OUR MODEL

When our brains are functioning at an optimal level, the different parts are linked together and are able to function as a whole.  This is called integration.  When people have experienced trauma, one or more of the systems of the brain are not functioning adequately and there is a lack of integration between systems of the brain that make people experience and react to life in different ways. 

Research has shown that how we are raised by our caretakers affects the integration and growth of our brains, and leads to certain attachment styles that determine our relationship patterns, the coping skills we use, and the cognitive introjects we believe about ourselves and others.  Difficulties in early caretaking and/or trauma can result in the lack of integration among brain networks, and can affect how a person handles trauma if it occurs as an adult. 

When the brain is exposed to trauma, it is literally wired in such a way that it is locked into thoughts, fears, guilt and emotions of those traumatic experiences long after the event is over.  There is a lack of integration among cognitive, emotional and sensorimotor (body) levels of information processing in the brain, and these must be integrated to restore balance.  Moving a person from trauma to healing requires reintegration and rewiring of the brain pathways that continue to promote a trauma response.

Our therapy program is based on our own model Integrative Neuropsychology™, which represents our belief that in order to heal invisible wounds, you must integrate those parts that make us "un" whole.  Treatment typically begins with a careful evaluation to determine the relative contributions of childhood attachment patterns, trauma, neurobiology, and other factors to each client's presenting concerns and to help us gain a complete picture of each client's strengths, resources, and areas of need. Based on this evaluation, our clinicians develop an individualized treatment plan to determine what parts of the system need to be integrated, and then what activities with the horse will promote this integration. 

PROVIDE A SAFE PLACE TO HEAL

The first goal of therapy is the establishment of a safe and trusting environment that is conducive to repairing insecure childhood attachments and promoting neuroplasticity of the brain. 

The relationship with the therapy team and the horse allow the client to “feel felt” and understood and provide the secure attachment that has been missing, which helps to establish new brain pathways for change.  Healing occurs in moments of secure attachment with another, and establishes new brain pathways for change to occur.

BOTTOM UP INTEGRATION

Traumatized individuals are plagued by the return of sensorimotor reactions in such forms as intrusive images, sounds, smell, body sensations, physical pain and the inability to regulate arousal.  When people are reminded of a personal trauma, they activate brain regions that support intense emotions, while decreasing activity of brain structures involved the inhibition of emotions and the translation of experience into language.  This disrupts the person’s ability to think clearly or to gather accurate information from emotional states.  This inability often extends itself to having difficulty appreciating the emotional states and needs of those around them, and creates disturbance in relationships.  

Bottom-up integration is a method of using the body as a primary entry point in processing trauma, and integrates sensorimotor processing with cognitive and emotional processing.  It is bringing emotions and cognitions into awareness from the body.  Traumatized individuals need to learn that it is safe to have feelings and sensations, that they can have control over their emotions and physiological states, and that discovering the memories of the past will not inevitably result in overwhelming emotions.  This must come in the form of new experiences that integrate the brain and body by allowing the cortex, or thinking brain, to stay online while at the same time engaging and regulating the limbic, or emotional brain, and being aware of sensations from the body. 

Work is centered on body awareness, and emotional regulation is experienced within a real life working bond with the horse.  Horses are keenly sensitive to limbic and ANS arousal in others, and will be aware of the somatic signs such as breath, muscle tension and heart rate.  Experiential techniques such as breath work, yoga on horseback, Emotional Freedom Technique of tapping, and portable HRV biofeedback are some of the techniques we use in combination with activities including the horses.  Bottom up processing alone is not sufficient; the integration of all three levels of processing – sensorimotor, emotional and cognitive – are essential for recovery to occur.

TOP DOWN INTEGRATION

What people wrestle with after a traumatic event is the task of rebuilding their own shattered assumptions about meaning, order and justice in the world.  This is accomplished through top-down integration, which accesses the cortex, or thinking brain, as an entry into dealing with trauma. 

Top-down integration focuses on our thoughts to logically process what has happened, to find new meaning,  and to use our thoughts to have control over the emotions generated by the lower parts of the brain.  When people learn that they can first evaluate a situation and then make choices in their behaviors, this reflects a high level of processing.  In this language,  thoughts and emotions are integrated so there can be feelings about thoughts and thoughts and feelings instead of automatic responses. 

The techniques of cognitive and insight focused therapies are implemented.  Mindfulness and paying attention in the present moment, guided imagery and cognitive restructuring are often used when doing activities with the horse.

PROCESSING TRAUMA

Memories shape how we experience the present and how we anticipate the future.  Traumatic memories stay "stuck" in the brain's nonverbal, nonconscious, and subcortical regions where they are not accessible to the cortex, or thinking brain.  Sensory elements of the experience are registered separately, without the context to which this sensation or emotion refers.  What makes memories traumatic is the failure to integrate the unconscious and the conscious memories. 

The right hemisphere focuses on our nonverbal, unconscious memories, which involve the perceptual, emotional and behavioral neural responses activated during an experience.  These memories are stored as emotions and sensory information.  When an element of our nonverbal, implicit memory is retrieved into awareness, there is not the internal sensation that something is being accessed from a memory of the past. It feels as if it is happening now. 

The left hemisphere focuses more on logic and linear stories (what happened first, what happened next, etc.).  It helps to make logical meaning of experiences and to put words to wordless feeling states and perceptions.  These memories have a sense of the self and of time when they are retrieved from storage into present awareness. 

When a trauma survivor tries to make sense of their experiences, or tell the story from start to finish, their unconscious, non-verbal, emotional memories of the right hemisphere need to be combined or “integrated” with the left hemisphere’s conscious, verbal memories and reasoning processes. It helps the brain put things into perspective to create a coherent narrative and helps the stress systems return to balance.  If the two sides of the brain are not working together, the story will be either chaotic and confused with overwhelming feelings and thoughts, or superficially logical but lacking the emotions of a good coherent autobiographical story.

To be able to fully process trauma and to file away the memories, it requires the simultaneous activation of unconscious non-verbal, emotional memories of the right hemisphere with the left hemisphere's conscious, verbal memories and reasoning processes.  This helps the brain to put things into perspective to create a coherent narrative and to help the stress systems return to balance.   

Mounted work of rhythmic riding provides a patterned, repetitive movement needed to integrate both hemispheres, along with techniques such as EMDR, tapping, Emotional Freedom Technique of tapping, etc. 

RECONNECTION

One recurring observation about resilience and coping with trauma is the healing power of healthy relationships. Brain research has shown that a positive, safe relationship produces chemicals and hormones which enhance the development of higher brain functions and the regulation of emotion and stress.  Healthy relationships also help to decrease the dysfunctional defense mechanisms that helped individuals thrive and survive following trauma and loss.

Establishment of emotional defense mechanisms are created to diminish frustration and pain.  Once such defenses are imprinted, they become firmly entrenched modes of relating and influence what we approach and avoid, where our attention is drawn, and the assumptions we use to organize our experiences. Our cortex then provides us with rationalizations and beliefs about our behaviors that help keep our coping strategies and defenses in place.  These defenses and insecure attachment styles will recreate themselves in adult relationships, and cause problems in relationships that often bring them to counseling.     

The social integration of "I" to "we" is accomplished by identifying and changing the dysfunctional behavior patterns imprinted in early childhood experiences and creating a secure attachment in the present.  Partners learn to provide for each other the empathic understanding that their parents may not have been able to give them.  The goal is to find ways to help partners overcome the defensive maneuvers, break the cycle of mutual hurt and begin to create the bonding events that lead to secure attachment.  How the individual, or couple, interact with the horse will reveal unprocessed and unhealed attachment wounds and provide information as to what is needed to heal the current relationship.