Just yesterday while tacking up my horse, I was reminded how easy it is to mistake dissociation for cooperation. It is horse fly season around here, and we are currently inundated with a particularly vicious breed of huge, black, bloodsuckers. These savages pack a painful sting that I have experienced myself way too many times.
There I was, brushing down my horse Partner, when suddenly he was attacked by one of these nasty predators. I couldn’t see the fly, but Partner frantically whipped his tail around as he kicked and danced with his hind feet trying to get away from his tormentor. He was attached to a lead rope I was holding, and I went with his movement as I tried to locate and kill the offending vampire. He continued kicking at his sheath, so I finally reached up to make sure the fly had not landed inside, as they sometimes tend to do. Discovering an unpleasant “goo” that had accumulated on an extra hot and humid day, I only did a brief check before withdrawing my hand.
As I cleaned off my hand with a wipe, Partner became very still, so I hoped that the fly had gone away. I put on his saddle pad and saddle, and when I attached the girth, I noticed how very still he remained. We have been working on comfortable acceptance of the girth, so as I progressively tightened it, I thought, “Wow, maybe he’s finally getting it! Maybe he realizes this is just no big deal! Maybe his ulcer medication helped! Maybe he appreciated my efforts to help him remove that fly!” I was feeling optimistic that we had crossed a training milestone, but what I did not realize was that he was not cooperating…he was simply not there. He was, in fact, frozen.
This became obvious when, once he was bridled and ready to ride, he swatted his tail at his sheath again. I decided I really needed to check that out one last time just in case there was a fly in there, but this time I grabbed a rag and covered my hand before going in. Sure enough, with more extensive exploration, I located one of those gigantic critters inside. I pinched the fly hard and yanked him out. The rag had a big blood spot around the now squashed fly, and I felt awful that Partner had just been standing there suffering for so long while that evil bug feasted on my sweet friend’s tender flesh.
Luckily he was not seriously impaired by his small but painful injury, and we went on to have a pleasant ride. But the experience did influence the ride, because I continued contemplating how often this horse may have appeared to be cooperative when really he was just offering the sort of compliance that comes with dissociation. As a rider, it is so easy to respond in ways that shut down expression rather than looking deeper for what is really happening with the horse. Partner had just shown me how much immediate pain he is able to ignore, and I feel as if I have been put on notice that I must always encourage him to express himself so that I respond as a good partner should. I also had to acknowledge that I have not established the sort of relationship with him where he would continue asking for help rather shutting down when he decided I couldn’t or wouldn’t help.
As a therapist, I was reminded of how often in relationships, especially between parents and children, we mistake submission for cooperation. When we assume that everything is good just because the child is compliant, we often miss important information and fail to notice subtle messages that would reveal the root of problems the child may be experiencing. Becoming attuned to the difference between compliance, which comes from the survival part of the brain, and cooperation, which comes from the “thinking” part of the brain, begins with noticing the contrast between an individual who is frozen vs. one who is consciously choosing to cooperate with a request.
Rather than being attuned when Partner got very still, I became task-oriented thinking it was great that things were going so smoothly. And yet he was hurting inside the entire time…if I had just noticed that his eyes were a bit vacant, or his breathing a bit shallow, I might have continued exploring whether that fly had really gone away. Sometimes we have to stop and consider whether we are really attuned to the other and accurately interpreting their signals in order to build and deepen our relationship.
Today is August 7th. August 7th, 2010, Tim and I were married. We had a sunrise wedding at the family ranch in the Texas Panhandle. It was outside on a plateau, overlooking a beautiful canyon, so sunrise was about the only time of day we could lessen the chances of enduring the kinds of winds that blow houses over the rainbow!
We did our first dance horseback to the song “I Run to You” by Lady Antebellum, and I almost fell from Zeus, my trusted steed! We shared a communion of coffee and homemade biscuits with friends and family during the ceremony. We then had tequila sunrises and a delicious chuck wagon breakfast, prepared by a dear friend. The day was perfect!
It is practically impossible to think about our wedding and engagement, without thinking about our business, our first “baby.” The weeks prior to our wedding we built a website, with the help of my brother in law, and started a business. We simply can’t separate ourselves or our relationship from Natural Lifemanship and the idealized belief system at its foundations.
A few years ago, Tim and I wrote the statement you will read below. Natural Lifemanship has grown well beyond the two of us, but these beliefs are the hands that continue to hold us personally and professionally. They are still the touchstone of Natural Lifemanship’s principle-based and process-oriented model of therapy.
We are terribly imperfect at practicing what we believe and what we teach. Tim and I are quite complicated human beings, with all kinds of baggage, and a fly on the wall would attest to how inadequate our best is in the hardest of times. Actually, our closest family and friends can attest to this wholeheartedly, I’m sure.
We are so very different from each other, and there is a rub that doesn’t work each and every moment but does seem to work out most days. So much has changed for us in the last 7 years, but what we believe has not, and our daily choice to try our darndest to care more about relationships than anything else remains.
The statement below is what our certification students agree to before they complete certification in Natural Lifemanship. Today, Tim and I reflect on how these beliefs have affected our relationship, our mission, and our passion, and feel blessed to be part of a community that chooses to attest to such a statement. . . and humbled by the many people whose work and heart have contributed to our mission. . . and by each moment’s grace to change, grow, and, above all, connect.
NL Ethics and Beliefs Statement:
As a person certified in Natural Lifemanship I attest to the following: I believe the most important thing in life is connected, attuned relationships with self and others (including relationship with animals, my Creator as I understand him or her, nature, the universe, etc.) All of life’s healing happens in the context of attuned relationships based on trust, mutual respect, appropriate intimacy, and partnership. I believe strength is found in vulnerability, and that conflict in relationships can be opportunities for growth that can strengthen the relationship. Therefore, regardless of the task or activity, a connected relationship with self and others is always the goal.
I believe that a partnership can happen when each party seeks to control themselves only, and true partnership happens when each party appropriately controls themselves for the good of the relationship. I believe that if it’s not good for both, it’s eventually not good for either and that a one-sided relationship is damaging to both parties.
Regardless of what is going on around me, it is possible to control what is happening inside of me. Relationship with others, quite simply, flows out of the relationship with self (what we sometimes call regulation or my way of being in the world). Therefore, WHO I am is more important than WHAT I do. I realize that I can’t teach someone to do something I can’t do. Likewise, I can’t teach someone to live a life that I don’t live. As a result, personal growth becomes the foundation for ethical therapy. The most important thing is to do my best to do what is right for my client. I understand that what is best may not be what is easiest. In order to do what is right for my clients, I have to know myself – my biases, my blindspots, and at the moment, I have to be connected with my own reactions and impulses so I can filter them. Only then can I do what is actually, truly best for my client. The team approach in NL affords me the opportunity to model a relationship where the NL principles play out and provide a space for the therapy team to notice and discuss biases and blind spots. It is, therefore, my ethical obligation to foster a healthy relationship with my therapy partner. Clinical consultation is a regular part of ethical practice, especially if I am working alone in therapy sessions.
I believe animals are sentient beings, who have relational and thinking capabilities, and can be capable of partnership if given the chance to develop. I believe that a good principle is a good principle regardless of where it is applied. Therefore, all NL principles apply equally to relationship with self and others. The relationship between horse and human is a real relationship in which relational patterns emerge, just like in any other relationship.
When NL certified, I become part of a community of individuals who are deeply committed to connecting with self, connection with others, and who strive for connected relationships the way it was intended. As such, this community of practitioners strives to foster relationships that bring about healing for self, others, and the animal partners with which we work.
Many equine professionals have a difficult time identifying the difference between compliance/ submission and cooperation in a horse.
This is an important skill to develop for your work in the Natural Lifemanship model, whether you are practicing TF-EAP, teaching riding lessons, training your horses, or coaching a client in professional or personal growth and development. If you’ve been to a Fundamentals of Natural Lifemanship training, you may recall your trainers talking about the difference between compliance and cooperation. You may have experienced the difference in your round-pen work with the horses at your training.
Neurobiologically, in both humans and horses, the difference between compliance and cooperation is dependent on which part of the brain the behavior or action is coming from. If the action is done out of alarm, fear, or terror, it is originating in the lower regions of the brain, and is, therefore, compliance (I can’t escape this pressure or fight it and remain safe, so I must submit to it in order to survive).
Remember that compliance is an adaptive survival response. Cooperation is a whole-brain resilient response. Cooperation happens when the lower regions of the brain are regulated and the higher regions of the brain are able to communicate and respond appropriately. The horse makes a choice to cooperate, rather than doing what you’ve requested because he feels he must to survive.
In order to help you identify when dissociation or compliance is happening with your horse in your TF-EAP sessions or with your work with him, I have compiled a list of 6 outward signs you can observe that may indicate your horse is complying, submitting, and dissociating. This is not an exhaustive list, and is not meant to stand alone.
Please don’t walk away from this list believing that any time a horse shows any of these signs, it means he’s dissociative. Use your, your mental health professional’s, and your client’s discernment in understanding what is happening in the horse within the context of the relationships at play. This list assumes observation of a horse in good physical condition with no known health problems (horses with chronic pain or health problems are likely to be dissociating from this pain on a regular basis).
1. Your horse’s body looks relaxed, eyes may even be softened and closed, but the jaw is tense and tight. He may show excessive licking and chewing, sometimes exaggerating these movements.
2. Right before the horse did what was requested, the horse was resisting (running or fighting) and began licking and chewing during the resistance right before he did what was requested. Imagine a horse running around a round pen when you are asking for attachment. He runs and runs, begins licking and chewing while running, then suddenly turns towards you and starts walking toward you. That’s compliance, not cooperation.
3. Your horse is complying with your request but is showing other signs of discomfort or tension such as: rapid breathing, wide eyes, whites of eyes showing, tightness in jaw, tightness around pole and ears, stiff and/or jerky movements, or head held very high with a tight neck.
4. Your horse does what you have asked, then as soon as the request or pressure is released, he moves away from you as quickly as he can.
5. Your horse does what you have asked, but when you change the request or change the pressure (increase or decrease) he doesn’t seem to notice. He may even appear to be falling asleep at this time.
6. Your horse quickly starts falling asleep while standing up to the point that he is losing balance, his knees are buckling, and he is falling to the ground, sometimes hitting his nose on the ground before he appears to notice what is happening. His knees buckle and he may even rest on his knees with his rear still up and eyes still closed for a few seconds before either falling all the way down or jerking his eyes open and head up before standing back up. This can look and feel like your horse has fainted or passed out.
This one is seen less often because it is a more extreme form of dissociation for a horse. In my experience, this can be a good indication that this horse has a very strong pattern of dissociation and had likely been acting in a state of compliance and submission long before you observed this behavior.
Reccia Jobe partners with therapists to offer TF-EAP. She also does equine assisted personal development and life coaching. For more information visit www.pecancreekeap.com
To learn more on this subject join us at Interconnected 2020 October 21st – 25th – a virtual conference hosted by Natural Lifemanship – and participate in the following workshops:
…One Woman’s Experience Overcoming Traumatic Abuse Using Natural Lifemanship
I watched her make her way to the therapy office for her intake session, struck by the way she made her approach: crouching down, she almost seemed to be crawling towards the door; constantly looking over her shoulder before ducking her head again. Her trajectory weaved in zig zagging diagonals across the open space between her weather beaten pick up truck and where I was now standing on the front porch. “Hello, *Dee!” I called out, hoping not to startle her. She stopped and stared at me for a full minute, eyes wide, statue-like among the wildflowers blooming along the path. I knew their bright colors were lost on her. The only thing Dee could see at this moment was the distance that remained between her and the door, and the dubious likelihood that she would make it there safely. This was my first introduction to one of the most traumatized clients I have ever worked with using Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP).
Dee had been referred for EAP by her social worker because she has been brutally raped by a neighbor whom she let into her home when he promised to help change her air filters. Dee struggled with balance issues and was afraid to stand on a ladder to change them herself, but also suffered from asthma so she overcame her natural reticence of men in hopes that clean filters might help her to breathe better. Dee’s decision to trust this seemingly good Samaritan proved to be catastrophic when he held her captive for hours and subjected her to unspeakable suffering. Dee came to me suffering from panic attacks, insomnia, flashbacks, vertigo, anxiety, and depression. She experienced dissociative spells where she would lose days at a time, lying trance-like on her couch without eating or having any contact with other people. Coming to our therapy appointment was the first time she had left her apartment in the past 3 weeks.
I had to be careful to always walk where Dee could see me, a little ahead of her, never behind, and never too close. I noticed, though, that she could let the horses into her space much more easily. She chose a horse with which to build relationship fairly quickly, a light colored Palomino that she nick-named Sunny. Dee spent hours grooming Sunny, untangling her tail, feeding her slices of apple, talking around and around the assault. I wasn’t allowed to label anything that had happened to her accurately; she flinched and reacted when I used words like assault or rapist, preferring to say “the event” or “that man.” Little details about past abuse drifted out: an abusive, alcoholic father, then a series of similar stepfathers, until she married an abusive alcoholic, whom she left behind in another state to come here, and encountered again in the form of a treacherous neighbor. All the while the brush made rhythmic, circular patterns on Sunny’s side as Dee and I breathed in and out together, inhaling the soothing smell and presence of her horse, exhaling the pain and suffering she had experienced throughout her troubled life.
When we started working on increasing their attachment, Dee stopped bringing apples to sessions because she said: “I want Sunny to be connected to me, not the food, and the apples make her pushy and rude.” Indeed, Sunny spent a great deal of time early in the therapy work pushing into Dee’s space and driving her around the pen instead of following her during attachment work. Dee allowed this to happen for a long time before recognizing she had re-created the bullying patterns of relationships she experienced with the abusive men in her past. Once she realized that her passive (too low) body energy invited aggression from Sunny, Dee began using appropriate amounts of pressure to make requests for connection. As Dee grasped that she was worth being recognized and respected, she and Sunny had more positive interactions.
Detachment felt better to Dee than attachment initially but worse for Sunny. Sunny often simply refused to step away and allow space between herself and Dee. Dee would allow her to stay, stroking her neck and worrying about Sunny feeling rejected if Dee insisted on creating some space between them. We reflected how giving herself space had never been an option for Dee in the past because she allowed other people to set the terms for the relationship. We worked on creating safety for both of them using appropriate levels of body energy to maintain the pressure when Sunny resisted the request to move away from Dee.
On the day Dee felt ready to tell her whole story, she paced around the round pen in jerky, short strides. Sunny fell in step behind her. Dee spit out her pain in ragged, harsh tones. Sunny fell behind, eyes wide, ears upright and forward, body rigid. Eventually, she stopped following Dee and stood stock still in the middle of the pen. Dee didn’t notice at first, continuing to hurtle around the pen in a frenzy of anguish. Her voice trailed off when she saw Sunny’s frozen stance. She burst into the first tears she had shed in a session. “I’ve frightened her . .. it’s too much,” Dee cried, crumpling to the ground. Sunny walked over to where Dee lay in a heap and breathed softly in her ear. The mare’s eyes were half closed and her body was relaxed. She cocked one hind leg as she stood vigil over her sobbing friend. I pointed out that Sunny did not seem to be overwhelmed by Dee’s story, or her pain. Dee finished her account siting cross legged on the ground, Sunny’s head resting against her shoulder, stroking the blaze that ran down her face. Her tone was soft, her words unhurried and thoughtful. She used the language we had created together, naming her rapist and the assault as well as the rage and grief that followed. Sunny and I created a safe space for Dee to experience her pain and be accepted and supported through it.
In subsequent sessions, Dee participated in equine assisted trauma processing (informed by my training in TF-EAP and EMDR) to help her begin to re-process her traumatic memories. This kind of mounted work helps metabolize traumatic memories that have been frozen in their original state so that the intense emotions they trigger can be released and the traumatic memory can be stored in the brain the way that normal memories are stored. I explained how her brain literally needed to be “re-wired” so that she didn’t remain in the survival part or base of her brain, in a constant state of hyper-vigilance and fear, or in the limbic system, or mid brain, in an emotionally escalated state, but could be in the thinking part of her brain, her neocortex, to make more informed decisions about the input coming in from the environment, giving her a wider range of responses available to her than the avoidant and dissociative tendencies she had been relying on to avoid being triggered into a state of panic.
At one point in the therapy, Dee had to go back to her home state to visit her daughter, who had been hospitalized after an accident. Dee had created a Safe Place Protocol as part of her trauma processing work, visualizing a meadow full of flowers where she and Sunny played and dozed. The warm, wonderful feelings accompanying that visualization helped Dee ward off the panic the survival part of her brain produced whenever she thought about going back to the place where her ex-husband and other abusers still lived. Using mindfulness and grounding techniques, Dee practiced remaining fully present in the round pen with Sunny instead of dissociating in a panic while visualizing flying home to visit her daughter. Every time Dee started to dissociate, Sunny disconnected from her, turning or walking way. Sunny taught Dee how to recognize when the dissociation started, and how to catch and change this habitual pathway in her brain with mindfulness techniques before her mind completely drifted away. “I miss her when she leaves,” Dee would say. Staying connected with Sunny became Dee’s motivation to work on her dissociative tendencies. She walked beside Sunny, with a hand on her side, so she could feel the rhythm of Sunny’s heartbeat and breathing and use it to regulate her own. (When calm, a horse’s resting heart rate is 38 – 40 beats per minutes, considerably slower than a human’s, particularly a traumatized human. The large electro-magnetic field of a horse’s heart can help regulate the heart rates of those around him.)
Dee was able to successfully travel home to visit her daughter without incident. By the time we finished therapy, Dee was not only leaving the apartment for her sessions, but also taking her newly acquired rescue dog to a dog park and talking to other dog owners she met there. Whenever she began to feel panicky, she would visualize being connected to Sunny and breathe deeply through the wave of anxiety until it passed. Before leaving therapy, we took some of Sunny’s hair from her mane and tail and braided the strands into a bracelet that Dee could wear as a transitional object. Dee recently texted me that while she misses coming to see Sunny, “I carry her in my mind and heart and can experience her presence whenever I need her.” They built a truly lasting internal connection!
*all names and identifying information have been changed to protect confidentiality
Here is a breakdown of some of our sessions:
There is a powerlessness involved in the aftermath of experiencing trauma that can cause a person to internalize false messages concerning their efficacy at problem-solving, initiating activity, engaging in relationships and succeeding at tasks. They begin to shrink away from trying new things and doubt their ability to be successful in areas they may have previously been comfortable with. Dee presented with a great deal of self-doubt and insecurity in all of these areas. In fact, when I first started working with her, she was only leaving her apartment for therapy sessions and doctor’s appointments. She felt completely defeated by tasks that she used to handle with ease such as driving or shopping. Contemplating a trip to the store would trigger a wave of panic. She developed agoraphobia and her world shrank to the confines of her apartment. In order to be able to participate more fully in her life, Dee was going to have to be able to regulate her emotions when faced with a task she now found daunting.
Rhythmic Riding provides a source for passive “bottom-up regulation” and presents wonderful opportunities for the client to learn to regulate their emotions. By starting with a stress level just slightly outside of their window of tolerance, the client can practice staying calm using skills taught first on the ground, then while mounted. Using breath to self-regulate is an easy way to maintain or return to a calm state. Horses regularly “sigh” or take a deep breath to release stress and regain their equilibrium. I asked Dee to notice when Sunny exhaled in this way, especially when she blew out her lips in what humans would call “a raspberry” or “pursed lip breathing.” Dee observed that when she was particularly upset during a session, Sunny would yawn and exhale to release stress. This helped Dee become more aware of when she was minimizing or dissociating from her anxiety. Dee would take deep breaths, pushing the air all the way down into her stomach before releasing it (belly breathing) while counting each breath so that the inhale matched the exhale (rhythmic breathing).
As Dee became more proficient at belly breathing and rhythmic breathing while mounted on Sunny, we incorporated using the five senses to remain grounded in the present. She would notice the breeze blowing through her hair, the muffled clopping of Sunny’s hooves in the dirt, the feel of the bareback pad underneath her, the coarse texture of Sunny’s mane, and other sounds, smells, sights, and tactile sensations to stay present instead of dissociating. Using an EMDR protocol to visualize a positive template, Dee began imagining successfully leaving her apartment, driving to the grocery store, pushing her cart up and down the aisles and checking out. When she began to panic or dissociate, Sunny would sometimes come to a dead halt, or begin yawning and tensing her muscles. This lets both Dee and myself know that she was getting beyond her window of tolerance and needed to practice her relaxation and mindfulness skills to come back to the present. After several Rhythmic Riding sessions like this, Dee was able to do her own grocery shopping for the first time in a year.
The beauty of the Natural Lifemanship model is that no structured, pre-planned activities are necessary to address specific client issues such as these. They unfold organically when the therapist is willing to step back from being directive with an agenda and allow the client to build her relationship with the horse in her own way. I saw the power of this serendipity the first time Dee and I went out to the pasture to find Sunny. Dee was carrying a halter to lead Sunny to the round pen, and we discussed the difference between inviting someone to spend time with you vs. forcing them or manipulating them to do so, as we walked. It was clear as we discussed this concept of having choices in relationships that Dee had not experienced this freedom and spent a lot of time in coercive, abusive situations just trying to survive.
When she saw Sunny munching hay with other horses in the herd, Dee hesitated, not wanting to interrupt Sunny’s meal or take her away from the other horses. She stood off to one side of the round bale, holding the halter, head drooping, shoulders slumped, with an air of defeat. I asked her what she was experiencing at the moment and then the tears came. “Ignored. Invisible. Disposable. Worthless.” After letting her feel those emotions and where they came up in her body (constricted chest, cramps in her stomach), I asked how she would like to feel about herself. She answered immediately: “Worthwhile. Lovable. Significant.” I asked how that felt different in her body when she thought of those words. Her shoulders straightened up a bit and she lifted her head. “Energizing. My chest is opening up.” Sunny turned and looked at her for a bit before turning back to the hay. “What just happened?” I asked Dee. “Sunny looked at me,” Dee said in wonder. “What made her do that, do you think?” I asked. Dee shook her head. “What changed in you?” I persisted. “My feelings about myself,” she said. “How did changing your feelings about yourself affect your body?” I asked. “My energy changed,” she conceded. She seemed encouraged that Sunny had noticed her more positive body energy and acknowledged her presence, but was still hesitant to “interrupt” Sunny’s meal.
I asked Dee how spending time with Sunny might not just be good for Dee, but also for Sunny. We talked about how horses spend a great deal of time in their brainstem, or the survival part of their brain when they are with their herd. They react, rather than respond, to each other, which often involves biting and kicking to communicate and establish dominance. Giving Sunny opportunities to be in her neocortex, or the thinking part of her brain would help her develop a calmer, more responsive stance towards her herd, allowing her to problem solve rather than react defensively to the other horses. It also helps her have more positive relationships with humans, upon whom she relies for food, water, and care, which ensures a better quality of life for her as people will be more likely to treat her well if she can display cooperative and friendly behavior. When Dee could see that her request for connection from Sunny was actually beneficial for Sunny as well, and not just for Dee, she became more confident about requesting Sunny’s attention and began making clucking sounds and swinging the halter rope slowly from side to side. Sunny swung her head around a few times, but resumed eating every time. Dee turned away.
“What just happened?” I asked her. “She just wants to eat,” Dee responded glumly. “She is ignoring me,” I asked her what she would do when her daughter was little and wouldn’t get up in the morning for school. “Well, at first I would come in and stroke her forehead and let her know it was time to get up. If that didn’t work, I would pull back the covers a bit – she hated to be cold. Then I would turn on the light . . . sometimes I literally had to drag her to her feet to make sure she was fully awake!”
I told her she had just beautifully illustrated the principle of gradually increasing the pressure when her request was being ignored. I asked her what turning away from Sunny had done with the pressure. “Released it,” she acknowledged.
“What did that tell Sunny?”
“That her behavior is what I wanted.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
She turned back to Sunny and began asking for connection again by clucking and clapping her hands. Sunny turned to face her. Dee kept clucking and Sunny turned back around. “What did you do when Sunny turned to look at you?” I asked.
Dee thought a moment. “I kept clucking,” she said. “Oh, I didn’t release the pressure, did I?”
“Sunny didn’t know she had done the right thing because you didn’t release the pressure,” I agreed.
Dee went back to trying to get Sunny’s attention. Sunny flicked one ear back occasionally but otherwise kept eating. “I confused her,” said Dee.
We talked about how it’s o.k. to make mistakes in communication as long as we try to repair them. I asked her how she was going to let Sunny know that this relationship was important enough to Dee that she was willing to put in the work it required to have a good connection instead of giving up because she wasn’t getting immediate results. “Sunny isn’t going to care more about the relationship than you do,” I pointed out.
Dee had to increase her body energy (the pressure) quite a bit (clapping and then rhythmically swinging the halter rope helped to increase her body energy in a calm fashion) before Sunny finally turned around again. This time Dee stopped her movement and took a big step backward. Sunny took a step forward and Dee took another step back. Sunny blew out a big horsey raspberry at the same time as Dee exhaled loudly. We ended the session there. Dee was beginning to see how important it was for her to be consistent and committed to connecting with Sunny for them both to believe the relationship was worth having.
“Isn’t Natural Lifemanship (NL) just joining up?” I hear this question frequently from family, friends and students who are learning Natural Lifemanship. If they know anything about Natural Horsemanship, horse training methods with the intent of developing rapport with a horse based on herd dynamics, they assume that attachment in NL is “joining up.” Since joining up is getting the horse to see you as his leader and to follow you, observers often confuse this with attachment and connection in NL. Attachment can involve having the horse follow you but can also be achieved in many different ways. Further exploration of the process of attachment in NL reveals not only different expectations and beliefs about the process but a different process altogether. The beliefs and intentions of Natural Horsemanship and NL are not the same but both have important places in the world of horses.
In this blog I break down the components of joining up and attachment and compare and contrast them to help students of NL better understand the differences. Joining up and attachment have different purposes. Joining up is an intervention used by men and women (who we will call “trainers”) to train horses using principles from herd dynamics and attachment is part of NL, a psychotherapy model that strives to help humans obtain healthier relationships with themselves and others.
Joining Up is a term that is frequently used in Natural Horsemanship to communicate the process of a horse respecting the trainer as his/her leader. How this is done varies slightly from person to person. Monty Roberts explains it this way:
Working in a round pen, one begins Join-Up® by making large movements and noise as a predator would and begins driving the horse to run away. She then gives the horse the option to flee or Join-Up®. Through body language, the trainer will ask, “Will you pay me the respect due to a herd leader and join and follow me?” The horse will respond with predictable herd behavior: by locking an ear on her, then by licking and chewing and dropping his head in a display of trust. The exchange concludes with the trainer adopting passive body language, turning her back on the horse and without eye contact, invites him to come close. Join-Up occurs when the animal willingly chooses to be with the human and walks toward her accepting her leadership and protection.
From an NL perspective what is involved in this type of joining up? The horse trainer uses the horse’s natural fear of predators and approaches the horse with predator type behavior which frightens the horse and drives the horse into the survival part of his brain causing him to run away from the threat. From the survival part of his brain the horse responds instinctually. When the horse cannot escape the threat, he submits. The change in the trainer’s behavior to less threatening and more passive body language offers possible safety. The horse seeking safety, looks to the trainer for this and begins to ask for permission to approach. When the horseman allows the approach, the horse submits to the trainer as the leader.
Horses are accustomed to being dominated or being the dominant one, so in Join-Up® the interactions reinforce the hierarchy of the herd dynamics. From a horse training perspective this is a much kinder way to get a horse to comply with your requests than to “break” him. From a psychotherapy or NL perspective this interaction is about dominance and control. The horse is not given an option to cooperate because cooperation only occurs when the neocortex (the thinking part of the brain) is engaged and not only the lower regions of the brain. The trainer has all the power in this interaction and though Mr. Roberts uses the word “choice” the horse is not given a choice since he is operating out of the survival parts of his brain. True choices are made from the neocortex.
Let’s look at the above interactions through the lens of human relationships because NL is a psychotherapy model designed to help humans with relationships. A very important principle in NL is “a sound principle is a sound principle no matter where it is applied.” So, in NL we believe that if a principle is sound it will work across different types of relationships. The transfer of these principles is imperative in a therapy model.
When applying the principles from the Natural Horsemanship Join-Up® process to human relationships we see the following: One person has all the control, the relationship is based on a strong, benevolent leader that must be obeyed in order for there to be safety and order. The other person is not allowed to have any control because they may make poor decisions and submission is desired because it is good for the relationship. When viewed within this lens very few people would say that is the type of relationship they want and many would say that it is abusive. Since NL is a psychotherapy model, if we used the Natural Horsemanship principles of Join-Up® we would be teaching people unhealthy ways of relating.
Another very respected natural horseman is Pat Parelli. Like Mr. Roberts he is a well-known and a highly respected horse trainer. In his trainings Mr. Parelli explains how important it is to control a horse’s movement because it raises the trainer’s status to one of leader in the horse’s eyes. In this interaction the trainer is using the herd principle of whoever moves the other’s feet has the status. In this way the person controls the horse by influencing the horse’s feet. Sometimes this involves blocking choices that the horse can make. Sometimes the trainer decides which direction and how fast the horse will go. Leadership is seen as an essential component of the horse and horsemanship relationship. Mr. Parelli notes that if the trainer does not make the decisions then the horse will. Unlike Mr. Roberts, Mr. Parelli does not take the stance of a predator in order to drive the horse away. He uses only the amount of pressure necessary to control the horse’s feet.
When examining these beliefs, we see the following: The trainer controls the horse’s movements and takes away choices as necessary to obtain the horse’s compliance, and the horse cannot appropriately control himself without leadership.
From a human relationship perspective once again one person has all the control and decision making ability as the benevolent leader. The leader controls the other person and limits the choices available to insure appropriate decision making. Like the outcome of Join-Up® these dynamics do not reflect a healthy human relationship pattern.
All of these Natural Horsemanship interactions use operant conditioning, pressure and release, to teach the horse the desired behaviors. NL also uses pressure and release but in a different fashion.
One small part of NL is requesting attachment by applying pressure to the hip of the horse. From the untrained eye this appears similar to Join-Up® or other joining up interactions. There are many significant differences, however.
In NL the intention of every interaction with a horse or human is connection. Submission is seen as an instinctual behavior that the horse or human makes from the survival part of his brain and is undesirable. In order to avoid submission, the trainer/client uses the smallest amount of pressure necessary and abides by the three principles of pressure which are: Ignore- increase, Resist- remain and Cooperate- release and/or decrease.
The process of attachment in NL looks like this. The trainer/client makes a request of the horse in order to begin their relationship. The trainer/client applies pressure to the hip of the horse in order to give the horse the most choice about how to respond (the intent is not to drive the horse). The horse can choose to ignore the request (seem to not notice the request, do nothing in response to the request), resist the request (seek a different answer than the one that is being requested) or cooperate with the request.
Before a request is made the trainer/client must first decide if the request is appropriate, fair, and good for both the trainer/client and the horse. If the request is not good for one of them then it ultimately is not going to be good for the relationship. Each request is made with the smallest amount of pressure possible, usually beginning with just a thought. For example, the thought could be, please look at me. In order to use the smallest amount of pressure the trainer/client must be emotionally regulated and be in control of herself. The trainer/client holds a belief that he/she can only appropriately control himself/herself and the horse can appropriately control himself. If the horse responds to the smallest amount of pressure, then the pressure is released to communicate to the horse, yes that was what I asked for.
However, if the horse ignores the request, that is the trainer/client did not apply enough pressure to convey the request, then the pressure is increased incrementally with warmth and compassion. The decision to increase the pressure incrementally is done so as not to drive the horse into the survival part of his brain and to give the horse the choice to respond with the least amount of pressure possible.
In order to increase the pressure a little the trainer/client may take a deep, long breath to bring up the energy in his/her body while seeing in his/her mind the horse looking at him/her. If the horse responds by looking, the pressure is immediately released. But if the horse responds with a different answer, the trainer/client keeps the pressure the same in order to convey to the horse, that is a nice try but not what I requested.
By keeping the pressure the same the trainer/client does not drive the horse deeper into the survival part of his brain. As the pressure remains the same the horse can come out of the initial survival mode and begin to use his neocortex in attempting to find the answer that the trainer/client requested. The trainer/client keeps the pressure the same as the horse explores what the answer to the request is.
This dance continues until the horse chooses on his own to cooperate with the request. The desire is for the horse to engage his neocortex and to think and to choose connection with the trainer/client. If the horse submits instead of cooperating, then the trainer/client knows that he/she increased the pressure during resistance (hunting an answer). This is an undesirable outcome and the dance begins again with the smallest amount of pressure until cooperation is achieved from the horse’s neocortex.
The dance of asking the horse to follow is built on scaffolding of the requests. It may start out with the request for an ear, or an eye then move to a whole head turn, then the horse’s body turning to face the trainer/client, then the horse making a step toward the trainer/client and lastly them taking a walk together. The request to walk together is made out of a desire for connection and not to be the leader of the horse.
If we examine attachment and these steps of getting a horse to follow through the lens of a human relationship, we find respectful requests made with warmth and compassion, allowance and respect for another’s choice, a genuine desire to connect, acceptance of the other’s response, compassion and warmth in helping them find the right answer to the request, and a respect for and allowance of the thinking process and autonomy of another. In this process the trainer/client and horse are equal partners, each brings strengths and weakness to the partnership. This would be the same for all relationships, such as couples and friendships.
When the intention and principles behind the processes of attachment in NL and joining up in Natural Horsemanship are fully examined, attachment in NL is very different from Join-Up® or joining up in Natural Horsemanship. Remember, in NL there are infinite ways to ask for attachment, putting pressure on the hip is just one of them. Attachment can be requested any number of ways, and how it is asked depends on creativity and attunement in the relationship.
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