Benefits of Equine Therapy

      Animal-assisted therapy has shown evidenced-based efficacy in patients including war veterans with PTSD, depression, anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorders, dissociative disorders, and other chronic mental illnesses. 

   In light of research and observational findings, experts suggest that Equine Therapy a common form of animal-assisted therapy--may yield a variety of psychotherapeutic benefits. In our everlasting search for new and alternate therapy, the South Florida Veterans Multi-Purpose Center has embarked on an experimental Animal-assisted therapy program using staff owned horses and an equine riding arena located in Davie, Florida. The attempt of this program is to help instill the following coping skills in veterans who are presently living in our new supportive housing program. Final arrangements are being made to insure the program provides adequate safety measures and other considerations to our clients. Our intent is to expand this program to an area in Central Florida within one year.

Confidence: 

The learning and mastery of a new skill horsemanship--enhances patients' confidence in their ability to tackle new projects, such as recovery, and leads to improved self-esteem.

Self-Efficacy: 

Learning to communicate and achieve harmony with a large animal promotes renewed feelings of efficacy.  A motivated "I can do it!" replaces feelings of helplessness and motivation, empowering the person to take on challenges in other areas of recovery.

Self-Concept:

Riding helps patients to develop a more realistic view of themselves through awareness of their size in relation to the horse.  This is especially important in treating patients with eating disorders as well as those with interpersonal aggression problems.

Communication:

 Horses' sensitivity to non-verbal communication assists patients in developing greater awareness of their emotions, the non-verbal cues that they may be communicating, and the important role of non-verbal communication in relationships. 

Trust:

Learning to trust an animal such as a horse also aides in the development, or restoration, of trust for those whose ability to trust has been violated by difficult life experiences such as physical or sexual abuse, abandonment, neglect, or marital infidelity.

Perspective:

Through grooming activities and other types of care for a specific horse, patients are able to put aside the absorbing focus of their mental illness, such as

depressive ruminations, and instead to direct their attention and interests outwardly toward safe and caring interactions.

Anxiety Reduction: 

Many studies of human-animal interaction indicate that contact with animals significantly reduces physiological anxiety levels.  Some patients are initially afraid of horses.  But horses' genuineness and affection allay these fears, helping patients to embrace exposure therapy for their anxiety issues.

Decreasing Isolation: 

For many individuals with mental illness, there is a long-term or recent history of feeling rejected by, and different from, other people.  Mental illnesses are intrinsically isolating experiences. The horse's unconditional acceptance invites patients back into the fellowship of life.

Self-Acceptance: 

Many patients are initially concerned that they will do something embarrassing while learning about or riding the horses.  Yet patients quickly learn that the other participants are engaged in their own equine experiences, and they observe the comfort of the horses in their own skin. Fears of embarrassment in public are thereby often reduced and self-acceptance increased.

Impulse Modulation:

Particularly for those whose mental illness involves the experience of lost control over impulses, the need to communicate with a horse calmly and non-reactively promotes the skills of emotional awareness, emotion regulation, self-control, and impulse modulation.  Research clearly indicates that animal-assisted therapy reduces patient agitation and aggressiveness and increases cooperativeness and behavioral control.

Social Skills:

Many individuals with mental illness are socially isolated or withdrawn.  A positive relationship with a horse is often a first, safe step toward practicing the social skills needed to initiate closer relationships with people.

Assertiveness:

Communicating effectively with a horse requires the rider to demonstrate assertiveness, direction, and initiative, important skills that enable the patient to express her needs and rights more effectively in other relationships.

Boundaries: 

Many patients have experienced prior relationships as controlling or abusive. Healing takes place as patients discover that riding occurs within the context of a respectful relationship between a rider and a horse, and that, although physically powerful, each horse typically operates within the boundaries of this mutually respectful relationship. 

Creative Freedom:

 Many persons with mental illness have been emotionally inhibited or over-controlled, and have lost some measure of spontaneity.  The playful aspects of riding and team equine activities can help restore spontaneity and ability for healthy recreation and play.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO ASSIST WITH THIS PROJECT, PLEASE CONTACT US

CBS NEWS REPORT

CBS)  They are the casualties of wars you don’t often hear about - soldiers who die of self-inflicted wounds. Little is known about the true scope of suicides among those who have served in the military.

But a five-month CBS News investigation discovered data that shows a startling rate of suicide, what some call a hidden epidemic, Chief Investigative Reporter Armen Keteyian reports exclusively.

“I just felt like this silent scream inside of me,” said Jessica Harrell, the sister of a soldier who took his own life.

"I opened up the door and there he was," recalled Mike Bowman, the father of an Army reservist.

"I saw the hose double looped around his neck,” said Kevin Lucey, another military father.

"He was gone,” said Mia Sagahon, whose soldier boyfriend committed suicide.

Keteyian spoke with the families of five former soldiers who each served in Iraq - only to die battling an enemy they could not conquer. Their loved ones are now speaking out in their names.

They survived the hell that's Iraq and then they come home only to lose their life.

Twenty-three-year-old Marine Reservist Jeff Lucey hanged himself with a garden hose in the cellar of this parents’ home - where his father, Kevin, found him.

"There's a crisis going on and people are just turning the other way,” Kevin Lucey said.

Kim and Mike Bowman’s son Tim was an Army reservist who patrolled one of the most dangerous places in Baghdad, known as Airport Road.

"His eyes when he came back were just dead. The light wasn't there anymore," Kim Bowman said.

Eight months later, on Thanksgiving Day, Tim shot himself. He was 23.

Diana Henderson’s son, Derek, served three tours of duty in Iraq. He died jumping off a bridge at 27.

"Going to that morgue and seeing my baby ... my life will never be the same," she said.

Beyond the individual loss, it turns out little information exists about how widespread suicides are among these who have served in the military. There have been some studies, but no one has ever counted the numbers nationwide.

"Nobody wants to tally it up in the form of a government total," Bowman said.

Why do the families think that is?

"Because they don't want the true numbers of casualties to really be known," Lucey said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee.

"If you're just looking at the overall number of veterans themselves who've committed suicide, we have not been able to get the numbers,” Murray said.

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Watch the complete investigation.
Watch more of Keteyian’s conversations with the families.
FYI: Suicide Warning Signs and Getting Help.

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CBS News’ investigative unit wanted the numbers, so it submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense asking for the numbers of suicides among all service members for the past 12 years.

Four months later, they sent CBS News a document, showing that between 1995 and 2007, there were almost 2,200 suicides. That’s 188 last year alone. But these numbers included only “active duty” soldiers.

CBS News went to the Department of Veterans Affairs, where Dr. Ira Katz is head of mental health.

"There is no epidemic in suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem," he said.

Why hasn't the VA done a national study seeking national data on how many veterans have committed suicide in this country?

"That research is ongoing,” he said.

So CBS News did an investigation - asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.

And what it revealed was stunning.

In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.

Dr. Steve Rathbun is the acting head of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia. CBS News asked him to run a detailed analysis of the raw numbers that we obtained from state authorities for 2004 and 2005.

It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)

One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)

"Wow! Those are devastating," said Paul Sullivan, a former VA analyst who is now an advocate for veterans rights from the group Veterans For Common Sense.

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Eye to Eye: Watch more of Keteyian's interview with Sullivan.
Read the Investigative Unit's Data and Methodology behind this story.
Read part 2 of the investigative series.

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"Those numbers clearly show an epidemic of mental health problems," he said.

“We are determined to decrease veteran suicides," Dr. Katz said.

“One hundred and twenty a week. Is that a problem?” Keteyian asked.

“You bet it’s a problem,” he said.

Is it an epidemic?

“Suicide in America is an epidemic, and that includes veterans,” Katz said.

Sen. Murray said the numbers CBS News uncovered are significant: “These statistics tell me we've really failed people that served our country."

Do these numbers serve as a wake-up call for this country?

“If these numbers don't wake up this country, nothing will,” she said. “We each have a responsibility to the men and women who serve us aren't lost when they come home."

An update: The chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, responded to the CBS News story Tuesday.

“The report that the rate of suicide among veterans is double that of the general population is deeply troubling and simply unacceptable. I am especially concerned that so many young veterans appear to be taking their own lives. For too many veterans, returning home from battle does not bring an end to conflict. There is no question that action is needed."

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