ABSTRACT
The early twenty-first century is a strange, exciting, and scary time for humans, especially when it comes to the matter of individual agency. One strand of popular narrative challenges this topos and harkens back to the medieval ethos of solidarity and shared world-making instead: the increasingly prominent figure of the therapy horse for veterans. As of July 2018, the accrediting body for equine therapy programs oversees more than 150 American facilities that include veterans among their populations served. The core message of most stories about equine-assisted therapy for veterans is that horses possess an extraordinary skill set for helping humans, by virtue of being horses. Media representations suggest that in working with horses, veterans learn to calm themselves in order to calm their horses. They must recognize and accommodate a nonhuman animal’s experience with hypervigilance; in so doing, they learn to better understand their own interiority.
