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Adding Equine Assisted Psychotherapy to Conventional Treatment: A Case Study of Adolescent Resilience among Charter High School Students Blind Review Copy

Wanda Kay Whittlesey-Jerome, Pamela N. Schultz and Joseph Tomaka

This case study examined the impact of Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) on resilience among 12 adolescents attending a charter high school in the southwestern U.S. EAP is a mindful, 100% on-the-ground, experiential solution-oriented approach with horses that incorporates the use of objective observation and focuses on the development of symbolic, metaphor-related self-exploration and discovery. For four weeks, participants in the experimental group added a weekly two-hour EAP session to their typical school routine. During the same four weeks, the comparison group participated in the conventional treatment of a psycho education group (PED). Both groups used the same resilience curriculum, with the main difference between groups the addition of EAP to existing treatments. Data were collected using the Resilience Scales for Children and Adolescents™. Results indicated that EAP was more effective than PED in the Sense of Mastery and Sense of Relatedness domains, while PED seemed to be most effective in the Emotional Reactivity domain. Results also showed the EAP group testing primarily higher on positive aspects of resilience and lower on the negative at post-test; however, gender was a factor in the results. The findings suggest that EAP may be more beneficial than PED in certain subscales of resiliency according to gender. Qualitative data from observation and participants’ journals added additional insights. Continuing research is needed to determine what factors other than gender may play a part in the understanding of resilience in marginalized adolescents