Our approach to therapy
At the heart of our therapeutic approach is relationships.
Having an animal as part of therapy offers a powerful way to help feel grounded, and to create a safe relationship, through which we can feel more able to open up, and explore our emotions, experiences and mental health. Observing the herd of horses offers a space to explore our relationships to ourselves and others. Through the animals we can also recognise ways in which animals physically and emotionally regulate themselves, manage emotions and relationships, and learn from these.
Alongside these guiding therapeutic principles, we adapt clinic based psychological approaches to use alongside the animals, including Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Extensive Clinical Psychology training allows for the integration of therapeutic approaches, to utilise parts of different therapies that fit our model.
Our approach to animals
At Beyond the Clinic Room our approach centres on safety; for our animals to feel safe, this means meeting their physical, psychological and social needs. Our therapeutic relationships are founded on establishing a sense of safety, trust and respect, and we believe in order for our animals to be in a therapeutic partnership with us, our relationships with them need to be founded on the same.
Our training is based on positive, reward based approaches, with a focus on understanding behaviour and underlying needs. At Beyond the Clinic Room our animals are partners in therapy, not therapy tools.
Our horses always have access to friends, freedom and forage, and we give them choices, to be in or outside, to rest or play, and to take part in therapy or not. We find that giving horses the choice to build a relationship in therapy makes this all the more powerful.
Beyond the Clinic Room is based from Graveney Equine track system, find out more about them here https://www.graveneyequine.co.uk
