emphatic relationship between men and horse in

EMPHATIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEN AND HORSE IN
THERAPEUTIC RIDING.
Stefania Cerino, M.D., Psychiatrist, chief of Therapeutic Riding Department, FISE, Italy
Therapeutic riding is a rehabilitating technique based on horse utilization, as codified by FRDI in
2000,to be applied to psychic and neurological deseases in different ways, that is:
-
Hippotherapy
Remedial/Educational Riding and Vaulting
Sport Riding for disabled
Carriage Driving
In order to achieve, apart from motor, even emotional, social and behavioural goals, it is really
necessary to have a good relationship between rider and horse.
Everyone knows how it is important to use a “mean” (that is the horse) to have an emotional feeling
with: but how can the horse understand and feel its rider as well?
That’s the heart of the matter in emotional and therapeutic relationship between men and horses in
therapeutic riding.
HUMAN EMOTIONS
Emotions are the consciously perceptible feelings and their expression, including libidinal energies
rising conscious and unconscious feelings.
The emotion can be evoked from an internal or external stimulus, that is real or imaginary, first
perceived and then acknowledged, connected to past circumstances and at last memorized. So you
can create a mental store, reflecting in subjective experience, named feeling.
To understand a feeling you have to go through the verbal communication or the evaluation of the
somatic and behavioural expressions of the subject.
Instinct, finally, is the whole of the inborn and primitive behavioural mechanisms, needed to the
biological survival of human species.
In human beings, Limbus alterations can cause modifications of instinctual, emotional and affective
behaviours.
Limbus is a very complicated and semi-unknown structure of our brain, including:
-
Hypotalamus
Cyngulate Gyrus
Dentate gyrus, hippocampus and subiculum
Amygdala
Thalamus and orbital cortex
Human Lymbic System
The elaboration of feelings, whether connected to a situation of social-cultural peculiarity, is
not only based on limbic structure, but also on prefrontal and somatic-sensorial areas. So the
brain structures themselves involved in thinking processes related to decisions and reasoning,
are at the same time involved in instinct, emotion and feeling modulation.
EQUINE EMOTIONS
It is still questionable, even if discussed for centuries, whether animals do have feelings.
From Descartes, who said there were no proof about animal feelings, as long as Darwin’s
followers, who claimed that is possible to understand what is happening in animals’ mind,
watching their reactions in particular circumstances and comparing them to other animals’
behaviour in the same situations.
Nowadays psychology and ethology are really strictly connected.
The equine ethogram represents the basic behaviour of the horse as a whole and it is the
beginning of behavioural studies about animals.
Actually, in horses as well as in human beings, they think, emotional brain” is like limbic
system; hippocampus and amigdala are the structures particularly connected to emotional
behaviour.
Equine Nervous System
According to behavioural studies, it has been proved that every activity developed by animals is
due to some motivational, specific or general factors.
Moreover cognitive psychology has proved how emotions , behavioural trends and mental
processing have a real considerable importance by themselves.
The complex relationship among all these factors gives raise to the horse emotional behaviour,
which is one of the therapeutic means in therapeutic riding.
THERAPEUTIC RIDING AND EMPATHYC RELATIONSHIP
Therapeutic Riding succeeds very often in achieving amazing results not only at motor
level as of its undeniable content of physiotherapy , but above all at psychic level because of
the great emotional involvement between the horse and his disabled rider.
The disabled , in his daylife, is undoubtedly subjected to several stresses connected with the
experience of his handicap.
In his turn, the stabled horse, ( so far from his natural environment), trained for behaviours he
himself doesn’t feel as “physiological”, even living in the best possible well- being conditions,
is subjected to stress factors, too.
It is very interesting to point out how two beings coming from so difficult situations succeed
then to establish an extremely positive emphatic relationship.
Man and horse, for their physical well being, need to live in a comfortable environment , to have
social and emotional relationships and to communicate to others.
If this is true inside the social belonging group, we must also underline that the mutual
“feelings” and gratification between man and horse , are the necessary conditions to succeed in
rehabilitation activities by the mean of the horse.
The “measurement” of the horse’s emotional reactions can be made by watching and studying
his behaviours .
Horses have several “means” to communicate inside their belonging group and to different
groups, that is people grooming or riding them.
Yearlings playing
Some kinds of communication are peculiar to their breed – i.e. communication by smells, that
in human race is much less important than in equines. Then the communication by means of two
senses strictly connected, such as taste and smell, the tactile communication ( very important
between mare and foal ), the hearing communication, one of the most understandable for us ,
either vocal or not, and the eyesight one. Because of the last one, horses are able to feel
emotional mood of many human beings. In fact they can feel the quietness or nervousness of
approaching people, responding “to the point” to these messages. A worried and tense rider will
pass his feeling to his horse , who will stiffen and worry, letting prime a circular mechanism
because of which the rider anxiety increases the horse one and vice versa, as long as there is no
possible communication between them .
So it is of prime importance that the rider could perceive and understand correctly the horse
communication, even if people working with horses very often undervalue what the animal
communicates, and pin on him their own sensations , that are not necessarily similar to the
horse ones.
Recently the “gentle horse training” like Monty Roberts or Pat Parelly methods, have very
much improved the communication opportunities between man and horse, putting in the horse
training a sequence of “works” in order to obtain his confidence and collaboration through
relaxing and mutual understanding and tenderness.
If all that concerning training and work with horses is generally true, the more a right man-horse
communication is necessary when the rider is disabled and the horse works in a therapeutic
riding session.
DISABILITY AND EMOTIONS
The disabilities treated by T.R. are many and range over neurological handicaps to the most
serious kinds of psychic diseases , such as autism and schizophrenia.
In these cases the horse is a really therapeutic mean in order to “contain” and make easier the
expression of the patient’s emotions.
Particularly in case of psycho-neurological handicap, we can see that very often the emotive
drives are or extremely compulsed or, on the contrary, shown without any inhibitory control.
In T.R., the compare with a living being , such as the horse is, responding to each emotional
communication by a precise language (eyesight, tactile, hearing, ect.) drives the patients to
realize that their “therapeutical mean” is able to understand the sensation related to their
expressions and their experiences.. It could be a neigh, the ears movement , to look for a pat or
for a sugar reward: anyway the horse will show either his impatience or syntony with his rider.
For this reason, in therapeutic riding, besides the real riding lesson , including personalized
Training exercises, it is really important the ground stage before and after the lesson.
Actually, this is the moment when subject and horse get well together and share emotions
.Just now they show freely their experience and allow the empathic and relational exchange
building up , wich the terapeutical riding work is based on.
The grooming operations, because of their supporting to the tactile contact between disabled
and horse, must be observed very carefully.
In T.R., unlike the other kinds of rehabilitative therapies, the subject developing his emotions
interacts with a living being, breathing, moving, eating, showing “friendship” or “enmity”.
For example, as far as the autistics are concerned, they often find difficult to touch things, or
they touch only a few things. But the short touch they get caressing the horse is a very
important kind of no-verbal communication, extremely satisfactory and reassuring, (the horse
coat is soft and warm) and could drive them to prove other kind of contacts.
We have to point out that while it is quite easy for autistic patients to establish a tactile contact
with the animal, on the contrary it is really difficult for them to hold the reins during the whole
riding lesson or even to wear gloves. I think that it happens because it is easier to have a tactile
communication with the living body of the horse responding to the subject, while the reins, as
every lifeless objects, are unable to give any empathy.
In fact, on this condition of empathic communication are based also all the others AAT (Animal
Assisted Therapy), best known as pet-therapy.
Dogs, cats and rabbits even if small and because of the limited relationship with the patient,
don’t succeed to stimulate the developing of empathic , peculiar to the relation with horse.
We have to remind that the horse whether ridden by the patient or driving by a carriage gives a
narcissistic gratification to the subject, who succeeds - unlike what happens in daylife when
needs others’ support – in controlling the situation, in reducing appreciably his dependency, or
rather in having somebody depending on him and obeying his orders. This is an important
starting point for the. building and/or perceiving of a stronger and resolute Self.
To conclude, a last note about the importance, often neglected, that the T.R. riding lessons
took place possibly together with the usual pupils of the riding school, or anyway not during
days and times when the riding-ground is empty or kept only to disabled.
The teamwork and the mutual communication among disabled, normal people, trainers,
therapeutists and horses makes a mix of emotional exchanges and verbal and analogical
communications, representing an excellent base in order to achieve the final aim of every
rehabilitation : that is the social integration and the chance to live their own difference among
others. Such a difference – even if being objectively a handicap – must not become an
obstacle to the relationship with the Others and the External world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mac Donald D.L. Connaissez l’anatomie du cheval Edisem inc., St.hyacinthe, Quebec,
Canada,1974
Kiley-Worthington M. Psicologia del cavallo Ed.Equestri, milano, 1989
Mills D., Nankervis K., Comportamento Equino Edagricole, 2001, Bologna
Bergamasco B., Ferrero P., Argomenti di Neurologia Archimedica, 1996, Torino
Cerino S. (a cura di) Riabilitazione Equestre: Problemi e Prospettive, Atti del Convegno
“Riabilitazione Equestre- Napoli Piazza del Plebiscito- 2007
Darwin C. L’espressione delle emozioni nell’uomo e negli animali. Taccuini di M. e N.Profilo
di un bambino P. Boringhieri, Torino
Giovagnoli G. Il punto di vista di un veterinario coinvolto da molti anni. Presupposti teorici del
coinvolgimento emotivo in riabilitazione Equestre in “Riabilitazione Equestre – Problemi e
prospettive” – Atti del Convegno “Riabilitazione Equestre – Napoli- Piazza del Plebiscito 2007

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