not set proper boundaries. We work with them to identify proper boundaries and have the horse respect those boundaries.”
Relationships and they’re assorted dangers are under constant discussion at DreamPower. Patients have many problems in common, but none more so than an inability to form a proper, trusting relationship of any kind. DreamPower is set apart not just by the horses, but by an atmosphere that encourages patients to bond with their instructors.
“The needs of these kids are so complex, we need to know the whole person,” McNiel said. “We want the kids to get attached to the horses, and if they happen to get attached to us, that’s OK. We want them to care for an animal and develop a relationship with an animal that’s a really safe relationship.”
And the animals are used to strengthen relationships between people.
In my case, back in the role of a 10-year-old boy rebelling against my adoptive parents, Rocky is helping me learn to trust my mother.
McNiel tells me again to sing. I’m quiet because I’m embarrassed, and worried that I‘ll give something away if I sing the first words that pop into my head. Now I’m nervous and feeling vulnerable.
McNiel rescues me by singing “Row Row Row Your Boat” with me until she’s sure I’m comfortable, and leads me around the arena as I learn to give Rocky basic commands: “walk on” and “whoa!”
Then, at McNiel’s direction, I spin around and sit facing out over Rocky’s tail while my “mother” leads the horse.
With a spotter beside me in case I start to slide, my mother leads me safely around the arena. I stretch out and scratch Rocky on the rump and tell him he’s a good boy. I lean forward and hug his behind. He exhales.
Plbblbbllllbbb.
I agree that many brilliant minds are being wasted in public schools, but my point was I wonder how many brilliant people like Steven Hawkings were simply thought of as mentally retarded because they were trapped in a body that couldn't express what they were thinking. At least a person who is not severely disabled has a chance to do more because they physically can.
My daughter started riding at 8; horse was the third word in her vocabulary, after Mama and Daddy. She's 11 now, an equine athelete. Last November we bought her a horse, an 18-year-old Russian Arabian mare.
Our lives for the past 2+ years have been virtually impossible: my last 2 grandmothers, my husband's mother and father, and my father all died within 14 months. There were other issues occurring as well. My daughter has had Natasha there for her through all of the first year of recovery from grief times 5. I started riding Natasha this spring, but she was way to spirited for me.
Last month I purchased my own horse, a 5-year-old Quarter Horse gelding named King (but I call him Boris.) He's basically a riding couch, large and comfy. I LOVE horses for my own therapy and grief recovery. There's nothing quite like a horse hug or a horse kiss to lift your spirits.
Very cool. (Sorry about your losses)
But horses are THE BEST therapy.
I need some of that therapy, especially after last months vet bill.
Smells suspiciously like a strawman argument to me. We were discussing the disabled. Do the disabled have "certain inalienable rights" as do the rest of us physically fit, mentally and emotionally sound (a relative term at best, e.g. Al Franken) individuals?
This is a slippery slope, for if the disabled do not have such rights, then why do we tolerate their existence in our society? And who should decide an individual's relative worth to society...Michael Shiavo?
As with any non-profit organization, it is incumbent upon the potential contributor to research where and how funds are spent. There are good groups and bad groups. Investigating the annual financial reports of non-profit organizations is your right, but it requires action and thought. Unfortunately some would rather "throw the baby out with the bathwater" instead of exerting a little effort.
As to the Sierra Club...what were you thinking???
"As to the Sierra Club...what were you thinking????"
What I was both thinking and posting was that even with the better non-profits, the "members join to do good, leaders are there to do well" applies. While Sierra has the advantage of a non-self perpetuating board (or did when I was a FLEXCOMmie), and this does allow for some member oversight of group actions, the temptation to adopt an "Agenda Uber Alles" attitude has proven too strong for many to resist.
'Tis all too easy to allow one's dogma to be run over by one's karma. Audubon is a very good example. How many of their donors are familiar with National Audubon's President Berle's "We reject the idea of private property." statement?
I do not believe that abortion is an option in any circumstances. However I do think that there are plenty of severely damaged children who undergo programming to meet legal and emotional requirement of adults and systems when custodial care is the best option. Custodial care is warm, friendly, medicated when needed, focusing on ADLs.
It also doesnt cost as much as special schools, buses, and programming that at best, is minimally effective.
I dont need a compassion IV. You however need a brain IV. Plenty of children are subjected to programming that provides a minimal return at best for the costs. I believe all of the children should be sheltered, warm and comfortable but I do not think that programming is needed.
I agree. You don't need a compassion IV. One first must possess a heart to experience compassion.
BTW, newbie...have you ever been in an institution for the mentally disabled? I have, most unfortunately. Quite often as part of my duties as a paramedic. I wouldn't even put YOU in one of those places.
Here's a little hard data for you to chew on, that is if you can get through the big words:
From Syracuse University, A Time to Take Sides.
Observational data on institutions have revealed shocking evidence of human abuse, in the form of retarded persons forced to live in isolation cells, showers, and barren dayrooms, people washed down with hoses like cattle in a slaughter house, people tied to benches and chairs and constrained in straight jackets, toilets without toilet seats and toilet paper, or stall walls, broken plumbing, cockroaches, unclothed people burned by floor detergent and overheated radiators, people intentionally burned by their supervisors' cigarettes, rooms crowded wall to wall with a sea of beds, children locked in so-called "therapeutic" cages, people forced to eat their meals at breakneck speeds, food provided in unappetizing form (often as mush), and people drugged into quiescence. Observational data repeatedly reveal these and a range of other equally abusive phenomena (Biklen, 1973; Blatt, 1970, 1973; Blatt & Kaplan, 1966; Blatt, McNally, & Ozolins, 1978; DeGrandpre, 1974; Giles, 1971; Holland, 1971; N.Y.A.R.C. et al. v. Rockefeller, 1972; Ha1derman v. Pennhurst, 1977; Taylor; 1977; Wiseman, 1969; Wooden, 1974; Wyatt v. Hardin, 1971). The recent parade of court cases involving issues of institutional life provides another unequivocal source of data devastating to institutional legitimacy (N.Y.A.R.C. et al. v. Rockefeller, 1972; Halderman v. Pennhurst, 1977; Wyatt v. Hardin, 1971).
This list does not even include rampant sexual abuse. Continuing from the article:
Data on community programming support the view that whereas abuses in institutions are to be expected, abuses in community programs are more the exception than the rule. First hand accounts, for example, indicate that deinstitutionalized retarded persons generally are happy or happier about their lives in the community (Bogdan & Taylor, 1976; Edgerton & Bercovici, 1977; Gollay et al., 1978). Moreover, when given an option to stay in the community or return to the institution, well over 75% of those placed in foster homes, group homes, and adult homes would stay in the community (Scheerenberger & Felsenthal, 1976). Further, the data on community adjustment, by whatever standards are applied, yield a consistent pattern of moderate though unpredictable success (Baller, Charles, & Miller, 1966; Bogdan & Taylor, 1976; Cobb, 1972; Edgerton & Bercovici, 1976; Gollay et al., 1978; Kennedy, 1976; Muelberger, 1972; and O'Connor, 1976).
Plenty of children are subjected to programming that provides a minimal return at best for the costs. I believe all of the children should be sheltered, warm and comfortable but I do not think that programming is needed.
Again with the fear that someone has their hand in your pocket. Read the article. It goes on to explain just how much money YOU are paying for these people to be abused. Now, aren't you proud of yourself?
And why not??? If you're so danged concerned about CO$T, you should be all in favor of forced abortions for defective fetuses.
Custodial care is warm, friendly, medicated when needed, focusing on ADLs.
Try it for a week, then get back to me.
And why not??? If you're so danged concerned about CO$T, you should be all in favor of forced abortions for defective fetuses.
Why?
What does being pro life have to do with out of control spending by interest groups and systems for poor to no results. You can do the drama but I dont see you addressing the issues.
BTW, newbie...have you ever been in an institution for the mentally disabled? I have, most unfortunately. Quite often as part of my duties as a paramedic. I wouldn't even put YOU in one of those places.
I have. I have worked in them. Well run and compassionate these institutions can provide a safe, clean atmosphere for the most diminished of us.
dang it they enjoy themselves and that is worth something.
It probably is, but not on the community dime. this is where charity can step up to bat.
Yes, yes, I know. There have been some abusive institutions. No kidding. But on the whole many institutions were clean, wholesome and well run. Would you like to think about the thousands of abusive foster homes, where children, isolated from anyone, live on back roads with people who have found a way to make a dollar with minimal training?
And I have no heart?
Let me tell you about all the foster care beating with lead pipe stories...
Charity often does step in. The one here in town has been set up as a foundation where it is funded by private enterprise, charitable donations and fees. The costs of operation are offset by allowing regular riding lessons to be taught to people who want to ride, volunteers and charitable donations. People donate generously because this type of therapy does indeed work wonders. People don't mind giving to things that work.
Those warm fuzzy custodial institutions you talk of receive more state funds than you realize, often times for mediocre results. I know because I have worked in several group homes and was a case manager for several years. Where do you think the money comes from to pay the staff and administrators? Mentally ill and disabled people are a big commodity and are often treated as such.
You remind me so much of an ex-boss. She and her husband ran a nursing home in the Chicago area and thought death was such a lovely process (pre-Felos, btw). Her "home" and many, many others were later shut down during a nursing home sting operation. Violations included, but were not limited to, frequent physical abuse of the residents, vermin infestations, medication errors, creative accounting practices, etc., etc.
Ever tried to treat a bedsore the size of a dinner plate? The stench of staph from one patient was so bad that none of the nurses I worked with could go near her without gagging. My experience working in a path lab was severely put to the test every time I dressed her wound.
We all cried buckets when she died of septicemia - the result of a well run and compassionate long-term care facility.
Don't talk to me about institutions. I've seen the best and the worst.
Logic does not seem to be your strong suit, so I will ask you again: If you are so concerned about the cost of caring for the "diminished", why not eliminate the problem before it becomes a problem? Abortions are relatively safe procedures, and very low cost compared to a lifetime of care. Very likely, the aborted fetus would suffer far less pain and trauma than enduring the kind of care you advocate.
The "bottom line" is your entire thesis. As such, proclaiming to be pro-life is irrational.
OTOH, I am genuinely pro-life...and to understand this you must consider what "life" really means. If you look in any common dictionary, life does not simply mean the presence of biological processes. It also means quality. Being shut away in an institution, simply having physical needs met is not life - it is existence without joy or purpose. Do a search on "Down's Syndrome" and you will find mutiple books written by families who have experienced the love and joy these special people can bring to a devoted family.
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