Horse Whispering, Psychotherapy, and Traumatic Brain Injury
Leonard J. McCulloch, M.A., Ltd.L.P., DAPA
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Horse Whispering, Monty Roberts, and “Join-Up” The movie “The Horse whisperer”, starring Robert Redford, is no doubt familiar to many readers. In the movie Redford portrays the legendary “Horse Whisperer”, who has the skill to rehabilitate traumatized horses and socialize wild, untamed horses. In his book, Monty Roberts describes his non-violent methods to the reader. He tells how to rehabilitate hurt horses and to "start” (tame) horses that have never known saddle, bridle, or rider.Roberts has shared his techniques in demonstrations around the world. Experienced horse-people, including Queen Elizabeth II, have called Roberts’ methods nothing short of incredible. Roberts believes that the violence involved in the traditional form of “horse breaking” is unnecessary and counter-productive. His focus is on communication with the horse rather than domination.

Roberts has coined his method, “Join- Up”, which involves horse and trainer establishing a bond of trust. Roberts describes a very discernable nonverbal language universal to horses, which he calls “Equus”. Roberts’ principles of “Join-Up” and “Equus” have been applied in corporations, schools, and other groups around the world. In these groups he teaches how more can be accomplished with non-confrontational techniques than with harshness and aggression. As word of Roberts’ work has spread, people who had known nothing about horses have become interested in studying how his approach to communication may help people to deal with other people.

Psychotherapy
In the psychotherapy of people there are many similarities between Roberts’ “Join-Up” and rapport established in psychotherapy. Typically, individuals entering therapy present some form of distress in their lives. The therapist makes an assessment and offers recommendations for a treatment plan. As treatment begins, people are listened to and the therapist ideally conveys an optimistic willingness to understand. This forms a “therapeutic alliance” between the patient and the therapist. This alliance is analogous to Roberts’ concept of “Join-Up”. As the therapeutic relationship proceeds, trust develops out of the patient’s need to become well and the therapist’s position of trying to increase the patient’s self-knowledge. Through growth promotion there can begin to be an amelioration of the patient’s distress and an increase in the patient’s adaptive functioning. When the patient has internalized the therapeutic function of the therapist, he/she is able to terminate formal sessions and continue the treatment on his/her own, with a greater “psychological mindedness” in managing life’s problems.

Traumatic Brain Injury
The efficacy of psychotherapy of persons with TBI has been well documented Prigatano, 1999). Gratification of the need to be understood seems to be universal. As one patient with TBI stated as he began psychotherapy, “For ten years since my accident, they tried to control me with medications and rehabilitation rules. Now someone is willing to just listen to me and try to understand me.” This is the therapeutic alliance. It develops between a patient with TBI and therapist when procedures are nonconfrontational and guided by an optimistic attempt to provide the patient with acceptance of their handicapping condition. As trust and alliance grow, patients with TBI respond favorably to life style modifications that can accommodate the reality of their TBI. Patients’ responses to psychotherapy and therapeutic alliance may include increased self acceptance, expansion of awareness of strengths and deficits, a greater acceptance of the necessity for rehabilitation, the relief from grief, and at least partial resolution of mourning the loss of their former selves.

Therapeutic Choir
Healing therapeutic alliances can develop in surprising ways. A patient, who had been institutionalized for eight years in another facility, was admitted to our rehabilitation program. He was not responding to traditional methods of establishing rapport and therapeutic alliance. In Roberts terms this patient was not “Joining-Up”. He was noncommunicative. Inadvertently, it was found that he liked music and could sing a nice rendition of “Amazing Grace”. This led other patients with TBI to come together to become involved in singing. In October, 1998, they formed a therapeutic, travelling a capella choir at Broe Rehabilitation Services, Inc., in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The choir is a demonstration of the principles of “Join- Up” and therapeutic alliance. It has been a success.

For the past two years, choir participants have been practicing weekly and performing publicly each month. The choir has received press coverage in over a dozen publications. The result of “Join-Up” has been profound improvement in self-esteem, a sense of personal pride, and a return of feelings of self-worth for these participants. They have become much more compliant with the rigors of their rehabilitation regimes such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and taking their medication. Socialization patterns have also increased. Interestingly, the choir’s adopted motto has become, “When we are singing together, we can’t possibly be fighting.”

Undoing the damage from trauma is never complete. However, the relative re-socialization demonstrated by patients with TBI who have involved themselves in this unique therapeutic choir (which now numbers 24 members) has been outstanding. These patients get along better with each other since their participation in the choir.
They show less clinical depression, aggression, and more social competence. They look forward to events with optimism. They even smile more. They have become to a great extent “untraumatized”.

Closing Impression
The words of Shakespeare come to mind when considering the rehabilitation of horses and humans:

“Cans’t thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart?” (Shakespeare Macbeth IV, 3).

“Join-Up”, therapeutic alliance, rapport - no matter what the name - seems to be a critical ingredient to the relief Shakespeare was seeking.

*”The Man Who Listens to Horses”, by Monty Roberts,
is available at most bookstores and can be ordered
directly through Mr. Roberts’ web site at
www.montyroberts.com

References:
1. Prigatano, G., 1999, Principles of Neurpsychological
Rehabilitation. Oxford University Press,
New York, N.Y.
2. Roberts, M. 1996, The Man Who Listens to Horses,
Random House, Inc. New York, N.Y.
3. Shakespeare, William, 1601, MacBeth IV, 3.

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