Counseling

I offer mental health counseling for individuals from birth through adulthood. Treatment is led by my client's needs, issues and goals. At H.E.R. Sanctuary, you can overcome your traumas, anxieties, and challenges, so that you can reach your true power and potential. You can work with the horses as much or as little as you like, or simply enjoy the surroundings.

Counseling with Horses

Counseling with horses is an amazing way for me to assist clients with working

through their issues and challenges. It is not the same thing as therapeutic riding or hippotherapy.

At H.E.R. Sanctuary, we use groundwork, such as brushing, feeding, and ground exercises, to help clients connect with the horses. In doing so, clients learn more

about themselves and can identify their feelings, patterns, and behaviors.

Spiritual truths and principles are applied as clients work towards a point of ‘join up’

or connection with the horse. This aids you in drawing parallels between your own circumstances and your relationship with the horse. The goal is to help in social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral ways.

Many programs will follow one model or another, but I employ elements of different therapy approaches —and even techniques that I have developed — to best meet your individualized treatment plan.

You don’t need any horse experience to be part of this kind of counseling, No matter who you are, you can benefit from the powerful healing that horses offer.

Play Therapy

The Association for Play Therapy defines play therapy as "the systematic use of a theoretical model to establish an interpersonal process wherein trained play therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to help clients prevent or resolve psychosocial difficulties and achieve optimal growth and development."

More simply put, child play therapy is a way of being with the child that honors their unique developmental level and looks for ways of helping in the “language” of the child – play. Licensed mental health professionals therapeutically use play to help their clients, most often children ages three to 12 years, to better express themselves and resolve their problems. Play therapy works best when a safe relationship is created between the therapist and client, one in which the latter may freely and naturally express both what pleases and bothers them.

Mental health agencies, schools, hospitals, and private practitioners have utilized play therapy as a primary intervention or as supportive therapy for:

Behavioral problems, such as anger management, grief and loss, divorce and abandonment, and crisis and trauma.
Behavioral disorders, such as anxiety, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity (ADHD), autism or pervasive developmental, academic, and social developmental, physical and learning disabilities, and conduct disorders.

Research suggests play therapy is an effective mental health approach, regardless of age, gender, or the nature of the problem, and works best when a parent, family member, or caretaker is actively involved in the treatment process.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of behavioral treatment and is often called “Talk Therapy.” It helps people problem-solve. CBT also reveals the relationship between beliefs, thoughts, and feelings, and the behaviors that follow. Through CBT, people learn that their perceptions directly influence how they respond to specific situations. In other words, a person’s thought process informs their behaviors and actions. Cognitive behavioral therapy is grounded in the belief that how a person perceives events determines how they will act. It is not the events themselves that determine the person's actions or feelings.

I also use artistic and creative activities as tools for clients to express their feelings, work through trauma and learn coping skills.