Mendin’ Fences - Equine Counseling

Dr. Kay Sudekum Trotter Counseling Program
Bridlewood Stables & Equestrian Center is the host facility for Dr. Kay Sudekum Trotter’s Mendin’ Fences Equine Assisted Counseling program.

Grow Emotionally and Learn About Yourself
Changing old behavior patterns and reaching personal goals for a higher-level of well-being can be difficult and hard to do by yourself. Mendin’ Fences Equine Assisted Counseling can help you gain a fresh perspective and discover how to connect with yourself and others in order to improve your self-esteem, build confidence, social skills, communication skills, relationships and personal awareness. Mendin’ Fences offers a variety of programs for individuals, couples, families and groups all designed to create positive change for children, adolescents and adults.


 

Mendin’ Fences Equine Assisted Counseling Can Help You:

Uncover keys to building healthy relationships

Change unwanted behavior patterns

Process feelings, anger, frustration

Achieve strength to overcome challenges

Gain back your self-esteem and self-worth

Acquire skills to handle your fears

See a clear perspective of your family dynamics

Each session at Mendin’ Fences is focused on you and customized to your needs. We offer you genuine personal growth and change and we help you answer life’s questions through working with horses.

What is Equine Assisted Counseling?
Equine Assisted Counseling differs from the more well-known hippotherapy in that the horse is used as a psychological therapy tool to increase your awareness of your thoughts, words, and actions. Instead of an office with a couch, Equine Assisted Counseling takes place within an arena or barn setting with horses, a mental health professional, and an equine specialist.Clients actually do very little riding of the horse and instead interact with the horse through structured, experiential activities that utilize the horse to invoke a response from you and act as mirror for your behavior. Each activity is designed to give clients of all ages the opportunity to engage and interact in ways that make meaning from direct experience.

Why Horses?
Horses are prey animals so they’re always on high alert to sense any possible danger from predators, including humans. That means they’re more aware of our emotions and behaviors than we ourselves are. Because of this ability to observe and respond to non-verbal communication, horses are much more effective at confronting behaviors and attitudes than people. Horses also respond to our physical body language, which conveys more than half of what we mean. In other words, the horse acts as a mirror for the client. So while people might say things like “The horse is stubborn,” or “The horse doesn't like me,” they soon discover if they change themselves, the horse responds differently.


Research studies show that activities with horses are proven to:

• Improve overall problem behaviors
• Reduce hyperactivity, aggression and conduct problems
• Decrease anxiety and depression
• Improve relationships, self-reliance, self-esteem, social skills, sense of inadequacy.
  
  Source: Trotter, KS (2006). University of North Texas

How Does Equine Assisted Counseling Work?
Through the use of counseling, team building, and equine activities, clients learn to observe and respond to behaviors of the horse instead of staying stuck in their current patterns. Basically, the horse acts as a metaphor for relationships, which provides you the opportunity to look at what works, what doesn’t work, whose needs are being met, whose problem it is, and to take responsibility for recognizing how personal actions affect others.

Equine Assisted Counseling also teaches you about your attitudes toward your temptations or addictions and identify the behaviors that can lead to relapse, handling frustration, challenges, and fear, while also learning healthy communication and problem-solving skills, and solutions that will lead to success.

Therapy teams at Mendin’ Fences specialize in the treatment of eating disorders, ADHD, anxiety, behavior disorders, depression, grief, self-injury and other mental or relationship issues.


How is Equine Assisted Counseling different from other horse therapy programs?

• Mendin’ Fences provides mental health treatment, not physical therapy (hippotherapy).
• Equine Assisted Counseling occurs mostly on the ground – not riding the horse – where clients interact with our horses through experiential activities.
• Mendin’ Fences employs only experienced, highly trained and licensed mental health professionals.
• Our equine specialists are experts in horse behavior and have mental health backgrounds as well.
• Mendin’ Fences is dedicated to providing equine assisted growth and learning, which gives us the ability to maintain the highest level of confidentiality.

Kay Sudekum Trotter, PhD is a licensed professional counselor, a national certified counselor, registered play therapist, a certified equine assisted counselor with the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association (EAGALA), and is certified by Greg Kersten’s OK Corral Series.
For more information visit www.kaytrotter.com or call 214-513-2111.