Webinar Transcript - March 2023
Tara Mahoney: Welcome to Webinar Wednesday with HHRF. We’re so excited to have you all here. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us this evening. You are in for a treat. We have four experts that are just incredible.
One of the things with HHRF, when we said we have to disseminate information, we need to get it out there, and let’s do it for free, we thought how is this going to happen, how is this going to work. And it’s working. We have pros that are highly sought after all coming together to collaborate. One of the things that we’re really hoping is that we recognize that research is not a competition, it’s a collaboration. We’re all in this together to really move the industry forward.
Thank you so much for joining us. You’re going to hear from some incredible people. I’m going to let them introduce themselves because they’ll do it better and I want you to start to get to know them throughout this. What we’ll do, so you know a little bit of the structure and what to expect, each of them will take a few minutes to introduce themselves and their organization. It’s really important to get anchored in knowing who they are. Then we’re going to bounce around some ideas on what is the call to research and why we’re all inspired to be a part of the Horses and Humans Research Foundation.
Please start entering stuff into the chat, say hello to each other. I’m sure there are a lot of familiar faces here. Cheryl, who is the co-chair on the education committee with me, as well as Debra Thompson who is on the education committee will be managing that, sending it over to Pebbles and I, and we’ll make sure those questions get answered.
Here we go. Let’s get started. One thing is never sit to the right of me. That’s how the order goes. Kathy, you are up first. Kathy with E3A, introduce yourself.
Kathy Milbeck: I’m Kathy Milbeck. I live in Reno. I am on the board with E3A, which is the Equine Experiential Education Association. We’ve been around since 2008. We are an international membership organization that has a two-prong approach to this work. One is that we have a really significant component to our organization that talks about the wellbeing of the horse and how the horse is a partner, not a tool, but a partner with us, and through that collaboration we’re able to, hopefully, move the human race in a little bit more positive direction.
We are a certification organization, but our curriculum is a coaching curriculum. We had a beautiful opportunity for the founders of E3A to create an amazing curriculum that is a facilitation curriculum. What we do is we have people go out, partner with the horses, do activities, and then we come back and move them through a five-question model to growth, to action plans, to change things differently. We really differentiate, even though we have a personal development component, we teach a class, but that class is really taught in how to keep psychotherapy and coaching separate.
We’ve opened up and started looking at the research component of this work by bringing Liz Letson onto our board back in the Fall, and she is the chairperson for our research component. I am also the chair of the master trainers, so I’m the lead mare, as they call me. I try really hard all the time to go out and play with my herd so that I know how to keep the master trainers going.
I don’t know if we want me to go into any of the specifics of how we do things. Do you want me to do that, Tara?
Tara: Why don’t we let everyone introduce themselves and see how we’re flowing with it, but certainly we’re going to make sure that we have everybody’s website on there. E3A has such an incredible protocol. I’ve seen some of your stuff through friends who have gone through your program, and it is comprehensive, rigorous, and just inspiring.
Let’s task it over to Laura with Natural Lifemanship.
Laura McFarland: Hi. I’m Laura McFarland. I work with the Natural Lifemanship Institute. I’m actually here with my colleague, the cofounder of Natural Lifemanship, Bettina Shultz-Jobe. I’m actually going to punt and let her describe Natural Lifemanship and what we do a little bit more.
As for me, my background is in education, special education specifically. I have a background in research within the education field and then also program evaluation. I’ve done quite a lot of program evaluation with programs that incorporate horses to help humans, and that’s sort of how I ended up finding Natural Lifemanship to begin with. I’ve been with them since 2015. I oversee education, we are an educational institute, and I oversee a lot of operational stuff right now. My role as a researcher, I can’t really do research in my role, but I promote it and facilitate the best that I can.
Tara: Thanks so much, Laura. Bettina, you’re up. Welcome.
Bettina Shultz-Jobe: Thank you. I was hoping Laura wouldn’t punt to me. She’s going first, she can take it all.
My husband and I started Natural Lifemanship in 2010. I’ve been officially working in this field since about 2000. In 2010, we started Natural Lifemanship. Natural Lifemanship is an institute, really we’re an approach to equine assisted services that is grounded in the relational sciences. We talk lots about and teach about trauma-informed care, the difference between trauma-informed care and trauma-focused work, lots of attachment focus, an enormous amount of just understanding healthy development of the brain and the body of humans and also horses.
Our approach is really principle focused, at least that’s the language we use a lot. There’s not a heavy focus on activities. There’s a heavy focus though on the nature of the horse-human relationship, because we believe really strongly that the relationship is the vehicle for change. That’s loaded. It could mean lots of things. We do spend an enormous amount of time heavily focused on the welfare of not only the human, but also the horse.
Because we’re principle focused, oftentimes when I start talking about what we do, what we believe, and our ethics and all of the things, people will say, “Are you talking about humans or horses?” I’m like both. There’s a parallel process has occurring, which has been really fun in this field, especially over the last… I was going to say 10 years, but I guess we’ve been in business for 13.
We did our first official Natural Lifemanship training in August 2010. Laura McFarland, who you just met, was at that training. Because she is a researcher, she wrote us a review that was two pages long. We asked for testimonials, and she sent us this very long testimonial. At that point, I was like we’re hiring her at some point. It took us a while to be able to do that.
Because our work is principle focused, it’s very process oriented, very client driven, all of that language we use. Anytime we start talking about research, one of the things we do run into is that like cognitive behavioral therapy or something, we’re not having a very activity driven or structured approach. I always say they’ve researched EMDR and CBT very well because there is a protocol, it’s a script, it’s easier to research. Our model is not really like that, so sometimes the nuance in all of that can be the challenge, the art in this work that we do.
We train lots of people, we’re a membership organization, we’re a certifying organization as well. Really, our work falls under this equine assisted services umbrella. There are coaches and there are people who are doing more leadership work. We have people who are energy practitioners or yoga instructors that are training with us. Probably the majority of the people that train with us are doing either equine assisted psychotherapy or something that would fall under the equine assisted learning umbrella, but our students kind of run the gamut.
I see a lot of really familiar faces and names here today. It’s good to see everybody. Thank you all for doing this. I’m happy to be here.
Tara: Thanks so much, Bettina. It’s going to be a really interesting theme that we’re going to see is that how to measure a connection. That’s some of the challenges we have with all of the independent variables that we’re dealing with. That’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative. We are at an exciting moment in the field where we can start to talk about that. That’s why we have you all here.
Veronica, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Veronica Lac: Hi, everyone. I am the founder and executive director of The Herd Institute. Like Bettina and Kathy, we offer certifications and we’re a membership organization as well. We have two different training tracks, one for licensed mental health practitioners and one for educators and coaches, so we separate out that scope of activities.
My background, I spent a long time in the corporate world and then transitioned into getting a license as a mental health practitioner, so I kind of had a foot in both camps. I am really passionate about research. I am a self-confessed nerd, I will talk to anybody about this work at any time, whether it’s invited or not, because I am incredibly excited about the direction that our industry is headed. I think that research is a really important part of that progression.
In terms of how we work, the approach within The Herd model, I actually created the model out of the research that I did as part of my doctoral program. My dissertation was on the embodied experience of equine assisted psychotherapy, specifically through the lens of an existential humanistic psychology perspective, which means that, like Bettina, we’re very process driven, we focus on the relationship as it emerges in the moment between horses and humans in the sessions, whether it’s psychotherapy or learning. The model that we work from comes from the qualitative research that I conducted as part of my doctoral program.
Since then, I guess I come into this webinar also wearing a different hat, being part of PATH International for a very long time. I am currently on the board of trustees with PATH as well. I’m a certified therapeutic riding instructor and an equine specialist in mental health and learning through them.
My focus is really about working collaboratively in this space, particularly when it comes to addressing cultural differences and looking at cultural competency in our field. Whether that means working with an understanding of marginalized populations, stepping into a space where we are different from the people that we are serving, or whether we’re talking about particular occupational cultural competencies, like if you’re working with veterans and first responders, what does that mean and what do you need to understand in order to step into that space and be able to relate to the people that you serve.
One of the things that we are doing at the moment within The Herd is we have a couple of research projects, little baby research projects I want to say, in collaboration with one of our graduates who is a professor at University of Arizona, Kelsey Dayle John. She is spearheading a research around the experience of creating a culturally competent framework within this field. She’s going to be interviewing a bunch of people and talking to them about what their experience has been when the diversity, equity, and inclusion has been centered as part of the training. I’m super excited about that.
As always, I have a million ideas of what I want to do. The challenge is time.
Tara: I love your story, Veronica. It was such a great way to say why you’re called to the diversity and inclusion is saying that your Chinese-British, living in the United States, listening to cowgirl music. You’re all of it. I love how you explained that there is room and space for all of it. I think in this industry we really need to be aware of that and stay up with the trends that, thank goodness, are finally happening.
Hopefully everybody in the chat is starting to ask questions, starting to see how they’re feeling about some of this information. What we wanted to do is move through the challenges or the exciting things that people are thinking about in research and in their field.
Veronica, you really launched that conversation specifically with your dissertation. Can we pitch back to you and ask a little bit about what that was and some challenges? I think that’s one of the things that we find in research, only the ones that worked get published. We want to start to have a this was a really difficult part of this conversation, so that are others who are involved can say I’ve experienced the same thing.
Veronica: Sure. If I may, I want to take a couple of steps back from your question in order to answer it, because that’s quite a big umbrella.
Just to give some context, I’m part of the editorial board for a publishing house with university professors and press, and I am currently co-editing a textbook for the American Psychological Association in conjunction with one of my mentors from the existential humanistic psychology field. The book is actually going to be about evidence-based existential humanistic psychology, which means that we’ve had to troll through I don’t know how many research articles and extensive literature reviews to look at what does it mean to be evidence-based and how can we tie in the softer skills and the art of being a psychotherapist, and being with people in the way that we are with the more process driven approach that we use within existential humanistic psychology. This is looking at behavioral health and CBT, DBT, which has more of a protocol driven approach.
As part of that, I think what’s important to note is that researchers in the past have positioned themselves in an either/or camp of qualitative versus quantitative. In any meta-analysis of data that is currently out there, we cannot definitively say which is better because they’re not comparing the same thing. I think that when we talk about what’s worked and what hasn’t, it really comes down to the frame of reference that you are using. If you are using a quantitative frame of reference that says is this statistically significant, and the research comes out to say that it isn’t, does that mean it’s failed? From the quantitative lens, maybe. But actually, is there information there that is still valuable and still important for us to attend to from a qualitative lens?
I think it’s a bit of a mix, the both/and that we always talk about within the psychotherapy setting that we need to acknowledge before we even go into what is good research or not.
Tara: So well said. We have Dr. Elizabeth Richardson who is on the education committee here with us, and she just wrote up what’s the difference with all of these anecdotal stories. Single case design is still legitimate research. This is exactly what we’re really trying to work through with why are only certain things funded versus others. Specifically with the existential part, the new grant that HHRF is launching does include the spiritual component. We want it to be open to the entire piece of this, of the experience that people are having with horses. So, thank you.
Let’s get back to Kathy. What are your thoughts?
Kathy: The greatest aspect that I think we would all like to see is to really be able to understand what’s the mechanism for change that happens within that relationship between the horse and the human. Whether it comes from that primitive part of us that is born out of the need to survive, or what I would love to find if it’s just that less primitive but still primitive need for us to understand how to operate within a herd in a really positive and loving way, because that’s what they do and they are so good about setting those boundaries. I would love to be able to look at explaining that, especially through the coaching model, but it really doesn’t matter if it’s coaching or it’s psychotherapy.
One of the things that I didn’t say when you all were talking about it is that I am a psychotherapist in my day job, so I understand the difference between those two. I think that they are so intrinsically linked in being able to explain it. I think if we could explain that, we could explain it to the world and it would really change what we all know happens in the arena. Really being able to, as Veronica said, pick out the parts that make it legitimate. That’s the whole point, pick out the parts that make it legitimate and being able to convey that to people that don’t really understand what happens out there.
Tara: By legitimate, do you mean measurable, or what do you mean by legitimate?
Kathy: Yes, measurable. For them, because I think I said earlier, the question most people ask is, “What does a horse have to teach me?” Being able to legitimize that for people that don’t understand what we understand, I think it would bring such a wonderful new dimension to this work. We don’t need to legitimize it, we feel it, we get it, we see it. I think that it’s about can we measure it and then reproduce it.
Tara: There you go.
Pebbles Turbeville: The reproduce is a big point.
Kathy: If we can reproduce it, then we can bring it into all of our curriculums, all of our protocols, all of our work, and then save the planet.
Pebbles: One horse at a time.
Tara: Bettina, how about you? I saw you kind of shaking your head and nodding a lot. I can feel the energy. Do you mind sharing?
Bettina: Sure. Lots of thoughts about what everybody is saying. I wanted to make sure, Tara, can you repeat what the original question was? I just want to make sure I’m staying on track.
Tara: Just go ahead and go for it. Answer whatever you think might be the question, because I have no idea.
Bettina: Okay. Like Kathy, I did not mention that I am also a licensed professional counselor. I did a master’s thesis in 2005. At the time when I did that, there wasn’t any quantitative research on equine assisted psychotherapy. So, writing the literature was tricky. I basically needed to go and look at the theoretical underpinnings of the work we’re doing and then look at the research on those theoretical underpinnings and argue for what my hypothesis would be based off of the research on what we are claiming the theoretical underpinnings in the field are.
Not a lot has changed since then. We still are doing that. We’re talking oftentimes about the science of the work we do, and what we’re really looking at is some research that has been done on a modality that we’re now integrating the horses into. If I’m doing primarily somatic work, is there research done on that, and then why is it that I’m now integrating the horses into that. That’s not a complaint. It’s such a new field. We’re still asking really similar questions.
The number one question that I probably get from people is, “How do you know if this work is effective?” I feel like I’m asked that question all the time. In some ways, that feels like a relatively simple answer to me. Sort of. If my clients come to me and there’s a certain thing, we have certain goals we’re working on, I care about are they able to transfer what’s being learned in sessions, what they’re doing in the session, are they able to transfer that into the rest of the world.
That is probably because I have this heavy slant toward quantitative research because that’s what I did. There were so many challenges in doing quantitative research in this field with a control group and all of the things. We’ve seen so much research since then that is qualitative, that is taking us into really looking at maybe what is the mechanism change, can we come to an agreement about that so that we can research that thing. I don’t think we’re done with needing the other, we’re still needing so much of the quantitative work.
To me, sometimes what the quantitative work can start to say, if we can figure out what we’re researching at some level, that’s what Kathy is talking about, I think, can we legitimize it. Those of us who are doing this work and we’re tired of people saying, “You all pet horses?” So often, I think people when they’re asking question, what they want to know is some of that quantitative piece. Did people come with this certain thing that they were struggling with, and in the end, did that improve?
When I’ve read a lot of the qualitative work that is coming out, it’s helping us come to what should we even research to do the qualitative stuff. I love that because I think that’s happening in the field. I can’t remember who said it, Laura may have said this earlier before we got on the call, where she was talking about when you start looking at the qualitative research, no matter what approach or model or whatever people are using, we’re coming to the same things, the mechanism of change is similar.
That again is the argument for why it’s so important for us to collaborate. Whatever way that you’re practicing, if we all start coming together and looking at the mechanism of change, I think it gives us a better idea about what can we quantitatively look at to give the statistically significant research that we’re looking for.
Tara: So well said. Really appreciate that. That’s a lot of information, but that’s where we are. How do we be curious and then how do we study it? Dr. Rebecca Wara-Goss just said mixed methods could really help with both of these, so it’s a yes and.
Elizabeth, can I pitch it to you for a second? This is a debate we have nearly every committee meeting. I can see you being so excited because this is what you talk about with us so many times. Do you mind jumping in here a little bit?
Elizabeth Richardson: Sure. Just like the rest of you, there are so many things that I could say right now. One thing I will say, I’ve been working on this thing for way too long. This is how it goes with research, you work on something and then you get pulled to something else, etcetera.
I’ve spent a couple of years now, I think it’s been almost two years working on this, doing a comprehensive literature review of trauma-related services provided from a mental health perspective, not necessarily from disabilities, etcetera. I wanted to try to capture PTSD, suicide ideation, a range of studies within a broader mental health trauma framework. It’s a literature review of that field. I’ve been surprised at a couple of things about that.
I’ve been surprised at how many articles did meet the criteria that I set for inclusion. I know some reviews in the past have just looked at if there is a certain number of people, if it’s only quantitative, if it has been published in a peer review journal, etcetera. I tried to open it up to dissertations, unpublished theses, qualitative work, mixed methods. So far, I’m adding in the last four, because I’m trying to keep it up to date, so articles that have come in up until last month.
I have somewhere around 52 articles that have been published looking at trauma, mental health, and use of equine assisted and equine facilitated work. To me, that’s surprising. I wasn’t expecting to see that many. What I will say is there is definitely more qualitative. I appreciate the value of qualitative work, I publish qualitative work, but I also know that to move the science forward and be able to obtain funding and more support for doing research, more work needs to be done with a mixed methods lens and I think a little bit more complex quantitative studies that try to draw on, like Bettina talked about, including a control group and having some consistency with how the intervention is delivered.
I think what I’m trying to do in that review is point out how far we’ve come, but where some of the gaps are in the research being done so far. The other thing I’ve done is there’s this gigantic table I’ve set up that outlines a breakdown of each study, how many people are included, what types of participants are in it, and mechanisms of change so that we can start to see even in those studies that didn’t find any significant results what they’re finding in terms of their impressions and their thoughts related to social connection, setting boundaries, etcetera.
Tara: Thank you so much. That is so helpful. I think those are the kinds of things that we’re all debating and looking into. Maybe we’re all doing it in a silo, and this is the opportunity to start say maybe Veronica knows what Elizabeth is doing, and Laura is involved in something with this, and we start to have a platform t o share it, which was totally inspired by Molly Sweeney who is right here. You’re the culprit for all of this, Molly. Thank you so much for being on here with us. We’ll let you have a few words, but we do have some questions here, so I want to just recognize and acknowledge the chat that is going on.
Any panelist, this is from Stephanie. She says, “A lot of human research or social interaction in general typically follows the sociology social work based on some level of the biology, psychology, social, and spiritual frameworks. Since that approach is already something measurable in human research, can this approach be applied to EAS research to boost legitimacy?
Did you all see that chat going on? Great question, Stephanie. If they’re already doing it with human, is it replicable now with the human-horse interaction I think is what you’re asking. Any panelist want to jump in on that one? Go ahead, Veronica. Thanks.
Veronica: I love that question. I think for me it’s about the context. The struggle that we have within our industry, just listening to everybody speaking, we’re talking about equine facilitated psychotherapy, equine assisted services, we can’t even agree on the definition of what we are doing. Add on the layer of the different modalities of mental health practitioners who also have the same or similar process around what the definitions are or the protocols within that.
I think the simplistic answer to Stephanie’s question is, yes, of course we can translate it, but it’s not that clear cut. Once we take into consideration the differences between social work and counseling, the differences between the populations that we are studying, the lens through which we are looking in terms of the population that we’re studying, the differences in terms of our own cultural biases and impressions that we are imposing onto the populations that we might be studying, there are so many nuanced layers to it.
I don’t think it’s as easy as just transposing. I’m not saying that Stephanie was suggesting that it would be easy. But I think there is something that we can take, yes, and we need to customize it to the needs of this industry.
Tara: Well said. That’s really what the path is here is rigorous, what does rigorous really mean, and how to not water that down so that it’s still considered anecdotal.
Liz has a really good question. She says, “I’m curious as to what short term and long term outcomes of incorporating horses into coaching, etcetera, are. What is it about the horses that leads to those outcomes? For instance, why horses and not guinea pigs or dogs or llamas, whatever it might be.”
Anybody have an idea about the short and long term outcomes of incorporating horses into coaching?
Kathy: Liz, what did you mean, do you mean whether or not the change lasts short term or long term?
Liz Letson: Hi. Yes. So, I guess that’s what we’ve been trying to tease out here with our team up in Minnesota. We created a scale called the Human-Animal Interaction Scale. Actually, Angie Fornier is on the call, too, and I might invite her to pop in here and talk about this a little bit.
I’m a licensed professional clinical counselor, I’ve been in this work since I started out certified in 2009, I’ve always been a horse person, and I have an undergrad in psychology, but I realized that this is so powerful that I decided to go back to grad school and go into private practice. So, I did my master’s paper on what is it about metaphor and horses, is there a connection. We were curious, so Angie, and I’ll give her for the credit for this because she’s the research side and I’m like this is the laboratory out here at the ranch. We just finished up a group session, that’s why Marissa and I are in here still in my barn office.
Tara: So what you’re looking at is setting up scales, really important, and then you’re looking at the short term and long term. Kathy, does that help you understand a little bit more about what Liz is saying, the short term long term, how do we have standardized scales?
Kathy: Right. I think that when Stephanie was talking about all the ways that we measure human interactions and human growth, I think that one of the ways that we could pair that up is to pair that up with the relationship between the horse and the human. We all know, all of us that are in the psychological field, we always look for the real magic change happens between the practitioner, whether they’re an MD or a PhD, and the client.
This time, what we’re doing is I think if we can find a way to measure what happens in that relationship, that moment of relationship between the horse and the human, and we can measure it and then repeat it, that’s where I think we want to go, that’s what I think is such powerful information to understand, no matter what discipline it is, psychology, coaching, no matter what. Being able to identify that, and what Liz talked about, having these more concrete measures, then we can also ask did that work and why did it work, and can we get to the why of why it worked, even though all of us who work with clients know that it happens in that connection between the healer and the client.
Tara: How fascinating, right? We know the therapeutic alliance is really what launches this. Maybe what we’re basing our work on is the therapeutic alliance with the horse.
Kathy: Exactly. It’s our job, whether we’re doing it from the psychology component or the coaching component, is to put the verbiage to it so that the client can hear it in a way that they’re more comfortable hearing it. Does that make sense?
Tara: Absolutely. We have another great question from Melanie. Then maybe we’ll just kind of let the panelists all chit-chat among each other and bounce some ideas around next steps and what that could look like.
Melanie says, “I understand the need for replicable research to validate the modality of equine assisted services. However, can I ask a question that perhaps suggests we may need to step back and consider something else first? Why do we have so many independent methods and certifying bodies in this industry? If we can’t consolidate the approach to an official national registry or certification standard, does that suggest a fractured industry that needs to be addressed first?
Kathy: I love that question. I think it’s a beautiful question. I want to piggyback on something that Veronica said, which is she mentioned in psychotherapy we have I don’t know how many disciplines. I don’t think it’s fractured at all. I think Bettina said it, or maybe Laura said it. You look at all of these approaches, just like you look at all of the approaches in psychology, and then you say what works best for me, what is it that I can really hear.
I love the fact that we come from all these different disciplines because our perspectives are so different that each person can join up with the theory that works best for them.
Tara: Really appreciate that. Bettina, any other thoughts?
Bettina: I agree. This is a question that we hear a lot. It’s a question that comes up on social media a lot. It would be just as hard to say what is the “feel” of equine assisted services as it would be to say that we need to bring together all of these modalities that are doing trauma-informed care. Right?
Many of us are doing different work, we’re coming from a different place. Veronica mentioned that’s part of what is tricky about research. I might lean more toward somatic experiencing, or lean more toward EMDR, or lean more toward some other way of practicing. I do more play therapy and I’m integrating horses into that, and that does change the work that we’re doing.
It’s actually a little bit of a stink I’ve had for years that we continue to talk about the equine assisted field like we’re all doing the same thing just because we integrate horses. Somebody who is doing physical therapy is doing something very valuable, occupational therapy, very valuable and different. It’s the same in this kind of field we live in where it’s like even as a coach, or as a psychotherapist, there’s overlap in lots of these because we have the horse in it, but it makes it a different practice.
So, I agree with Kathy. I don’t think we have a fractured field. I think we have a growing field. What’s happening in our field is exactly what’s happened in any other field out there in the mental health world. I’ve been trained and certified in a bazillion things over the last 25 years doing this work, and I love every training. There is always overlap in what’s being taught, but it’s packaged a little bit differently, it’s a little different way of learning, and it contributes to my toolset.
I think that’s happening in our field, and I think it has felt fractured because we’re so new that when it first started there were like two organizations. Thirteen years ago, when we started our business, there were four. That continues to grow. That’s what happens in a growing field as we continue learning, growing, and deepening. So, I totally agree with Kathy about that. But yes, it does make research tougher, absolutely.
Tara: Veronica or Laura, any thoughts about that?
Veronica: I absolutely agree. There’s also for me this desire to make everything standardized is attractive because it makes things simpler to manage. But what we lose in the standardization is diversity of thought, and creativity, and acknowledging the value of difference, which is something that is so unique to the work that we do and how we do it.
There is research out there that suggests from a psychotherapy lens that it doesn’t matter what modality you are trained in, but that the effectiveness of the work is based on the relationship. If we can take that element of the research and apply it to the relationship that we have with horses in the work that we do, then maybe we can move forward with it. Whereas, if we look at stripping out the differences and making it standardized, I think we would lose so much of what is valuable with all of the different perspectives that we bring.
Tara: Really good point.
Laura: I completely agree. That speaks to the importance of incorporating qualitative techniques even within mixed method studies. You spoke to this earlier, but how do you tease out if the relationship really is a mechanism of change, which a lot of psychotherapy rests on, then how do you compare what one person does with what another person does when they’re different people in different relationships that are emerging.
I really think that one of the opportunities we have, getting back to mechanisms of change – Elizabeth, I would love to hear more about your literature review. The 52 studies is quite impressive. I’m guessing that it’s hard to compare across them the actual outcomes. How do you synthesize the results of all of those studies? I think that mechanisms of change and identifying those and beginning to do some research that synthesizes this is what is being found across the literature, regardless of the actual intervention, if horses are being incorporated, then we tend to see these things come up in the qualitative literature.
I think that gives us an opportunity to actually start combining studies and looking at smaller aspects of it, not just the big is it effective question, but what does connection actually look like. Our questions could change as a result of that and we could start to look on a more granular level at some of that.
Tara: So well said. One of the things that’s coming up in the chat is the soft science of this versus some of the other ones that are X plus Y equals Z type of things, because of human subjectivity. That’s where the challenge is a little bit.
What we’re seeing here is this conversation in itself is saying that we are all in this to collaborate and share with such an open heart and an open mind on this worked for me, maybe that would work for that client or for that area. Things are going to be done differently in Texas and they’re going to be done differently in Finland. Again, this is happening all around the world. What we’re even finding, one of Molly’s challenges was when she was looking at the equine wellbeing, there is a cultural difference in the way people work with horses. That’s even fascinating. Some of the research we’re doing on one of the Reservations.
All of these different things are so exciting, but it does complicate things. I think if we keep these forums open and asking questions, this is the way forward.
Pebbles or Molly, do either of you have anything that you’d like to add? I see Molly there just smiling at how far this has come. We give you the last few minutes on the floor, if there’s anything you want to add.
Molly Sweeney: What Pebbles and I are involved with is we’re working with an international group representing different international countries, and our goal is to have an international global repository for research in EAS that will be on Open Science or somewhere, maybe we’ll have our own platform, where you can go and type in and say I’m interested in veterans, I’m interested in horses, I’m interested in whatever it is, and you can be able to pull up internationally worldwide any of the research that is available, that you’ll be able to check it, because that’s one of the hardest things, as you certainly know, is trying to find where that research is and how to get at it. We hope that we’ll be able to make that a lot easier.
Pebbles, do you want to add anything to that?
Pebbles: I was about to say there is a group in Europe that has formed kind of a subgroup who are doing research, and I have put their slide and information on our website. If you go to the research tab, you can connect with them or ask them questions about research and if they’re doing anything in your area. Just FYI.
Tara: Such an exciting discussion. I love the energy. It’s so neat to see everybody nodding, like yes, we’re all saying the same thing but coming at it from a different lens. That was one of the things in the chat, also. We’re looking at these from different lenses, but there seems to be some consistency. Certainly, equine wellbeing, we can all agree on that. Certainly, ethical standards with our clients, we can all agree on those. It really is an interesting discussion.
We have about three more minutes. Maybe if the panelists have anything they’d love to close with or a last inspirational statement, go for it.
Veronica: Not an inspirational statement, but in the spirit of collaboration, we’ve been working at The Herd Institute to start collaborate, edit, collate research articles. Basically, everything that I’ve ever pulled off the internet in the last 15 years, I have created a Google document that has links to all of them. Pebbles, if that’s something that you want to cross reference with your resources, I’m happy to share that.
Pebbles: That would be awesome. Thank you.
Tara: As we’re wrapping up, HHRF is actively looking for more people to join the education committee. Please reach out to Cheryl, myself, or Pebbles. So many people have so many ideas, so we would absolutely love it if you want to reach out to us, however you can share. There’s task forces all the time if a committee is too much of a commitment for you.
Of course, the spirit here is that this is available for free. If you want to support us and you’ve loved this discussion, no shame in my game, hit the donate button. There are 60 or so on here, and if we each donate $25 or $50, that gets us one-third of the way to the next innovation grant. Please share the love and spread it out to your colleagues. If you have other people that you think would be interesting webinars, we are always open to your suggestions.
This is really here for you, so please stay connected with us. So much gratitude. I think we’re ready to close. We usually keep it open a little bit longer, but I think we can stop the recording now. Join us for the next Webinar Wednesday with Mary Jo Beckman, who is absolutely fabulous, a leader in the industry with her work down at Walter Reed Hospital. She will be comparing riding and carriage driving. Should be pretty interesting.