Equine Therapy

Equine therapy uses the horse as a therapeutic mediator; its founding act is the feat of the Danish rider Lis Hartel, silver medalist in dressage at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics despite a post-poliomyelitic paralysis, which revealed the rehabilitative effect of the horse. It rests on the principle of mediation, inherited from French theories (Roussillon, Brun, the Lyon school): the horse, a living third party, allows a triangular patient-animal-therapist relationship that lightens the frontality of the transference. Its domain is very broad (autism spectrum disorders, attachment disorders, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, childhood depression), which is both its richness and one of its epistemological fragilities.

This therapy is covered in detail (principles, indications, protocol, level of evidence) in Volume 7 of the Mémento des Psychothérapies. See the volume.