Horse-assisted coaching

In horse assisted coaching it comes in observation of horses or in floor exercises with horses in interaction to occur and the experiences from this interaction then using a guided self-reflection and a coaching analyze and the findings and derivatives to transfer into everyday life. As with classic coaching or business coaching, the focus is on helping people to help themselves in order to increase the coachee's self- awareness. The coachee finds his own, suitable solution through the exercise with the horse as well as guided self-reflection and solution-oriented or systemic coaching questions.

Demarcation

Horse-supported coaching is part of experiential education - in contrast to horse-supported seminars or team events with horses, the focus is not on the experiences with the horse, but on the individual processes of the coachee , who internalizes personal key experiences with the horse, and the newly learned strategies in everyday life implements. In other words, his inner experiences before, during and after his contact with the horse. The difference between horse-supported coaching and horse-supported training is that coaching is help for self-help, the coach relies on the coachee's resources and helps him to find his own strategy. Training, on the other hand, means learning certain behaviors or simulating and practicing situations.

The difference to hippotherapy or therapeutic riding is that the horse is not ridden. Also, disabilities, illnesses and (mental) injuries should not primarily be cured, but the coachee should be accompanied in developing their own individual and sustainable solutions.

The curative educational support with the horse includes the holistic and individual support of children, adolescents and adults through the medium horse. In horse-assisted psychotherapy, trained psychotherapists work with their patients on horses.

Typical coaching topics

Horse-assisted coaching can be used in a variety of ways, especially in developing social skills . Topics that can be "coached" include: B .:

• Dealing with yourself
• Dealing with others
• guide
• collaboration
• Recognize and change personal patterns of thinking, feeling and behavior
• Comparison of self and external image
• Personality development
• Empathy
• Self and external motivation.

This can be done as part of a development program in a professional or private context.

Process of horse-assisted coaching

The horse-assisted coaching can either be embedded in an overall development concept (coaching lasting several months) or as an individual appointment. Horse-assisted coaching with an individual client can be as follows:

1. First of all, it must be thoroughly clarified what the goal of the coaching should be. The goal of horse-assisted coaching is determined jointly by the teacher and student and formulated according to the SMART principle .

2. Once the goal has been defined, the coachee is given a task to be solved together with the horse. Example exercises are:

• Lead the horse (s) with or without aids through 3 pylons in slalom
• Take the horse (s) with or without aids to the other corner of the riding arena
• Getting a horse to voluntarily follow humans
• Put a horse in a faster or slower gait by changing its own body language
• By observing the herd e.g. Draw conclusions about their group dynamics and thus create an introduction to the reflection of the group dynamic processes within a team.

This exercise usually only takes a few minutes. It can take place in the riding hall or on a separate riding arena. Coaching can also take place during a walk ("Walk and Coach with Horse")

3. After the exercise, coaching discussions take place in which the exercise with the horse and the internal experience of the coachee are analyzed. Through targeted questions, guided self-reflection and feedback from the coach, z. B. the thought and feeling patterns, drivers or hidden strengths clearly. A video analysis can also support this, in which the coachee looks at himself in the situation, compares self and external image and mentally relived the situation. During the coaching, the bridge to the goal was repeatedly built and the coachee helped to find individual solutions.

4. The transfer into everyday life, the elaboration of concrete measures and the development of the first steps take place. In this way, the horse-assisted coaching becomes a beneficial and assessable coaching for the participant and for the possibly commissioning company.

5. One or more follow-up coaching sessions are useful so that solutions can be found for any obstacles and the success of the coaching can be checked.

The process of horse-assisted coaching in a group setting (coaching with several participants) differs from individual coaching in that, after each task with the horse, the other participants can give their observations and their feedback to the respective coachee, resulting in more feedback, ideas and external images than in individual coaching.

Scientific background - The added benefit of the horse

Horse-assisted coaching is a very young discipline and has existed in Germany since the 1990s as an instrument for personal and personality development . Numerous diploma and doctoral students have described the method or carried out studies. In 1999, the first horse-assisted leadership and manager training was scientifically described and evaluated (University of Vechta, Detlev Lindau-Bank). The method is continuously being researched for its effectiveness, e.g. B. by Johanna Friesenhahn at the University of Heidelberg (effect of horses in coaching).

theses

1. Kurt Martin Hahn , one of the founders of experiential education, said that the “effectiveness of experience therapy essentially depends on the quality of the experience of the actions. Because the more the participant perceives the actions as extraordinary experiences, the more profound the healing effect. Healing memory images that can still be called up years later should have a controlling effect on later tests. ”Horse-assisted coaching is exceptional and brings the participant into experience: He experiences himself in the interaction with the horse, he experiences closeness, warmth, joy or even rejection or defeat. He experiences that the horse reacts to him depending on how he behaves himself. Each exercise leads to an experience of the situation and the coachee receives immediate feedback from the horse and the coach.

2. Kurt Lewin assumes that “before he learns something new, people have to unlearn old types of behavior and attitudes.” To do this, he must know his old behavior in order to be able to change it. In the horse-assisted seminars, behavior and thought patterns quickly become visible, as the participants are outside their comfort zone during the exercise with the horse . You are not in your usual environment. That is why they automatically access their tried and tested patterns of thought, behavior and feelings. Even people with horse experience are outside of their comfort zone, because they work with strange horses in strange surroundings and the video camera is also running. Here, too, old types of behavior and attitudes become visible.

3. If a learning situation is to be successful, says Gerald Hüther , Professor of Neurobiology, an emotional activation must take place in every learning situation. In the exercise with the horse, the participant has a wide variety of experiences and sometimes very strong feelings, such as enthusiasm, fear, joy. In addition, the participant perceives the feelings and emotions very intensely, as he is not distracted from verbal communication by the horse. Every learning, linked to the horse experience, is more successful than learning in the seminar room.

4. According to Anna Jean Ayres , “Learning is a function of the entire nervous system. The more sensory systems work together, the easier and more adequate the brain learns ”. In horse-assisted coaching, numerous channels are addressed such as seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, as well as the proprioceptive channel , i.e. self-perception and depth sensitivity and the vestibular channel , the sense of balance. All of this leads to the fact that the knowledge, the experiences, the feelings, the solutions, the behavioral patterns or the new behavioral alternatives are permanently stored, because they were experienced on all sensory levels.

5. Bettina Jellouschek-Otto writes that horses are very good observers. As escape animals , they have learned to be very vigilant and attentive and to correctly interpret minimal movements of the lead mare. If participants and free-running horses meet in a closed area, a new herd is created from the horse's point of view, and the following questions must be clarified: Who is following whom? Who protects whom in an emergency? Do we function together as a herd? The animal checks this on the participant and thus recognizes whether there is a basis of trust or not. The horse assesses the participant, observes him closely and behaves accordingly. This behavior of the horse has an effect on the coachee and leads to an inner experience or inner dialogue.

6. Horses have - also in comparison to other animals - a very high effectiveness as so-called " archetypal symbols ". “ Mare ” means “herd” in Old Germanic and is a symbol of life, therefore belongs to the archetypal field of the great mother and protector. The stallion is considered a fiery, heated, proud and strong animal, which at the same time protects his family from possible dangers as the lead stallion. Cooperation with the horse in coaching has a stronger effect than other coachings, e.g. B. take place in the rope course or while hiking.

7. “Growth, immune system, balance. All of this benefits from touch. Many studies have shown this. Even a back scratch acts like a hurricane in the brain. The sensors become highly active and flood the brain, ”says Martin Grunwald , psychologist and head of the haptics laboratory at Leipzig University. "When you touch it gently, the body produces a so-called feel-good hormone, oxytocin . This hormone regulates the metabolism, the stress level drops and even fears disappear. ”In coaching with horses, stroking the horse or, conversely, the contact with the horse is perceived as very intense and beneficial, which supports experience and learning.

criticism

The same points of criticism apply as with coaching : it is difficult to measure the results, a lack of scientific evidence for effectiveness, a lack of uniform quality criteria in the training and exercise of horse-assisted coaching, no international standards in coaching, the profession of horse-assisted coach is not protected in Germany.

literature

• Franziska Müller: Diversity by Horses, "Chefsache Diversity Management", Springer Gabler Verlag, Ed .: Peter Buchenau
• Kerstin Kruse, Anabel Schröder: Coaching with horses: Much more than hot air: Functionality, quality features and framework conditions of horse-supported coaching and seminars. 2nd edition, 2016, Verlag Windmühle, from horsesesense - coaching & training
• Detlev Lindau-Bank, Klemens Walter (Ed.): Horse-based personnel management. Innovative learning that touches. LIT Verlag, 2015, with articles by: J. Bender, S. Bender, A. Blankenburg, B. Blankenburg, I. Bonekamp, ​​K. Ebeling, C. Erdsiek, WJ Fischer, B. Gröchenig, I. Heinen, O. Heitz, I. Hempel, M. Jahn, D. Kaminski, S. Kierdorf, M. Knauer, A. Kolling, B. Kolzarek, K. Kruse-Völkers, S. Kuntze, K. von Lingen, G. Meyer, S. Mitter, V. Neuse, B. Osterhammel, R. Rodriguez-Megaljero, A. Schröder + K. Kruse, T. Thomas, S. Wagner, C. Wiethold, A. Winkel
• Silvia Sporer: Management training using natural horsemanship: Research into the effectiveness of coaching with horses (corporate personnel development and further training in research and practice) Dr. Kovac Verlag, March 2015.
• Barbara Kolzarek, Detlev Lindau-Bank: Learning with horses: Horses as a communication medium: motivating, setting goals, leading, deciding 2nd edition, 2011, series: Personal und Organization, Vol. 24
• Doreen Beier: Overtaking with 1 HP: How Managers Learn from Horses , Pabst Science Publishers, 2011.
• Fritz Hendrich: Horse Sense: Or how Alexander the Great first conquered a horse and then an empire. Three steps to the charism of leadership. SIGNUM Verlag Vienna.
• Steffen Hillebrecht: Animal-assisted coaching methods as an innovative form of coaching - the example of coaching with horses, in: Handbook "Fundamentals of Continuing Education, Cologne: Luchterhand, supplementary delivery 12/2017.
• Silke Rautenbach, Steffen Hillebrecht: Horses as a partner for management training, in: Der Betriebswirt, Gernsbach, 59th year, issue 3/2018, pp. 28–31.
• Annabel Schröder, Kerstin Staupendahhl: The power of horse-supported coaching - 22 horsesense success stories, Hamburg: Books on Demand 2019.
• Patrizia Mayerhofer: Are you sure? The power of horse-supported coaching, self-published 2017.
• Claudia A. Friedrich: How coaching with horses helps you to develop your potential, Hamburg: Books on Demand 2018.
• Janet Metz: Personal development with the help of horses, self-published 2017.
• Kathrin Schütz: Horses, Research and Psychology, self-published 2018.
• Magdalena Broich, Julia Eppler: Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as an instrument for organizational and personnel development. Analysis of the AI ​​concept in "horse assisted" change management at G&K HorseDream GmbH and the Cama Institute for Communication Development, Freiburg 2009.
• Barbara Gorsler: Horsepower for you. Strong impulses for your personality. Switzerland 2017.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Coaching with horses: Much more than just hot air: Functionality, quality features and framework conditions of horse-supported coaching and seminars. Paperback - 2nd edition, Verlag Windmühle, by horsesense coaching & training, Kerstin Kruse, Anabel Schröder
2. ↑ Rautenbach, Silke; Hillebrecht, Steffen: Horses as a partner for management training, in: Der Betriebswirt, Gernsbach, 59th year, issue 3/2018, pp. 28–31.
3. ^ PI professional association for specialists in horse-assisted interventions
4. ↑ RAUTENBACH, Silke; HILLEBRECHT, Steffen: Horses as a partner for management training, in: Der Betriebswirt, Gernsbach, 59th year, issue 3/2018, pp. 28–31.
5. ↑ Coaching with horses: Much more than just hot air: Functionality, quality features and framework conditions of horse-supported coaching and seminars. 2nd edition, Verlag Windmühle, by horsesense - coaching & training, Kerstin Kruse, Anabel Schröder
6. ↑ Books and scientific papers. EAHAE International (formerly European) Association for Horse-Assisted Education and Training ( Memento of the original from October 14, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ^ Studies - The Horse Academy
8. ↑ Research - uni-vechta.de
9. ↑ Cooperation with University of Heidelberg - Hoitz Elements
10. ↑ The effect of horses in coaching
11. ^ General learning model according to Lewin
12. ↑ Learning is enthusiasm (PDF file)
13. ^ Ayres, A. Jean, Building blocks of child development: The importance of integrating the senses for the development of the child, Springer Verlag, 2002
14. ^ Bettina Jellouschek-Otto: Horse-assisted couple coaching. In: Psychotherapy in Dialog 4/2014.
15. ↑ Mare - Symbolonline
16. ↑ Stallion - Symbolonline
17. ↑ Touch: Understanding Life