The EAGLE Project serves veterans seeking support, self-awareness, and increased coping skills as they re-enter civilian life. Working alongside horses leads to a variety of situations which provide veterans opportunity to delve into their responses to various stimuli. Horses have a relaxed vigilance from which veterans can learn much.
According to the RAND Center for Military Health Policy Research 20 percent of the vets who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from either major depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Upon returning from service, veterans diagnosed with PTS often have difficulty with personal relationships, employment hardships, homelessness, post-deployment injury, or suicide. Veterans also face significant barriers to receiving services, some of these include:
• Personal embarrassment about service-related mental disabilities
• Long wait times to receive mental health treatment
• Shame over needing to seek mental health treatment
• Fear of being seen as weak
• Stigma associated with mental health issues
However, ANT succeeds where other mental health programs for veterans fail because it is not talk-chair therapy. A horse is a non-judgmental and sympathetic listener. Sessions take place in the open-air barnyard, not confined to a stark room. And new research from the Man O’ War Project at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, shows equine therapy, connecting people and horses to enhance emotional healing, can jump-start the healing process for veterans who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder.
“Both PTSD patients and horses are preoccupied with ongoing concerns about trust and safety. This innovative therapy facilitates bonding, overcoming fear, and re-establishing confidence,” said Dr. Neria, professor of medical psychology (in psychiatry and epidemiology) and director of Columbia’s PTSD program. “One must build trust with a horse for it to warm to you.”
This program is led by Joaquin Aguirre, M.A., a licensed marriage and family therapist who has specialized in supporting veterans and their families for 6 years and Sonja Wingard, ANT Director, who has been trained through "Horses for Heroes,” a national program of the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship (PATH), to most effectively guide these men and women through their healing and reintegration journeys.
