This article by Roberta Caiazza has been published in The Psychologist. It begins:
“Everything happens for a reason. 2019 wasn’t a great year for me, but I stumbled upon a Groupon voucher for a horseriding lesson. I’ve not looked back since.
Often, we hear about people catching ‘the horse bug’: riding, cleaning, or just petting horses, it doesn’t matter what type of interaction. I just can’t get enough of being around these majestic animals. It was a peculiar experience: I’m not usually one for relying on anything specific to feel better, but increasingly it seemed that I was able to think more clearly when in a stable or in a field with them. I wasn’t loving life at that time, yet I could feel calm and relax, engage in meaningful interactions with the horses and make sense what was happening around me.
After a few months of spending every free minute at a riding centre I decided to take my experience to a next level. I took time off work and went travelling around the Altai Mountains in Kazakhstan, on a horseback. Everyone on that trip, in one way or another, shared my experience. When life was unbearable, horses helped us through.
I went head first into the equine world. Bought my own horse, enrolled on horsemanship courses, and read, watched and listened to anything I could in order to develop a better understanding of horses and the unique relationship we have with them. As a clinical psychologist I am always eager to understand why we behave in a certain way, and why we react to the world the way we do …”
You can read more from here.
