Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy Apprenticeship Program Instructors

• Nancy Coyne, MD, Psychiatrist, AAI
• Shelley Rosenberg, AAI, Epona Senior Staff, author, horsewoman, and teacher
• Linda Kohanov, author and founder of the Epona Approach™

Program Dates

This training program is designed to meet increasing equine interaction professional standards, teach the Eponaquest Approach™, and provide essential personal and horse time for each participant.

Due to the intensive nature of the training apprentices will have one scheduled day off each week for integration, rest, reflection and renewal. Otherwise apprentices are expected to be present from the starting day at 10:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m. on the last day.

• *Session 1:  TBA
• Session 2:  TBA
• Session 3:  TBA

*Session 1 is an intensive week with Linda Kohanov, author of The Tao of Equus, Riding Between the Worlds and Way of the Horse, and founder on the Eponaquest Approach™.

Course Outline

Linda Kohanov Presents Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning for Therapists for Personal Development — Intensive work with the founder of the Eponaquest Approach™. Linda will teach all the essential Eponaquest tools of experiential learning. Apprentices will have the opportunity to practice facilitating the Eponaquest tools and activities with one another.

Introduction to Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy — Foundations of horse-human interaction. Wisdom of horses. Mirroring and empathy. Self care for the healers as foundation for healing others. Introduction to techniques and practice for individual, group and family EFP. Review of Eponaquest tools. Horse language, horse skills and safety.

Intensive Theory and Practice — Group, couples, family and individual techniques. Practical issues: starting and running an equine business, insurance, marketing, working in a facility owned by others.

EFP Apprenticeship Tuition

The tuition is $9990 (USD) for training, core materials, and program days lunch and snacks. Apprentices must provide their own transportation, room, and dinners, as well as meals on Integration Day.

Eponaquest Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy Apprenticeship

The program is designed to help therapists and counseling students learn ways to integrate collaborating with horses to help patients and clients grow, learn and heal.  Our intent is to help people find and develop their unique gifts and talents in new ways. In this stressed age, re-connecting with nature, animals, and the body in motion, can help to infuse our work lives with more liveliness and joy and less burnout. Therapists will learn how horses help clients manage stress, reduce anxiety and depression, discover and change dysfunctional behavior patterns and painful intrapsychic habits, and interrupt traumatic repetitions in their family, social  and work lives.

We will utilize heartmath, daily yoga and meditation, creative work (sculpture, music, painting and writing). Horses’ unique ability to reveal and mirror our inmost troubles and strengths, and to help heal old trauma will be explored and demonstrated. Emotional intelligence skills for the therapist and the client, Jungian archetypes, learning from dreams and body psychotherapy as well as the place of talk therapy will be covered.

Radical self care, a program for taking inventory of one’s own life and strengths, will address the profound need for all of us to continue our own healing, finding renewal, inspiration and balance in our own lives if we are to be helpful to others.

Lecture and discussion, demonstration and practice of Individual psychotherapy, body awareness and bodywork, group process and relational patterns.  Each day will include both didactic, and experiential practice.

Horse skills will be assessed and we will teach whatever our individual students require to practice this new form of therapy safely and effectively.  Riding skill is not a requirement.  We will prepare people to learn skills they will need to pass the CEIP exam.

We will bring together a group of motivated professionals who will work together to support one another’s growth and development.  Some will be already practicing in the field, others just about to begin.

After completion of the program, graduates will receive a certificate which they may use to apply for CEU’s from their professional boards.

Graduates will be listed on the Eponaquest website and Eponaquest will refer clients to them as calls come in.

Prerequisites

1. One introductory and two advanced Eponaquest workshops(one advanced workshop with Linda Kohanov and one advanced workshop with a member of the Eponaquest Senior Staff).  See the website for listings in your area.  You may discuss how to arrange this with Nancy Coyne.
2. To register you may be a practicing mental health practitioner or student.  (Interested others please inquire.)  We offer the opportunity to learn or deepen your practice of equine facilitated psychotherapy while becoming an Eponaquest Instructor.
3. Work with horses will take place on the ground and on horseback in a safe environment practicing mindful and respectful partnership with the horses. Riding proficiency is not required but a love of horses and some horse experience is necessary.
4. Instructors:

• Nancy Coyne, MD, Board certified psychiatrist and trauma specialist
• Shelley Rosenberg, author of My Horses My Healers and Accessing Your Intuition
• Linda Kohanov, author of The Tao of Equus, Riding Between the Worlds and Way of the Horse, founder and director of the Epona Approach™
• Guest lecturers TBA

Application Process

Applications should be submitted to Nancy Coyne via email at NancyCoyne@ME.com.

Please call the Eponaquest business office at 520-455-5908 to arrange payment of your $80 application fee.

Listed below are the items that comprise the EFP Apprenticeship application. Please provide the information on a Microsoft Word document that is a maximum of 4 pages in length using text only — no photos or graphics.

• Date application and include name, address, cell and landline phone number, and email address and website if you have one.
• Education
• List schools, programs, trainings, certifications,
• Include the name of teaching/training institution, year/time attended, and a one to two sentence description of the program
• Professional Experience in one or more of the following fields:
  • Counseling or psychotherapy student
  • 5 or more years of horse experience,  ? riding experience
  • Licensed Mental Health Worker,
  • Coach,
  • Shamanic Training,
  • Alternative Human Health Care,
  • Animal Health Care,
  • Unique Experience, Skills, Connections
  • Other
• Note: Specify the number of years of experience you have in each area and the particular nature of each category (e.g. Dressage Riding Instructor for seven years, High School teacher for ten years.)
• Describe your initial experience with Eponaquest. Indicate nature of experience (workshop, private sessions, or an intensive), the name(s) of facilitator(s) and workshop(s), and dates. Comment on the concept of emotion as information, authentic community building skills, or the conditioned-self/authentic-self metaphor. Which of the concepts were most useful?
• List the date and Facilitator of the Eponaquest Introductory Workshop you attended along with the names and dates of the qualifying workshops with Linda Kohanov and Eponaquest Senior Faculty member.
• Horse Experience (you do not have to be an advanced rider to do this work, but some experience with horses is essential).
• Describe your attraction to the field of Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning. Why are you attracted to the Eponaquest EFP Apprenticeship Program?
• Given the requirements and energetic demands of the Apprenticeship Program, describe how you will integrate it with your personal and work life during the year of training.
• Describe your goals in this field (e.g., running your own EFEL center, adding EFP to your counseling practice?]
• Indicate the state of your mental and physical health.
• Knowing yourself as you do, if you were to run into a problem during the apprenticeship year, what might it be? How do you imagine the program could help you acknowledge and address that issue?
• If so advised by an Eponaquest instructor, are you willing to seek outside help in an area where there seems to be a deficiency?
• Indicate your capacity to send and receive emails with Microsoft Word attachments via computer on a routine basis. If you do not currently have this capacity, indicate whether or not you are willing and able to acquire the necessary setup and knowledge. (This electronic exchange among Eponaquest personnel and apprentices is integral to providing professional, personal, and logistical support.)

Applicants will receive email notification that they have passed the paper-screening phase. Phone interviews will then be scheduled by Nancy Coyne.

Reading List

• Kohanov, L — The Tao of Equus, Riding Between the Worlds and Way of the Horse
• Rosenberg, S — My Horses My Healers and Accessing Your Intuition
• Brach, T — Radical Acceptance
• Goleman, D — Emotional Intelligence
• Ogden, P — Trauma and the Body
• Rogers, A  — The Unsayable and A Shining Affliction
• Shapiro, F — Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
• Reich, W — The Function of the Orgasm
• Childre, D — Heartmath
• Hallberg, L — Walking the Way of the Horse
• Rector, B — Adventures in Awareness
• Herman, J —  Trauma and Recovery