“Please just tell me what to do.”
Isn’t this something we all ask at times?
I hear it from Travis, a single Dad whose adopted daughter has just been diagnosed with ODD.
And from Anna, who has recently completed her first training with Healing Hooves and is eager to get started.
I get it. I’ve asked the same thing myself.
I attended my first Equine Facilitated Wellness (EFW) training in 1998. Equipped with my counselling degree, years of horse experience and now this training, I was eager to start seeing clients as soon as possible. Just one little problem. I had very little idea what to actually DO in an EFW session, and that terrified me. “Isn’t there a manual?” I asked, when it hadn’t appeared by day three of the training. I was hoping for something with step by step plans and exercises for every presenting problem and scenario, preferably organised by DSM category.
“No,” my wise mentor replied, “and if there was, I wouldn’t give it to you.”
Now I was frustrated as well as terrified. Not to mention overwhelmed.
My mentor didn’t abandon me there though. After that training (the first of several) she guided me to find practicum placements and opportunities to do my own work; to experience EFW and decide what fits for me. She and other mentors also supported my exploration of different approaches to understanding and working with people and horses – including attachment, connected horsemanship and polyvagal theory – and to integrate these into my EFW approach.
This all took longer than I had initially hoped, and my practice developed gradually. Yet it allowed me to create a program that reflected my and my equine partners’ unique strengths, scope of practice and individual passions.
Reflecting back I wonder where I’d be now if someone had given me a manual? I imagine I’d have been initially ecstatic and significantly less anxious and frustrated. I could have jumped straight in after my week of training, confident I knew what to do. But would this have allowed me space – and impetus – to discover and create my own unique contributions to this field?
And what about when my equine partners – who wouldn’t read the manual – had other ideas?
I got a partial answer a few years later. EFW was relatively new in Alberta and I’d agreed to host a practice day for new practitioners. One of them facilitated an exercise with my clients, a teenage boy and his father, that involved linking arms and haltering a horse. The facilitator read the ‘rules’ for the exercise from his manual (he had a different mentor than me) and it seemed simple enough.
Dubh, our equine partner, disagreed.
In fact he took one look at the four legged, two headed being approaching him and ran. Referring to his manual the facilitator directed my clients to keep trying. Meanwhile my young client was agitated with being asked to pursue Dubh, who he knew needs space to process things. Rather like this young man himself. So he started to push back a little, muttering several choice words. His father, aware of the audience, stared pointedly at his son with each expletive. I approached the facilitator and suggested that perhaps he try a different approach? He informed me that a goal of the exercise was to encourage persistence so it was important they didn’t give up. Ultimately, with some support from me, my young client was brave enough to break the ‘no talking’ rule and tell his Dad he didn’t want to confuse Dubh anymore. The facilitator wanted to impose the pre-determined ‘fun consequence’ for not achieving the goal – I believe they were to sing “I’m a little teapot” – but after another look at my client, I shut it down.
I called my mentor that night and said thank you.
She didn’t give me what I wanted back then, she gave me what I needed.
Nowadays when a student asks me to ‘tell them what to do’ I share this and other stories from my early years in the field and encourage them to hang in there. Sometimes I share the image of providing a map versus a set of directions. Directions are usually simpler and quicker to develop and learn. But what happens when something doesn’t go according to plan? An accident or a road closure? Directions dumb you down in anything but the most straightforward of scenarios, maps allow you to think for yourself to find your own way through. Or to take the scenic route, the road less travelled, if that’s what works for you.
This all dovetails well with my approach to working with parents. When a parent asks, “What do I do when … “ I have learned to answer this question with another question:
“What do you see?”
My job as a parent consultant is to provide my clients with the insight to be informed by their child’s behaviours to find the why. Once they have this insight they no longer need to ask me what to do. They discover that they already know, because they have a map.
The other reframe I aim for is to see past the presenting ‘want’ to the underlying ‘need’.
Because one thing I’ve learned we all – two and four legged – have in common is that all our behaviour has a purpose, and in many cases it is an expression of an underlying unmet need.
Another example may help. When my children were young they would sometimes beg me to stay in and play rather than go to work. With a client and babysitter about to arrive, giving them what they wanted in that moment was not a great option. But their request reminded me of their underlying, and very natural, attachment needs: To know that they mattered to me more than my work, and to feel held on to by me while I wasn’t right there with them. So I gave them big hugs, told them how much I was looking forward to baking cookies with them later that afternoon, and whispered that would be my favourite part of the day, because it was spent with them.
It’s so tempting to meet the want though.
When Travis, or Anna, ask me what they should do I swear there’s a hyper-active fix-it part of me that is desperate to jump all over these requests with answers galore. I’m suddenly elevated into the expert role and here’s someone desperately asking me for my superior directions. It would feel so good to indulge us both for a while.
The infamous quote of highly contested origin, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” immediately comes to mind.
Do my clients – or students – really need to depend on me for all their answers? Or can I step away from my own ego wants and empower them to find their own answers? Provide them with a map, or help them create their own, and invite them to navigate their own route?
Yet it can take time to teach someone how to fish, especially when they arrive hungry. Perhaps there is a way to meet both the short and the long term needs in those we seek to help in life? Sometimes examples, and enough space for expression, can allow us to alleviate some of the short term ‘want’ while also meeting the underlying, and usually longer term, need.
Travis has reached out after a difficult week with a list of ‘what do I do’ questions, sent in advance by e-mail. I get it. Chloe, his daughter, has huge attachment wounds and needs that are often expressed through demands and tantrums. I don’t think either of them get much sleep. So, I remind myself to seek and respond to the needs underlying Travis’s requests, before supporting him to do the same for Chloe. Jumping out of his vehicle, Travis’s voice is elevated and I can see the tears he’s fighting to hold back. We sit outside the pasture, the horses off grazing in the distance. Checking in with my own breath I make space for Travis to talk. To be heard and validated. To remember that he really is a good Dad, despite what his mother in law said that morning, and he’s trying his best. When our barn cat Max climbs onto Travis’s knee and tries to lick his face, I see the first smile of the morning as he gently but firmly redirects Max to curl up on his lap instead. We transition on to ‘horse time’ through some five senses awareness.
For several minutes all we hear is Max’s purrs and the occasional snort from the nearby herd.
Before long, our older mare, Disa, approaches the fence and perks her ears in our direction. Oliver, the smallest member of our herd, is just behind her alternating nipping at the back of Disa’s legs, shoving into her side, and turning to make faces at Teddy, the next smallest.
“Why’s the little guy bothering Disa like that?” Travis asks “That’s not cool. She should tell him to smarten up. Or maybe we should go in there and move him away from her?”
“Hmm,” I murmur, “I think maybe Disa’s got this.”
Disa repositions herself so Oliver can’t reach to shove or nip her, and starts to nuzzle his shoulder. Oliver becomes very still.
Travis and I step towards the fence so we can give Disa a scratch and soon both ponies’ eyes are closed. I share a little of Oliver’s history, how he came from the auction and we didn’t know much about his life before coming here.
“He does sometimes get pushy with the other horses,” I share, “but Disa seems to get that he just needs some attention and reassurance. Along with a few boundaries.”
“Disa does that so naturally,” Travis noted, “unlike me.”
“Yet you did it with Max earlier without even thinking,” I reminded him.
For the rest of the session Travis identifies all the ways in which Chloe is like Oliver and how he can respond as Disa has inspired. He has the start of a map to work with.
How I support clients is guided and informed by my map. I draw from the many examples the animals, and our interactions with the animals, offer us and I’m guided by my training in attachment and other parts of my map to help me identify the needs potentially underlying my client’s wants and behaviours. Sometimes this means sitting with clients when they don’t know what to do and NOT giving them answers. Rather make space for them to express whatever needs to be expressed and then journey with them as they find their own answers. Sometimes providing examples of what has worked for myself and others I’ve supported can help. With it remaining up to the client which examples they may or may not draw upon or learn from.
I follow the same approach with my students when they ask me to just tell them what to do. I share my map. I provide lots of examples. And I create opportunities to experience and practice this work. But ultimately my goal is to guide and support each and every one of my students to create their own personal maps for EFW. One which is unique to them and informed by their, and their equine partners’, individual strengths, scope of practice and passions, and how these best come together in unique partnership.
Fully acknowledging the risk of mixing too many metaphor I’m going to add one more. When not entered into within the context of healthy relationship you will have an idea, and not a dance. You could read all about how to dance the tango, memorise the steps and practice them in front of a mirror; but the beauty of the dance only arises when you dance with a partner. And for this to be beautiful rather than a mess of stepping on toes and pulling each other in different directions, your dance has to incorporate mutual feel, connection, respect and understanding of the partners. In my experience, one partner following a set of instructions provided by someone outside of the relationship doesn’t allow enough space for us to feel – and sometimes accept or even invite the lead from – the other partner/s or even ourselves. Learning to dance involves lots of practice, making mistakes, learning from them and finding your own way through. In the case of EFW there are several partners involved as you have the equines as well as the clients, and each partnership is going to differ. I explored this through an example many years ago in the article ‘Dancing with Skye’ which I encourage you to read. A key part of EFW for me is understanding my equine partners as intelligent sentient beings who bring so much to this work without ever being told ‘what to do’. Ideas are important, as is the process of continual learning and gaining knowledge. But for this to all become wisdom takes time and, I believe, can only happen within the context of relationship – with yourself, your clients and your equines.
This will all take longer, and very likely create more short term frustration, than providing everyone with a ‘how to’ manual.
But I think the long terms results are worth it.
© Copyright Sue McIntosh, Cremona, 2024
Thank you, Sue. I enjoyed reading this article. It resonated with me as the ‘how to’ is something that I considered when I first started counselling. Everyone wants a quick fix. But what I learned and I see reflected in your words, is that just being fully present and focusing on the client and animals in session, provides one with the ability to help in gentle ways that can be grasped and absorbed.
You’re welcome Rhonda, and I like the way you express this!
I found this article to be really interesting because I hear that question a lot, ” what do I do” or concerns being expressed in regards to trying to find the answers. What I have learned is the answers take time to find and they may not always be right in front of you. I really love how at the end it highlights how animals are an “intelligent sentient being” and they can teach us and provide guidance that takes time to understand. I have learned the importance of slowing things down.
I’m glad you found it helpful Jolanyna!
Hi Sue:
Well said, being present and fully embodying an intention for meaning relationship with horses..and humans is what it’s all about. I have the great gift of a career in public health nursing with a pillar in walking with a client on their path in health. Listening, waiting for an opening to offer some help. Lots of time being….with a strong desire to do. I have learned so much about myself and horses just by bearing witness and being in their presence. I appreciate their open and clear curiosity and have included this into my way of being. Although I do still look for “the do” sometimes and inject quite a bit of fun into the space, it just feels good for all involved.
I admit that I am becoming more comfortable with the idea of creating my own way of being without feeling desperate for a set of guidelines or a map.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts….very insightful.
I’m glad you liked it Joie! I agree with you on the curiosity aspect and love that you also incorporate fun!
I so appreciated the reminders in this article. Thankyou for the practical examples- very helpful.
While it is getting easier to hold space and allow organic processing time, it is still challenging for me some days! I believe some of this is due to spending an extensive part of my career in schools where often the way of imparting knowledge was via the model teacher being knowledge keeper-student being the empty vessel to be poured into.
The learning through these courses has helped me to allow clients space and time to find those “aha” moments is so important. As a mental health practitioner, I have recognized that may involve me feeling uncomfortable and that’s ok. Over time that has gotten easier, especially seeing the value of “sitting with it” in real time with the horses. I feel I am better now recognizing the importance of showing up for my client grounded and focused myself too otherwise the “fix it” part of me shoves her way to the front of the line!
I hear you Sue re the ‘fix it’ part!
I relate so much with your comment Sue! I come from the healthcare system, which also moves incredibly fast. I’ve been in private practice now for 3 years and have learned that slow work creates deeply rooted change. It is beautiful to witness, but holding space for that organic process can be really tricky for me too. I find the grounding exercises to be helpful with this!
Great analogy between directions and map. I do still feel though that I need some more guidance from you to find practicum placements close to Toronto so I can explore what opportunities could be there for me without being a mental health specialist and still make a career out of it. It is still not very clear to me and I also would like to start making connections in my area to learn and maybe volunteer at the beginning of my journey. I would appreciate any advise or introductions you can make 🙂 Thanks Sue!
I really enjoyed the story with Dubh and how you conducted yourself. The perspective that I take away from this article is that if you have respect, listen to your intuition, practice autonomy, and self-efficacy, apply what you have learned during your training, then you are on your way to establishing your own map.
This is a perfect “first read” for me as I have noticed my own thoughts around the “how to”. A good reminder that I am looking to create a map for myself and those with whom I work. Not every map will look the same — which is why I don’t actually need the guidebook.
I really like how you express this Jen: “Not every map will look the same — which is why I don’t actually need the guidebook.”
This was an interesting read. I appreciated the acknowledgment that there is not a “how to” manual and this is something that grows and develops. I like that. Being observant and in the moment with space allows for growth to happen…for everyone.
This article is a great reminder to empower people to find the answer within themselves, not just give them the answer. I love that I can share my map and the client can decide to use some or all, or none of it. It is a challenge to find that balance.
So true Yvonne!
This article is great! I just finished my bachelors degree and am looking at applying for a graduate program in the next year or two, but while I wait my hope is that I’m able to start to develop my own map to use. In saying that, I’m sure my “map” will grow and develop continuously throughout my life.
great point here Aleshia – I agree that the best maps allow for lots of growth and development over time!
I really enjoyed this article. Thank-you for this beautiful aricle
You’re very welcome Leah!
I find myself being the person asking “what do I do” recently. This article is a helpful reminder to take a step back and look at the map.
This is a great article Sue, especially as I find myself asking the question of ‘what do I need to do…….’, as I’ve always been so used to structured studying from a mainstream set of text books that give answers, followed by university lectures, practicums whereby you follow what your mentor shows you (sometimes great, but not always, as can also pick up bad practice or habits), with a large focus on being task orientated as we are taught a set way of doing things, and sometimes it has to be a certain way (scrub nurses need to do tasks a certain way to be sterile and safe). Nevertheless, I love how this scope of learning is freer, allowing us to use our senses in more of an heightened manner – looking and actually seeing what horses/animals are telling us with their physical presence – as you accurately describe them as sentinel beings, horses can’t verbalize actual words to tell us, but they do show us, and we can pick up on their cues, just like we can from watching the expression and body language of other humans. We describe our experiences, and make suggestions based on experiences, but we have to see it for ourselves to understand and learn by watching, waiting, having patience, and being in the moment. I’m so glad you wrote about this, as it does make sense. To be in the moment, learn from a herd or horses who at any given time can change their behaviour based on their surroundings, as they are live, present, unpredictable, emotionally intelligent and their individual sensitivity can mirror a human – so for a human, patience is a virtue. From this, I feel that I need to continue doing more observing of horses in their environments, even watching them with other human interaction, to read their communication, and research more into body language between a horse and a human, and reflect on my own communication, and how my animals sense their environment with other animals in their pack and with my family members, there is so much to see and understand from just observing than being told what to do. Thank you.
Lots of great reflections in here Tracey and I love your dedication to learning more about and from the horse. I’m thinking that you and your daughter may actually really like our equine neuroscience course? I’m just confirming the details for this year’s course now so please let me know if you have any questions!
Totally interested in the equine neuroscience course! I think I’ve read about you mentioning it in one of your other blogs! ☺️
I have e-mailed you the info!
Great article Sue. Thank you for sharing your experience and insight. I feel exploring different avenues, overtime can give you a clearer view of your path, purpose and what speaks strongly to your heart.
Wow! This article hit hard. I love that you were able to help your client set his own boundaries and advocate for himself even to his dad and the crowd and the trainer. And the snippet about the dad and daughter and how the horses interacted was just so incredibly powerful. This is exactly why I want to be here doing this work.
Another incredibly great read that has me reflecting on my interactions within my current practice, and is an important reminder to take a moment and identify what the underlying need is. The map versus directions metaphor really resonated with me – supporting the individuals to gain skills to overcome future obstacles is such a powerful tool to possess. Within my own personal life, I’ve learned to support individuals based on what they need in that moment. As mentioned, sometimes we simply need someone to listen while we explore for ourselves. Other times, we benefit from that guided support. With friends and family, I’ve started asking them, “is this something you want me to try and help you fix? Or, do you just want me to listen?”. It’s surprising, when given this choice, how many individuals just want a safe space to be able to process their thoughts. Either way, I’ve found this approach to be helpful in ensuring they feel validated, and heard, without “giving the directions”.
I love the map metaphor. I am a fan of metaphors, so never too many in an article for me! I also notice having to set aside the impulse to jump in and solve, especially when the training and work have allowed us to see deeper patterns and a lens to see what the functions are that could easily be brought to attention and then tackled. But again the map, what is then learned the insight and Aha moments that draw from our clients’ intrinsic resources all those wonderful connections lost. working around the edges is a gentle way to help ,cients externalize and foster from grace and gentleness in turning inward- I love reading how the horses allow this to all come about in their own natural way.
I’m glad you like metaphors Julia because I tend to draw on them a lot!
Part of this process for me has been the continued acknowledgment of discomfort in the not knowing and the learning of something new. I appreciate how you have put words to it in this article Sue, thank you. I am grateful to be in a place in my life that I can sit in the humility of “I have so much to learn” and the patience to let it happen organically and not forced.
Being present and fully living my intention to build a meaningful relationship with horses and humans is what matters most to me.
I’m learning to trust myself to find my own way, without needing a set of rules or someone else’s map. Tough when I am a visual learner.
I like that you recognise that this is a process Cathy, and I’d add that it’s totally OK to lean on and learn from others’ maps as you progress on this journey!
As someone who loves direction and manuals, I can absolutely understand why that doesn’t work here. I love the dance metaphor as the connection yields a much greater response/ outcome and that can’t be gained from being told “how to.” I find I now also rail against protocols for supporting individuals ever since working in the equine environment. The scenic route has always provided me a better foundation in my own practice.
Such a beautiful article Sue. I love the stories you share to illustrate your point. I appreciated the response “what do you see?” to the what do I do questions. I can imagine how that also supports the clients to discover their own way by exploring and identifying their own biased perceptions. Kind of like helping them identify their own “location” on the map.
That’s a great way to see it Jill, “helping them identify their own “location” on the map”, thank you!
I see similarities with the principles of peer support. The person we are supporting has the answers, they maybe just need a little time and guidance to find them. People searching for and finding their own answers through patience, trial and ‘error’. If a decision is made and it doesn’t produce the expected result, it is more helpful to look at what the learning is rather than looking at it as a failure. Resilience and self efficacy can be built in this way. Things didn’t go as I thought they would and I will try something else based on the new knowledge I have. Great article.
I think I might be in the minority in the therapy world, but I enjoy that there’s no manual. I recently took a course in family based attachment and there’s a step by step how to guide, the same with many other modalities I’ve taken. When I watch individuals in the training session I can feel the sense of panic set in when they forget which step comes next or if they’ve fully explored and completed the current step they’re on.
I think one of the biggest reliefs can come with discovering you have your own system and it works for the work you do.
That is so wonderful that you are coming from this place right from the start!
This was a really helpful article for me, Sue. I resonated with the title because I’ve literally said this myself. I’m learning and understanding that it would be challenging to follow a type of manual in this work. I am so excited for this journey and developing my own maps along the way as I continue to learn, grow and gain experience over time.
I think most of us have said those word – probably many times!
I love the metaphor of the map and directions, and it is something that I truly appreciate about the PRO-EFW model and Healing Hooves approach. The scenario you shared of the “four legged” being and the halter was such a great example of being lost in the “how-to” of directions, and unaware of the present moment and needs of both horses and clients to feel safe and connected – two things we cannot force no matter the “activity” but occurs naturally when we cultivate the roots of attachment within the context of the Equine Facilitated therapeutic relationship.
I love how you have brought this into the attachment roots lens here Stefanie!