Equine Facilitated Learning/Psychotherapy

Equine assisted therapies are difficult to research using evidenced-based measures because of the many independent variables that influence the outcome of the process. One of the themes that runs through most of the literature from books press releases human interest stories to quasi-experimental studies is that working with horses is both experiential and existential in nature (Berget & Ihlebaek 2011; EAGALA n.d.;Klontz Bivens Leinart & Klontz 2007; Lipovsky 2011; McConnell 2010; PATH 2012; Peterson 2010). The unique lived experiences that each person has while participating in equine assisted therapies make it difficult to say for certain whether observed changes are the result of the treatment itself; however the changes that are observed can be measured using a mixed-methods research approach. This project demonstrates an application of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis using an Existential Psychology perspective coupled with a quantitative survey with veterans.