Essay On Equine

Words: 505
Pages: 3

Another study involved adolescents as well as children who had been sexually abused using equine facilitated therapy. Equine means horse or associated with the horse family. Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), leads to long lasting psychological trauma. Children, adolescents, and adults that have experienced situations of sexual abuse may develop maladaptive schema. A person with maladaptive schema has basically given up and accepted the things happening to them. This means that the person is unable to see where they fit in with society and how their presence on Earth is even necessary (Kemp et al 559). Substantiated child sexual abuse cases investigated in the years 2009-2010 was 5,880. 12% of women and 4.5% of men reported that they had been sexually …show more content…
The long-term psychosocial outcomes for victims in CSA are depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress, feelings of guilt and powerlessness, anti-social behaviors, dissociative disorders, Axis II disorders, conduct problems, substance abuse, eating disorders, suicide ideation and sexualized behavior (558-559). Therapies are usually based on verbalization between the therapist and client. If a child/ adolescent is off-set by negative CSA past experiences they will be distrusting of adults—the therapist (559). In using a horse for AAT the client is able to learn how to interact with, and control a large animal. The hypothesis for the equine therapy was that participants would show significant reduction of depression, anxiety, undesirable behaviors and trauma. Gestalt and Existential therapies are all about being client centered and that was exactly what the equine therapy was doing. Gestalt and Existential therapies encourage client insight, the use of metaphors, problem solving activities, and the interaction with the horses (560). Following interaction with horses the client gained self-efficacy, coping abilities, self-esteem, and social