Equine Therapy Paper

With each new client that enters the Phoenix Center, they come with a negative background that they’re trying to overcome. There are many different ways of therapy treatments that are offered such as play therapy, art therapy, sand therapy, equine therapy, horticultural therapy, and more. Through the different therapies offered at the center, the clients have the option to express themselves in a way that they prefer. Unlike a regular psychiatrist’s office, the center has a more of a hands on approach with most of their therapies. Play therapy is a structures theoretically based approach where a therapist will use play to help clients express themselves with things that are troubling them and which they don’t know how to properly explain with words. With play therapy clients can find a safe psychological distance from their problems, which creates a freedom of expression. It helps children change the way they think about and feel to work towards resolving their conflicts.

Art therapy is an approach in which the clients use art as a media to explore their feelings, manage their behavior, reconcile with conflicts, reduce anxiety, and increase self-esteem. In currents studies it was proven to be helpful in the experimentation of developmental, medical, educational,
Equine therapy uses horses as a symbolic experience to promote emotional growth. Participants in the therapy session use feelings, behaviors and patterns to better understand the horse and themselves. It is found to be helpful for troubled youth who are resistant to therapy. Equine therapy has shown to have positive benefits such as improving confidence, self-efficiency, trust, perspective, decreased isolation, impulse control, social skills, and more. Horses have proven to have an affinity to healing effect on youth. It has been shown that the rhythmic movement when the horses walk calm down the client to a point of