ABSTRACT
The horses provide a rich and potentially transformative partnership for exploring and understanding how to bring their "best selves" into the room with clients. Fundamentally, equine-assisted training of students is not based on developing their horsemanship skills, and it is also not a venue in which the facilitators become therapists to the students. An innovative response to training dilemma has been developed in the Family Therapy program at Nova Southeastern University, by incorporating an equine-assisted training model into the self-of-the-therapist explorations of the students. Elena is a 53-year-old Family Therapy doctoral student with a rich professional background that preceded her interest in becoming a therapist. Students enrolled in university-based mental health training programs typically spend 2—3 years immersed in didactic coursework focused on developing their understanding of a range of clinical theories and models. While clearly this is the foundation for training informed, thoughtful, and ethical practitioners, a missing link in many training programs is attention to the self-of-the-therapist.
