Caption:    Mistover Farms owner Carol Paterno works with Thomas, one of the farm’s horses that participates in its therapeutic seminars.

Photo by Bob Dumas

Equine Energetix offers alternative therapy

By Chuck Slater

The horse must have wondered what was going on. 

Instead of one person coming to saddle him, here were three. And they lined up holding hands so only the outside arm of the two outside individuals was free to do the saddling.   Confusing? Not to James Cassese, a psychotherapist and horseman whose two interests are combined in his Equine Energetix, an informational seminar that will be offered at Mistover Farm in Pawling Saturday.

“Horses can help in our discovery of the self,” said Cassese, whose approach combines psychotherapeutic techniques and philosophy with equine-guided therapeutic experiences.   It can, Cassese said, assist both individuals and groups in such areas as stress management, depression, relationships and self-confidence. It may also offer performance benefits for riders.   The unusual cooperative approach to addling listed above is one of Equine Energetix’s methods of fostering group dynamics.

“Mr. Cassese helped us enhance something already good,” said Jayne Marino, the director of Mistover Farm. “He gave our 10-member staff a personality test to better understand our individual types and then split us up into groups working with horses, taking a skill we all had but doing it from a new perspective.”  Added Marino: “I’ve watched horses influence lives again and again. Owner Carol Paterno and I had been doing a lot of thinking about how to introduce an equine-facilitated learning program to the farm.”

Enter Cassese and Equine Energetix.

 “Over the years in my own practice I’ve come to realize that traditional talk therapy isn’t the answer for everyone,” said Cassese, a Manhattan-based former Rhodes scholar who has been in practice for 20 years. “Horses are incredibly responsive animals and can play an important role in human self-discovery and growth.” They are, added Marino, “incredibly telepathic.”

 According to Cassese, therapy through horses had been employed in Europe as early as the 1930s and came to the United States two decades later. His personal epiphany came about three years ago while he was riding.   “As I got to be a better rider, I realized things with a horse were a metaphor for my patient’s problems,” he said.   “You have to think ahead, plan ahead in turning a horse, not dwell on what was past. Horses learn from a system of encouragement and I could relate this (to a patient) with my experience, so it was not so intense. This is how change occurs.”

It works with rider and non-rider alike. Cassese was working with a 32-year-old unmarried female with relationship issues based on boundary issues, which extended to her family.  “She picked a horse from the herd to work with and with whom to establish boundaries,” he said. “She would invite him to come close, then send him away. She repeated this a number of times and eventually the horse stayed away. She got insight in a couple of hours with this equine-facilitated work.”  She is currently in her longest relationship, 11 months.

Then there was the 50-year-old male patient who had lost his mother to cancer and wondered why they had never been close. “He worked with a mare and came to see his part in it,” Cassese said. “Physical closeness was not easy for him.”  Another case involved “A type A, very successful businesswoman in her late 50s, early 50s” who had trouble with her own horse, which was anxious around her. “We did some feelings work around the horse,” said Cassese, “and discovered she had had a traumatic accident which was playing out around the horse.”  The insight helped.   “Horses can help us break preconceived ideas about how we see each other and the world.” Cassese said.

 Physical handicaps.   Relating to horses can benefit a wide range of individuals, including those with physical handicaps.    “We have a deaf girl at our barn,” said Hessie Derman, proprietor of the 25-horse Chessfield Farm in Carmel, “and I have seen blind riders at shows and on the trail. We get a lot of ADD and ADHD kids; it gives them a little bit more focus and bonding.” A lot of pre-teenage girls are riding, saddling and generally caring for horses at the Carmel facility. “It gives them responsibility, structure and work ethic at the young age,” said Derman.  The deaf rider is 11-year-old Zayla Waldman of South Salem, who has cochlear implants in both cars yet still struggles with some of the nuances of hearing. Riding helped her regain the upper-body strength that meningitis had taken away, along with her hearing. 

 “Equestrian activities are wonderful for children with physical, emotional and mental challenges,” said her mother, Dr. Jill Waldman, who also introduced all three of Zayla’s older sisters to riding. “The bond forged between my daughters and their horses is incredible.  “When riding, Zayla feels ‘normal’ and at the barn she feels a sense of family and belonging.”   Zayla is a beginner show level rider in the hunter-jumper division. “I feel good about myself when I can jump over a two-foot fence on a horse,” she said.   What she was too polite to add was it is something most of her hearing friends in school can’t do.

End of article.