"Fear and Grace"
Maureen Fredrickson, MSW
Have you ever read the liability statement given clients before riding? Most go something like this:
".....parent or guardian and student understand that horses are unpredictable by nature; that once frightened or under stress, a horse's natural instincts are to jump forward or sideways, bolt, shy sideways, run away from danger at a trot or gallop, to kick, to buck, to rear up in front or to bite...."
With such a huge, powerful, fearful and unpredictable creature, one might wonder why anyone would determine that horseback riding and contact with horses as an emotionally healing experience. In many ways it is this very aspect of horses that makes them the challenge and the attraction that they are. It is through the development of skills and trust that we establish a link with an otherwise fearful creature and at times can develop the level of relationship that imparts courage and respect. How does fear play a role in the horse's world and how does that impact our interactions with them. How does fear effect equine facilitated mental health programs and how can this factor compliment the work we do.
With all the fears described above, how is it that horses were able to eat, take care of their babies and sleep? Did horses spend their lives in constant unremitting fear? All prey species including horses have developed behavioral and group systems to keep them safe, secure and balanced within their environment. To understand their present behavior it is useful to understand the culture or tribe from which they evolved. The horse hails from grasslands and wide open spaces. Danger could be seen and heard from a long way off, sound carried well and moving objects tended to attract attention.
Group dynamics of the herd developed in response to this environment. The herd functions to provide members maximum protection and freedom with the least use of energy. The herd structure serves as an early warning system, protection system and support system for each member.
Arranged as a series of safety levels mares with the youngest foals tend to range in the middle of the herd. Mares and older foals are further out and older fillies go back and forth between mare groups and the periphery where the young stallions hang out. Who better to act as guard or watcher than energetic young males? Colts watch everything anyway and they have the energy and bravado to check things out. (The lead stallion ensures that colts pay attention to the environment and not fillies!).
Horses come from a tightly knit family unit where members rely on others to ensure safety and comfort. Herd structure is based on the needs and responsibilities of the members, mares tend foals, fillies help mares with foals, colts watch out for sudden changes or odd movement and the stallion makes sure the band stays together. The interplay of individual needs creates a system that enhances the rapid and yet subtle communication system that enables horses to respond to situations automatically or "instinctively." Foals freeze as do many mares when confronted with unusual or unpredictable signals or stimuli. This behavior enables mares to quickly find foals or to bring foals to them.
The herd system helps members feel relatively safe within the structure. So how do they communicate danger? A horse's brain is set up to receive and process huge amounts of sensory information such as scent and sound. It doesn't make sense for the young stallion patrol to shout the alarm at everything they saw including moving leaves, ambling deer, bouncing rabbits and the like. Many of us know what it is to live with a dog that sounds the alarm for every little thing...we soon turn the sound and noise off. Much of this information is beyond the sensory abilities of humans to perceive. So a horse may smell a predator long before we see it moving. If the predator moves away we may think the horse was anxious about an imaginary threat or think the horse was responding to something we can detect like a shadow or noise.
Horses developed a detailed and reliable communication system to complement the physical arrangement of the herd and the sensory capacity of the individual. The neigh is a horse communication tool most audible to humans. The neigh is used when others are out of sight and tends to be a 'where are you' shout. Most horse communication is subtle; breaths through the nose, teeth clacking, tail swatting and other sounds and signals.
Communication between herd members ranged over prairie distances take the form of snorts, sighs, chewing and silence! A horse noticing something in its pasture stops chewing and stares. All horses in the pasture cock an ear toward that animal waiting for it to chew again. If the horse resumes eating the others will respond with a series of snorts, sighs and sneezes. In the case of continued threat the others will raise their heads. Flight, which from our perspective looks chaotic, is rather a well-orchestrated exit to a pre-arranged signal.
Communication continues to flow through the group even at high rates of speed. And at the herds back is the stallion, ready to turn and hold off predators until the rest have made their escape. The responses of fight, flight, and freeze work well when the structure of the herd is there to support these behaviors.
The herd does not waste time in further analyzing unusual occurrences or objects or to second-guess a warning. To do so could endanger one by losing precious seconds before getting away. The decision to flee from an object or situation, which from our perspective looks chaotic, is rather a well orchestrated. When the signal for flight is given all members of the herd immediately respond. Trust in the herd structure and communication system ensures that members are safe and enables them to live without constant fear or continuous arousal. Communication is straightforward and concise. Fear is communicated when there is clear danger or in times of great stress.
What happens when humans put horses in 'modern care? Although horses have been domesticated for thousands of years, it is only recently that intensive stabling practices have drastically altered their living environment. The horse, programmed to live in a supportive family structure where one relies on the members to ensure safety and comfort suddenly finds itself spending a majority of its life in solitary confinement. Even horses turned out with companions several hours a day spend much of the time relying on their singular perceptions to interpret the world. Once we take horses out of this emotionally supportive environment however, behavior patterns and automatic responses begin to look irrational, and reactive. We have a mare that is bonded to another mare, her sister. Grace became extremely distraught whenever the other mare left her sight. When the other mare was taken into the arena to work, Grace would rear and scream, pounding the floor with a front hoof and striking at anyone who came near her. Grace's genetically driven behaviors that would have ensured the survival of a foal in a natural setting are now seen as herd bound and separation anxiety.
A very well known trainer refers to fear in horses as justified and unjustified. For this trainer a horse that responds fearfully to something the trainer does not perceive as dangerous is unjustified in its fear. By minimizing the horse's fear its behavior can be perceived as resistance and a host of other 'stubbornness' behaviors for which the horse is then punished. Fear engendered by horse traumas is always justified in the mind of a horse that operates from the equine 'better safe than sorry' wariness of self-preservation. Response to fear is irrational because that is precisely the neural pathway it follows, the infinitely faster, non-analytical or instinctive route. Rational means the data or stimuli is picked up and analyzed...rationalized.
A horse's response to the environment and different stimuli is not part of an analytical system but rather one of matching experiences. It is a system that follows the 'looks like a duck, smells like a duck, sounds like a duck...must be a duck' model of linear thinking. People on the other hand, have the capacity to choose to respond to fear through instinct or rational thought. DeGavin in the book Gift of Fear states that people use the mental power of logic to assess degrees of danger. This is also connected to our hard wiring as a predator that enables us to take time to analyze situations.
People think horses live in fear and are continually fearful. We interpret a flight response as fear rather than a rapid response system that tells horses to get some distance before taking time to analyze things. This may be why horses turn around after they bolt. They have the safety of distance then to take in more information and analyze the data. If given that time and they find out that the loud bang didn't really cause them harm (if the handler didn't slam them with the chain over the nose or the bang didn't really hurt their sensitive hearing) they will be less likely to respond to the sound with a flight response because they LEARNED that the sound was harmless.
The majority of trainers use desensitization training to address equine fear. But this method ignores the emotional complexity of horses. During desensitization the animal cannot change the situation through behaviors and solutions it is adapted to use. For many horses the loss of control or impact on the environment results in what appears to be a compliant and accepting attitude but in reality is learned helplessness, a form of trauma bonding.
No matter how controlled or limited the fear is, to change the response we must set up experiences where the physical stimuli result in a pleasurable or safe or non-threatening outcome. Grace was afraid if the other horse left her. Clients worked with Grace through well-defined activities to help her learn not to panic when the other horse left her sight. She was able to cope to some degree with leaving her sister in her stall while she worked in the ring. She was also able to remain calm if she could see the other horse fully.
Studies of trauma and stress in people reveals that a person's response to fear is in part due to the way the brain responded to the stimulus originally. Overwhelming incidents often result in future responses that are instinctual more like the horse. For example, children who have been abused in childhood tend to respond to new situations instinctively, with fight, flight or freeze patterns. They have difficulty in responding to future incidents through analytical or rational pathways. Humans can develop the power to override fear. We must be careful, however, when overriding a fear response, since fear is a crucial, genetically supported warning system whose true function is protection and preservation.
When working with horses in mental health situations that address client fear issues we must set up a pattern of experiences that do not lead to overriding fear. It is essential that instructors and clinicians respect fears of both the client and animal. Patronizing a frightened individual tells him he is wrong for tuning into himself, his horse, and his situation. Understanding that fear slows learning because the brain overrides analytical thought and takes the shortcut to instinctive behavior will help the clinician and instructor evaluate the emotional challenge of each activity. Both the horse and client can share the task of managing fear; to recognize that it is important yet must be kept in balance.
Understanding how horses and people respond to fear is critical and can help equine facilitated mental health programs develop appropriate protocols for horse handling and barn management. In terms of our clients and particularly clients with mental health needs, associating with horses forces people to deal with fear-their own as well as their horses'. In people fear elicits feelings of anger, powerlessness, and confusion. Fears are triggered for many clients with mental health issues by associations and stimuli not perceived by others...similar to the horse.
By learning to identify, prevent and diffuse fearful situations clients can build self-confidence and trust. Helping a horse work through fear with understanding and compassion will build empathy and compassion. In the same way, trainers that move beyond simple desensitization training with fearful horses will encourage the rich complexity of emotional responses of which horses are capable. Clients who learn to deal with the reactive levels of horses can begin to change fear into a skill, turning fear to challenge and perhaps giving true courage a place to grow.
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