Who We Are
Our professional group of therapists and equine specialists utilize multiple therapeutic modalities in their work integrating evidence-based practices and state-of-the-art approaches to healing. In addition to the team’s professional licensures and equine experience, staff are certified and trained by organizations committed to promoting the field of equine guided psychotherapy and learning including HEAL, EAGALA, E3A, and EGEA. This psychotherapeutic approach is approved as a treatment modality by the California Board of Behavioral Science Examiners.
This powerful psychotherapeutic approach builds conscious knowledge of cognitive, emotional, and physical states. Working with the horses gives us the opportunity to practice shifting our internal states. This deepening of mind, body and spiritual awareness creates the foundation for transformation in behavior and relationships in the world.
Equine Connections has offered our Equine Guided Psychotherapy, Learning, and Training programs in Northern California for over 10 years through our three decade old community based not-for-profit organization, Family Connections El Dorado.
Equine Connections has created a dynamic and professional approach to equine guided psychotherapy and experiential learning. It is our goal to promote personal wellness, strengthen and inspire individuals, couples, and families, and share the ageless and intimate wisdom of horses. The program serves children, youth, couples, individuals, and families.
Horses As Our Guides
Working with horses offers amazing personal insights while participants gain new tools to strengthen themselves as individuals and families. It is said that “the way we approach horses is the way we approach life” … and the result is the horse’s honest, immediate, and clear response. Horses, as herd animals, are acutely sensitive to social and relational cues. They seek safety and balance. Providing immediate feedback, they sense conscious and unconscious emotions and incongruence and respond to arousal levels including fight, flight or freeze. They provide integrative experiences that act at the midbrain, limbic, and cortical systems of the brain.
Sessions are typically held weekly and involve a series of experiences and activities with the horses. The majority of the work is done on the ground and no experience with horses is necessary.
Areas of Focus
• Improve Self Regulation, Calming, & Self Soothing
• Clarity of Focus & Intent
• Move Beyond Habitual & Maladaptive Behaviors
• Become more Congruent
• Manage Anger, Frustration & Fear
• Develop Self-Confidence
• Foster Healthy Family Systems
• Build Healthy Relationships
• Enhance Creativity, Intuition, & Awareness
Specializes in Working With...
• Exposure to trauma, violence & neglect
• High conflict divorce
• Child trafficking & exploitation
• Childhood disorders
• Parenting & Co-parenting
• Depression, anxiety, &
mood disorders
• Anger Management
• Conflict Resolution & Mediation
• Autism Spectrum
Autism...
We work collaboratively with our agency’s team of early intervention specialists including special education teachers, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, and family support home visitors to offer this specialized experiential, behavioral, and somatosensory approach in working with children with autism and their families.
Training...
In addition to our specialized equine programs, we offer trainings, including...
“Using Equine Guided Psychotherapy in a Neurodevelopmentally Informed Approach to Working with Trauma” ©
Contact Us
Family Connections
Rio Kai Ranch
344 Placerville Dr, Suite 10
5511 Silverlode Dr
Placerville, CA 95667
Phone: 530-626-5164
Fax: 530-626-0670
E-mail: inquire@equine-connections.org
More Information
http://www.equine-connections.org/
Click here to download our brochure...