EQUINE SPECIALIST TRAINING

A win-win for HORSE, INSTRUCTOR, PROGRAM, AND STUDENT.

BY DARLENE RICKER

“ Horses give us so much,” says Megan Dushin, who helped launch The Masterson Method’s Equine Specialist training and certification for equine-assisted learning and therapy programs. “Now people can give back to the horse, and it empowers them.”

At-risk youth, veterans, people with eating disorders or recovering from addiction, and others who seek healing or therapy with horses are guided to use the Masterson Method by a certified Equine Specialist in a safe and structured setting. As a result, they become more relaxed, focused, and connected in their interaction with the horse. It turns the tables on the horse providing the therapy. The client works to help the horse and connects more deeply. The result can be profound.

Lise Lunde, the program’s director and instructor, teaches equine-assisted learning and therapy professionals and volunteers how to safely use the method with their own clients. She worked in a pilot program with a group of 12 at-risk teenage boys who were uncontrollable when they arrived. Within 15 to 20 minutes, they settled down. “They were silent,” she said. “Their focus shifted to the horse instead of where they were.”

However, she noticed that one boy was rushing through the work and not paying attention to the horse. She offered to help him individually and asked if she could touch his hand. He consented, and Lunde saw a big change. “He really wanted to help the horse,” she said, and later learned that he hadn’t allowed anyone to touch him in a long time.

In the last two years, the program has certified 36 equine specialists. Of them, about two-thirds are therapeutic riding instructors, therapists, or mental health coaches who have their own clients. The other third were program volunteers who became certified.

Brenda Thompson, who completed the Equine Specialist Training program, works at Hearts and Horses Therapeutic Riding Center in Loveland, Colorado. The organization uses The Masterson Method, and Thompson has applied it to some specialized programs, including those for elderly people with dementia and people with grief and family issues. She recently taught a weekend course specifically tailored for siblings who had lost a brother or sister.

The equine specialist program is a three-day course at a host stable. Then the participants do seven to nine sessions of field work in their own communities, and write to their mentor after each session via email. Then they take an online test and sign the code of ethics.

The program was designed to be accessible to the equine-assisted learning and therapy industry to benefit horses while providing an innovative activity for participants. It focuses primarily on using simple, easy techniques such as the “bladder meridian” technique. The bladder meridian is one of the major acupuncture meridians in Eastern medicine that has a unique effect on balancing the others.

The interactive technique uses specific horse-human pairings. “You learn how to read this particular horse, and the horse learns how to read this particular human,” said Jim Masterson, creator of the method. “It gets you both on the same page and develops mutual trust.”

Lunde has been involved with The Masterson Method since 2015 and has taught the Equine Specialist Training and certification program at host stables across the country.