May Blog

May is Mental Health Awareness month, serving as an extremely important reminder to care for our psychological wellness, especially given the current stressful state of events in our country as well as the world at large.  This year, Mental Health America announced the theme of “More Good Days, Together,” focusing on fostering connection, reducing isolation, and building community to improve people’s mental wellbeing. I was struck by how beautifully the work being done in the field of Equine Assisted Services addresses each of these three areas.

Fostering Connection

Horses are social mammals who live in herds and form particular, unique friendships within these groupings, just as people do.[1] Both of our nervous systems desire and seek to communicate and connect with other beings for support, protection and play.  Spending time with horses, whether on the ground or on their back, has been shown to improve a variety of markers for mental wellbeing.[2]

Reducing Isolation

Isolation has repeatedly been shown to be detrimental to the health and psychological wellness of both horses and humans. [3][4] Research consistently supports the need for both to have access to abundant opportunities for interaction in shared spaces (and for humans, preferably some of this needs to be in person, not just online!) Horses who are housed separately from one another display more anxious behaviors and are at increased risk for colic and stereotypies. [5] Similarly, too much time spent alone increases people’s risk for psychological, emotional, and physical disorders.  People who have experienced relational betrayals and traumas may avoid contact with others but find safety and comfort in the presence of animals like horses, who offer a sense of genuine and non-judgmental acceptance, which can help traumatized humans learn to trust, relate and connect with people again too.

Building Community

The neurobiological systems of both horses and humans are designed to seek and desire to connect with others.  Neither species thrives in isolation but only in community. Spending time with horses can build a relational bridge for people who have been separated from these opportunities whether due to relational trauma, limited mobility, social barriers or other functional challenges.[6]

In my work as a therapist, I have heard and witnessed so many examples of people whose lives were dramatically changed in positive ways through their interactions with horses.  Five-year-old Molly[7] learned to speak her first words on the back of a pony named Spartacus while doing equine assisted speech therapy. Ray, wheelchair bound for thirty years, experienced the joy and freedom of movement again by engaging in therapeutic riding with Violet, a gentle draft mare who carried him since his legs could not. Lila, an immigrant from a war-torn country, told me how taking riding lessons as a child provided a refuge from the bullying she experienced at school and eventually led to a career in show jumping with her beloved gelding Soledad. Silas, a gruff and grizzled veteran in his sixties, shared how volunteering at a therapy barn lifted him out of decades of depression and alcoholism by giving him a renewed sense of purpose and hope for the future. My client Cynthia overcame her shame about her disfiguring burns sustained as a child which kept her from being around others by working with my gentle herd: “the horses didn’t care what my body looked like and I learned that it only got in the way of connecting with others if I let it.”

Horses are good for humans, and we can learn to be good for them as well if we understand how they need to be cared for and treated according to the needs of their species, which are not so different from our own!  The Horses and Humans Research Foundation seeks to advance this knowledge through funding, supporting and disseminating rigorous research in the field to advance this understanding of the ways we can help each other thrive, so we can truly have more good days, together.

[1] Torres Borda L, Auer U, Jenner F. Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance. Animals (Basel). 2023 Apr 26;13(9):1473. doi: 10.3390/ani13091473. PMID: 37174510; PMCID: PMC10177386.

[2] Stacy, M., & Shabbar, F. (2026). Healing in relationships, the power of equine-assisted mental health interventions. Journal of Social Work Practice, 40(1), 151–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650533.2025.2495741

[3] Shankar R. Loneliness, Social Isolation, and its Effects on Physical and Mental Health. Mo Med. 2023 Mar-Apr;120(2):106-108. PMID: 37091945; PMCID: PMC10121112.

[4] Schmucker S, Preisler V, Marr I, Krüger K, Stefanski V (2022) Single housing but not changes in group composition causes stress-related immunomodulations in horses. PLoS ONE 17(8): e0272445. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272445

[5] A. Flamand, L. Robinet, A. Raskin, M. Braconnier, A. Bouhamidi, G. Derolez, C. Lochin, C. Helleu, O. Petit,

The social dimension of equine welfare: social contact positively affects the emotional state of stalled horses,

Animal Behaviour, Volume 221, 2025, 123055, ISSN 0003-3472, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2024.123055.

[6] Vincent, A., Nieforth, L.O., Dayle John, K. & Schafroth, J. (2025). Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging in EAS: a microcosm of non-traditional education. Human-Animal Interactions.

[7] All names and identifying information have been changed.