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Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy

Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy

NEW CLIENT CONSULT

Healing Through Connection, Regulation, and Presence

Equine-assisted therapy may be right for you if…

Connection

  • Feeling disconnected from yourself or others
  • Relationships that feel unsafe or unpredictable
  • A sense of isolation that words haven’t touched
  • Longing for connection without the pressure of conversation

Regulation

  • Emotional responses that feel hard to manage
  • Chronic tension, anxiety, or hypervigilance
  • Nervous system patterns that haven’t shifted with talk therapy
  • Needing something beyond traditional therapy to move forward

Presence

  • Difficulty slowing down or staying in the moment
  • Living mostly in your head rather than your body
  • Struggling to feel grounded, safe, or settled
  • Wanting healing that happens through experience, not just insight

At Blue Shores Counselling, our equine-assisted therapy program is grounded in the understanding that healing happens in safe, attuned relationships. Our work with horses is not about “using” animals as tools or interventions. Instead, it is about creating opportunities for authentic connections between humans and horses based on mutual respect, consent, attunement, and presence.

All of our equine-assisted sessions are ground-based. The work happens through observation, connection, movement, mindfulness, relational exercises, and therapeutic experiences alongside horses who participate freely and organically in the process.

Horses are highly sensitive, relational beings with deeply attuned nervous systems. They respond honestly and immediately to human emotional states, body language, tension, incongruence, and regulation. Because of this, they can help people become more aware of what is happening internally — often before words are available.

For many clients, the presence of a calm, attuned horse creates a profound sense of grounding, safety, and connection that can support deep emotional healing.

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Julia Lippert is a registered psychotherapist with Blue Shores Counselling. She offers equine-assisted therapy sessions with Lace and Sereno shown here.

Nestled atop the scenic arboreal mountains overlooking Georgian Bay and Thornbury is the home of a couple horses with special jobs.

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Nervous System Regulation & Heart Coherence

Our approach is deeply informed by attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology, trauma research, and nervous system regulation.

Research explored by the HeartMath Institute suggests that horses may influence human nervous system regulation through heart-rate variability (HRV) coherence. Horses have large, powerful electromagnetic heart fields, and studies exploring horse-human interactions have observed synchronization and shifts in physiological regulation during calm, connected interaction.

Heart rate variability is a measure of nervous system flexibility and regulation. When humans are anxious, hypervigilant, overwhelmed, or dysregulated, HRV patterns often become more chaotic. Calm, regulated states are associated with more coherent HRV patterns. Interacting with emotionally regulated horses may help support shifts toward greater physiological regulation, grounding, and emotional stability.

Many clients describe feeling calmer, more present, more connected to their bodies, and more emotionally settled in the presence of horses.

A Trauma-Informed, Attachment-Based Approach

Our work is also influenced by the principles of Natural Lifemanship, a trauma-focused, relationship-centered model of equine-assisted psychotherapy.

Natural Lifemanship emphasizes that healing happens through connection — through connection with ourselves and with others – not control, compliance, or performance.

For clients with histories of trauma, attachment wounds, neglect, chronic stress, emotional dysregulation, or relational injury, these experiences of safe connection and co-regulation can be deeply reparative.

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Equine-Assisted EMDR & Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)

We also offer Equine-Assisted EMDR and Equine-Assisted Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) sessions for clients processing trauma, attachment wounds, and nervous system dysregulation.

These approaches integrate trauma-processing therapies with the regulating presence of horses and the natural environment. The grounded, responsive presence of horses can help clients remain connected to the here-and-now while processing difficult material.

Types of Equine-Assisted Therapy We Offer

Attachment & Relational Healing

Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy

Close-up of horse being gently fed by client during equine-assisted psychotherapy session in Collingwood near Stayner

Equine-Assisted
EMDR

Equine-Assisted Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR)

Meet Our Equine Therapy Team

Julia Lippert

Julia is a Registered Psychotherapist and Director of Blue Shores Counselling Inc. She works extensively with trauma, attachment wounds, emotional dysregulation, and nervous system healing.

Julia’s training includes Natural Lifemanship Level 1&2, as well as the EA-EMDR (Equine Assisted EMDR), EMDR and DBR, Emotional Horsemanship, and certification as a Clinical Traumatologist.

Andrea brings a wealth of knowledge and training, with a focus on how trauma impacts the brain and nervous system. Andrea has a compassionate, grounded, and relational approach to her work with clients.

She integrates her Equine Assisted Training from Natural Lifemanship Level 1 together with the Equilateral Protocol  (EA-EMDR) and her many specialized trainings in IFS, DBR, Structural Dissociation Theory Integration, and other nervous system informed trainings.

Andrea Foster

Christina Malley

Christina offers a warm, attuned, and trauma-informed approach that supports clients in feeling emotionally safe, understood, and empowered in their healing process.

Her training includes Natural Lifemanship Level 1 & 2, the Equilateral protocol (EA-EMDR), DBR, Training in Structural Dissociation Theory Integration, Connected Horsemanship and training from the Heart Math Institute.

Who Equine-Assisted Therapy May Help

  • Trauma and Complex Trauma
  • anxiety and chronic stress
  • emotional dysregulation
  • attachment wounds
  • dissociation
  • grief and loss
  • hypervigilance
  • relationship difficulties
  • low self-worth
  • difficulty trusting others
  • nervous system overwhelm
  • difficulty feeling safe, grounded, or connected
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From the saddles of her three therapy horses, psychotherapist Julia Lippert hopes to help her clients work past their trauma to improve their mental health.
 
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Couple Therapy

Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT)

Emotion-focused therapy can help you understand and transform the emotional patterns that shape your experiences and relationships. Rather than avoiding emotions, EFT helps you safely explore them so they can become a source of insight and healing.

Research shows that working through emotions in this way can lead to powerful shifts in self-understanding and connection with others.

EFT is particularly helpful for relationship challenges, as well as anxiety, depression, and trauma recovery.

Gottman Couples Therapy

Gottman Couples Therapy is based on over four decades of research into what makes relationships succeed or struggle. This approach can help you strengthen friendship, improve communication, and learn practical tools for navigating conflict in healthy ways in your relationship. You and your partner can learn how to understand each other more deeply and rebuild trust and emotional connection. Many couples find that this work helps them move from feeling stuck or disconnected toward a more supportive and fulfilling partnership.

Polyvagal & Somatic Therapies

Polyvagal theory allows you to understand how your body’s threat and safety systems operate and why certain reactions, such as anxiety, shutdown, or hyper vigilance, can occur.

Understanding the biology of your nervous system patterns can be incredibly empowering.
Through gentle awareness and regulation techniques, clients learn how to release stored stress and restore a sense of safety and balance in the body.

Somatic work can be especially helpful for trauma, chronic stress, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm, helping you feel more grounded, regulated, and connected to yourself. In turn, you can experience more connected, present, and joyfully engaged in life and in your relationships.

You can move out of survival mode and toward greater calm, resilience, and emotional freedom.

Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)

Internal Family Systems (IFS) views the mind as made up of different “parts”: your protective parts, your wounded parts, and your inner wisdom.

Rather than fighting against difficult emotions, IFS helps you understand and heal the parts of you that carry pain, fear, or shame. Through this process, many people

Equine Assisted Psychotherapy

Equine-assisted psychotherapy involves working alongside horses in a therapeutic setting to support emotional growth and healing.

Horses are highly sensitive to human emotions and can provide immediate, honest feedback about how we relate and communicate. This experience can help clients develop self-awareness, confidence, emotional regulation, and trust.

At Blue Shores, we offer highly specialized Equine Assisted Psychotherapy that integrates trauma therapies, including EMDR and DBR in the presence of our horse friends. Many people find that working with horses in this way creates powerful breakthroughs that complement traditional talk therapy.

Play & Sand Tray Therapy

Play and sandtray therapy provides children with ways to express feelings and experiences that may be difficult to put into words.

Through creative play, storytelling, and symbolic expression, children can process emotions, build confidence, and develop healthier coping skills.

These approaches are widely used in child psychology and supported by research in emotional development and trauma treatment. Parents are often included in the process so children feel supported both in and outside of therapy.

Neurofeedback Therapy

Neurofeedback is a brain-based therapy that helps regulate how the brain functions by providing real-time feedback about brainwave activity.

Using specialized technology, you can learn to strengthen healthier brain patterns associated with focus, calmness, and emotional regulation. Research shows neurofeedback can support concerns such as ADHD, anxiety, trauma symptoms, sleep difficulties, and mood regulation.

Over time, this training helps the brain become more balanced and resilient.

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) Trauma Therapy

Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a neuroscience-based therapy that works with the trauma responses that live in the deep areas of the brain.

DBR is both innovative and well-researched, with promising results for relief from PTSD symptoms. It focuses on subtle physiological reactions that occur before conscious emotions and thoughts arise.

DBR therapists help their clients’ nervous system process deeply held trauma and attachment wounds through this gentle therapy and can help clients heal from traumatic injuries (including complex trauma and attachment wounding).

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (MCBT)

Mindfulness-based therapy combines psychological science with mindfulness practices that help you become more present and aware of your inner experience.

Instead of being overwhelmed by thoughts or emotions, you learn how to observe them with curiosity and calm.

Research shows mindfulness can reduce anxiety, stress, depression, and emotional reactivity while increasing resilience and well-being. Through guided exercises and reflection, clients develop the ability to respond to life’s challenges with greater steadiness and clarity.

EMDR Trauma Therapy

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a highly researched trauma therapy that helps the brain process and resolve distressing memories.

When difficult experiences are not fully processed, they can remain “stuck,” continuing to affect emotions, beliefs, and relationships.

EMDR uses structured techniques and bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess these memories so they lose their emotional intensity. Many clients find that EMDR helps them move beyond trauma, anxiety, and negative self-beliefs toward a greater sense of safety, freedom and enjoyment of life.