Colorado Therapy Horses

Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy was an emerging field, beginning in the late 90’s and was an off shoot of Hypo-therapy or a riding method that was too expensive in both man power and the number of clients that could be served per hour. Our founder spend the next 3 years developing a therapeutic method that could be used with a herd of horses in a group setting so more people per hour could emotio

nally heal from the experience. It combined horses in a herd, gestalt and group techniques and resulted in the birth of “Natural Humanship Training.” The program is unique means of engaging people in counseling by using Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy, individual, group, and family relationship therapy. The theory behind it is “all humans are controlled by fear, and when a person gets scared there is a primal desire to need to be in control. Because there are only two unique things that humans can ultimately control; 1. What one establishes in the mind as a ‘belief’ and what, 2. one does too or puts in their body becomes the ultimate of ‘being in control.’ EXAMPLES are smoking, substance abuse, tattoos, self-mutilation, etc. Using the horses to teach people about fear and how to manage it and understanding that the horse is a loving being that wants a relationship with the human and that love makes fear go away. We can use this experience to teach people how to manage their fear rather than try to control it and also empower those that have become powerless do to having been robbed by such trauma as sexual abuse or war related incidents as in the military with PTSD. It was first used with groups in Greeley in 2003 where it was further developed. We began using Natural Humanship Therapy with clients from probation, parole and the Weld County Drug Court in 2006. Because this was such a new field, Medicaid, insurance and other funding agencies were not willing to cover the cost of the program. As a result the founders were experience so much success that they funded the program out of their own pockets with the help of their family foundation and with some small donations for their service. The staff of horses started out as a herd of 32 and was paired down to 16 currently. The horses are of the Trakehner Breed, which is the original War Horse developed in Russia in 1732 and fits the personality needed for our work, being very big, but gentle and wanting to serve a human. All but 4 of our current staff have been raised by us from foals and carefully trained to be able to interact with a large group of humans in a herd setting. Because safety is paramount and because the horse in a ‘flight animal’ there is careful care and training that took years to develop the herd into a safe place for clients to interact. As a result the worst human injury was one person getting stepped on since we began the program. was officially incorporated in 2012 and became a 501(c)3 in 2014. This was inevitable due to the growth in clients served and the need to expand the program. We found out that Natural Humanship Training could serve multiple populations of people because so many clients want to interact with a horse and that so many people have been ‘wounded’ in some way from life’s cruelties. We believe that all humans have been wounded and need to learn how to manage their fear rather than react to it in self-destructive ways and the horse is the natural teacher of how to do this. Since the inception of Natural Humanship Training, the founders, Richard and Judy McMahan have been the primary therapists working with people who have come to the farm. Over the years they have picked up many qualified volunteers with various expertizes. Currently they have on Masters level Marriage and Family Therapist, one Masters in Counseling student and one Bachelor’s degree and soon to be Master in Clinical Social Work student volunteering to assist in this counseling venture and wanting to learn how horses can help humans heal. We also have a financial and business professional with many years of consulting experience helping us with planning and grant writing and a cancer survivor, who was healed by a horse with marketing and advertising person with Colorado AAA. As well as Professional Photographer, videographer, community liaison to a major oil company and many other people who have realized the healing power of the horse and have been offering their expertise.