Two Minnesota women are using a dynamic new form of psychotherapy to advance a new method for treating military veterans.

Psychologist Sharon Davern and Equine Specialist Ardelle Peters are offering a 10 week Equine Assisted Psychotherapy program free of charge to 10 military veterans to help develop the treatment method. They will gather data and feedback from the participating veterans, which they will use to refine the program to better meet the needs of veterans. They said their hope was that veteran affairs authorities would notice how beneficial the method is for veterans and hopefully adapt it as a formal treatment method.

“I feel like we’re losing ground,” Davern said. “The suicide rate among our veterans is sky rocketing, the divorce rate is sky rocketing. It’s almost unspeakable what’s happening for these veterans when they come back. We’re not addressing their needs. The hope is that we can get the attention of the decision makers and the veterans administration.”

Davern and Peters have been working together on equine therapy at Turning Point Stable, just outside of Ostrander, since January. Their first therapy session with a patient began in April. They handle an average of 30 clients a week at Turning Point. The stable has been in the Peters family for over a 100 years.

Davern said the partnership started when other horse professionals, who knew about her love for horses, introduced her to Peters. Peters had been certified in 2008 by the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association, or EAGALA. The organization has sets the standards and practices for equine therapy since 1997.

“I was looking at a program to use horses to help people learn about themselves,” Peters said. “I didn’t know anything about psychotherapy. After looking into it, I learned this model works with very well with psychotherapy to help people who are really seeking some help from professionals for their problems. My thinking was this was the very best thing I have ever seen related to horses.”

After meeting, Peters told Davern about EAGALA and they agreed to work together to bring the method to the area. Both said the partnership was important, since the presence of both a psychiatrist and an equine specialist is integral to the treatment method.

“It really takes two people because there is just so much going on. There’s a lot of set up and a lot of activities with the horses. Somebody needs to be there for the clients and someone needs to be there for the horses,” Peters said.

Sharon, who runs her own talk therapy practice in Rochester and is trained in treating PTSD, said she had always wanted to treat veterans since her father was a veteran of WWII. However, she said that she was never in a position to take advantage of her training and do so. After partnering with Peters, Davern said they decided to try offering their therapy to veterans because of how effective it has shown to be in treating them.

“There has been some smaller studies done that show it to be extremely successful, much more powerful than traditional talk therapy,” Peters said. “There’s a doctor by the name of Joe Lancia out in New York who has actually developed a program that we are using. In talking with him, he said he started trying to do it informally also and worked with a lot of the Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD.

“These are people who got a lot of different kinds of treatment and they were just not able to get better. After doing this kind of therapy for a while, he got a call from the veterans administration saying, ‘What are you doing out there? These people are getting better. We want to come see what you are doing.’ As a result of them looking at it, he’ll be doing a much more massive research study so we can show it really does work.”

Davern said the reason horses are so effective in therapy is because they mirror human emotions and reactions and they allow the patient to determine for their self what they are getting out of a session.

She continued that because horses are prey animals, they closely resemble war veterans in their evaluation of their surrounds and in the way they respond to objects in their environment. She said it was their active fight or flight sense that veterans could identify with from their time in combat.

Peters pointed out that horses react similar to humans in their emotional responses and their reactions to change. One factor she pointed to was the similarity in how horses reacted to a horse returning to the herd after a long time of separation. It was like a returning veteran trying to reintegrate with the community. In addition, she said that veterans could use the horses as proxies for people while they tried out methods for interacting with people.

Davern recalled a session with a veteran where they asked him to get the horse to walk onto a square. The horse responded positively at first, but then began to completely ignore the man. The man tried several times to coax the horse, but each time it ignored him, he made an unconscious move to step further away from it. Eventually, the man said that the horse was just like his children.

“I know don’t that this man knew that every time he approached his children, and didn’t get the response he wanted, that he would pull further away. But there it was, happening right there. In one to one talking therapy, I wouldn’t have know that because he wouldn’t have know this. This method is very alive in that way,” Davern said.

Davern said that the second factor that made horse effective was the fact that their non-verbal nature allowed veterans to determine for themselves what they wanted to get out of the session.

“When you watch, the interaction just speaks volumes to what is going in their life,” Peters said. “What they see is what is important. It’s not what I see, but what they see. They say ‘Oh. That’s my wife or that’s my buddy who died.” Whatever triggers in their mind is relevant today. We’re dealing with what’s there right now.”

Davern added that one of the hardest aspects for people, and veterans in particular, is speaking about their experience. She recalled a session with a young boy where the non-verbal nature played a role.

She said the young man had experienced abuse in his childhood and his behavior had since been very problematic. During the session, he was working in an arena with three horses present. At one point one horse seeming to ignore the client and began to run back and forth along the fence. When the behavior was pointed out to the client, he stated that he felt the horse was trying to tell him he wasn’t being honest.

“At that point he began to talk about his pain and anger from the early abuse. While he did that the horse along the fence gradually slowed and then came to stand behind him quietly listening. When his emotions started to overwhelm him she reached her head around him and drew him into her neck in a ‘horse hug.’ He fell into her neck and sobbed. I’ll admit that our eyes were also tearful and the immense power of this display,” Davern said.

Davern and Peters said their veteran program is open to all veterans who wish to apply. The 10 participants are selected on a first come, first serve basis. No riding is involved. The group will meet from 9 to 10:30 a.m. on Saturdays starting on Sept. 11. More information on the program can be found at www.turningpointstable.com or by calling Sharon Davern at (507) 534-2668