Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Pilot Podcast - Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

Transcript

Pilot Podcast - Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
• 0:03
  New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy.
• 0:07
  Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
• 0:11
  You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
• 0:16
  Here on Equine Assisted World.
• 0:18
  We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and,
• 0:23
  established in the equine assisted field.
• 0:27
  This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be
• 0:33
  physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have.
• 0:38
  These lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
• 0:43
  Thank you for being part of the adventure and we hope you enjoy today's show
• 0:47
  Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:49
  This is your host, Rupert Isaacson.
• 0:52
  Some of you may already know me from my book and film The Horse Boy, , which
• 0:56
  told the story of how I and my autistic then very severely autistic son Rowan,
• 1:02
  traveled across Mongolia, , in search of healing on horseback because he had
• 1:07
  become, In the saddle in front of me.
• 1:11
  and then a subsequent book called The Long Ride Home, which talked
• 1:16
  about, , three further journeys that we made in Africa and in the Australian
• 1:21
  rainforest and in the Navajo Reservation.
• 1:24
  , again, looking for healing and , finding it, that's the
• 1:28
  irrational side of what we do.
• 1:31
  What happened was there was a rational side as.
• 1:34
  When it became very clear to me that it was certain rhythms on the horse that was
• 1:39
  getting first Rowan, and then more and more and more other kids, communicating.
• 1:44
  And , the brain just seemed to come on.
• 1:47
  , I went to neuroscientists in some different countries and said, please,
• 1:50
  can you explain why this is working?
• 1:53
  The.
• 1:55
  Explanations that they gave me, which were to do with the activation of oxytocin,
• 2:01
  the feel good, and, neuro, neuro calming and communication hormone in the body.
• 2:08
  And that followed by the triggering of a protein in the brain called
• 2:14
  B D N F, brain derived neurot.
• 2:17
  Factor, which is the Lego piece, if you like, the building
• 2:20
  blocks of neuroplasticity.
• 2:23
  Well, we then realized we could replicate what we were doing and now.
• 2:27
  Many of you may know that we have, a practice called Horse Boy Method, which
• 2:31
  is an equine assisted practice, a practice called Movement Method, which is done
• 2:36
  giving the same results without horses.
• 2:38
  And something called Athena, which delivers it in a similar
• 2:41
  way, but for adults with trauma.
• 2:43
  so that's really how I fell into this world and , what I notice is
• 2:48
  in the 15 years or so that we've been doing it, the whole world of
• 2:53
  equine assisted interventions, If you like, equine assisted human
• 2:57
  development has grown exponentially.
• 3:00
  When I first got into this, , there was really just therapeutic riding and
• 3:04
  hippotherapy, and the therapeutic riding was largely and still is largely aimed
• 3:11
  at people with physical disabilities.
• 3:13
  , because.
• 3:13
  The history of it was that after World War ii, there were many people who came
• 3:17
  back from the war to family run riding schools because they tended to be run by
• 3:22
  ex calvary officers who'd come out of the military and did that in their retirement.
• 3:27
  And these guys were coming back with missing limbs and that sort
• 3:30
  of thing, and they wanted to ride.
• 3:32
  And they found that with adapted riding techniques, they could indeed do that.
• 3:36
  And this, of course, became therapeutic riding for the disabled.
• 3:41
  This has been very, very successful and sort of dominated the scene for some
• 3:45
  decades, and then Hippotherapy came.
• 3:48
  Another very good approach, which is looking at it from a slightly
• 3:51
  more neurological point of view.
• 3:53
  and that has been very successful.
• 3:54
  However, the massive upsurge in the last 20 years or so of people
• 4:00
  with autism and people with other neuropsychiatric, conditions, I don't
• 4:05
  want to say disabilities and disorders because what we've found is that
• 4:10
  actually these are perfectly viable ways of going through life and one
• 4:13
  can even be actually very successful, with many of these conditions.
• 4:16
  But there are skillsets that need to be learned as well.
• 4:19
  But the message, massive upsurge in these conditions has created a whole
• 4:23
  bunch of new approaches, and it can be.
• 4:27
  Confusing when you're looking at it from the outside.
• 4:30
  Well, now, gosh, it's, it's this whole mosaics, it's like a universe.
• 4:34
  It's like there's therapeutic riding over here with Path International and there's
• 4:38
  the Hippotherapy people and there's the Horse boy people, and there's the Igar
• 4:42
  people and there's the Okay corral people and there's these other, , approaches
• 4:46
  and these other approaches and these other approaches of equine interventions.
• 4:49
  And how do I choose, how do I know which is right for me?
• 4:52
  How do I know which is right for my child?
• 4:53
  If I'm a professional, where might I decide to get involved?
• 4:58
  Maybe I want to do a range of different approaches.
• 5:00
  Then of course, I noticed very quickly, and this was made me rather sad.
• 5:05
  as a parent of an autistic child, was that these worlds were very, very factional.
• 5:10
  often the different groups were somewhat at odds with each other
• 5:13
  and often quite viciously at odds with each other, really bad mouthing
• 5:16
  each other and that sort of thing.
• 5:18
  And, even factions within, some of the interventions.
• 5:21
  And this made me sad because I thought, well, gosh, you know, surely
• 5:24
  we're all here for the same reason.
• 5:26
  Surely we're all here to, you know, try to, make better a challenging situation.
• 5:31
  nobody.
• 5:31
  Get into equine assisted work to get rich.
• 5:34
  I mean, that's, you know, if you're gonna do that, just go to law school.
• 5:37
  so everyone is in here for the right reasons.
• 5:39
  so with this podcast, Equine assisted world.
• 5:45
  What we are doing is we are looking at all of the interventions and we're
• 5:50
  looking to find the best practices, the stuff that's really on the cutting edge.
• 5:55
  We're looking at the science, we're looking at the studies, but we're
• 5:58
  also looking at what just seems to work for people on the ground and
• 6:02
  where people's passions lie and how the whole world is developing in.
• 6:06
  Interesting and dispassionate sort of a way.
• 6:08
  We're not on one side and we're not on the other side.
• 6:11
  We are as interested in the, physical, interventions as we are in the
• 6:15
  emotional and psychiatric interventions.
• 6:18
  We are as interested in the ones that are unmounted as we are interested
• 6:22
  in the ones that are done unmounted.
• 6:24
  We are interested in the ones that are done with TAC and the
• 6:26
  ones that are done without tac.
• 6:28
  There is no faction to which we belong.
• 6:32
  Equine assisted world is here to look at this entire world and help those of
• 6:38
  us who are interested and fascinated by this amazing work to discern where
• 6:44
  the really interesting stuff lies.
• 6:47
  So, what's our approach here?
• 6:50
  , Equine assisted world more and more is no longer looking at, if
• 6:54
  you like the client base as saying you are a problem to be fixed.
• 6:58
  That is something that really belongs to the past.
• 7:00
  I think what we are looking for here is how do we enhance someone's
• 7:07
  existing awesomeness and at the same time give them new skills.
• 7:12
  So let's take me for example, you know, Rupert, okay, well I now live in.
• 7:17
  So I have to learn some German.
• 7:19
  This doesn't mean that I have to give up being born an England Englishman.
• 7:24
  And this doesn't mean that it's a bad thing to be an Englishman.
• 7:26
  it just simply means that I can be an Englishman who also learns to speak
• 7:30
  German, or I can be a neurotypical person who also has a driving license.
• 7:35
  Or I can be somebody that learns how to scuba dive, you
• 7:39
  know, something like this.
• 7:40
  If we take this sort of approach and more and more people in the equine
• 7:44
  assisted world are doing this, then instead of going at conditions as
• 7:49
  if they are some sort of enemy, some sort of dragon to slay, what
• 7:53
  we are doing is we actually honor.
• 7:55
  The, often the superpowers that come along with many of these
• 7:59
  conditions take autism, for example.
• 8:02
  There are many gifts of autism, but you have to be a little bit on the inside
• 8:05
  of it to really know what they are.
• 8:06
  There's this incredible ability to focus.
• 8:09
  There's this wonderful, , ability to not judge yourself next to other people, which
• 8:15
  creates a very quiet ego, which means.
• 8:18
  One.
• 8:19
  People with autism, particularly classic autism, really turn their attention
• 8:23
  to something they're often extremely effective at it because they're not
• 8:27
  having to listen to a silly little voice in their head telling them they're not
• 8:30
  as good as the person at the next desk.
• 8:32
  being neurotypical isn't a holy grail at all.
• 8:35
  there are plenty of neurotypical people disappearing down bottles
• 8:38
  and jumping off bridges and.
• 8:40
  Beating up their wives and kids and that sort of thing because
• 8:42
  of this horrible little voice in their head, constantly telling us
• 8:45
  that then they're not good enough.
• 8:46
  So we want to honor the advantages of each condition.
• 8:52
  As well as look squarely at.
• 8:54
  Okay, well, perhaps, it is necessary to learn how to interact with the world.
• 8:59
  It is necessary to learn how to get control of your emotions.
• 9:02
  It is necessary to, if you are physically compromised, to get as
• 9:07
  much range of movement as you possibly can for your health and wellbeing.
• 9:11
  but we're not telling you to be any different to who you.
• 9:14
  so we're gonna be interviewing people who are really at the leading edge of this.
• 9:19
  who have we got coming up for you?
• 9:21
  , we've got the amazing Joel Dunlap.
• 9:24
  If you don't know who she is in the, equine assisted world, you should,
• 9:28
  her square peg foundation in Northern California started with autism.
• 9:33
  and then, Branching out into just about every area of neuropsychiatric work and
• 9:40
  is now, , a certified health provider of San Mateo County, which is Silicon Valley,
• 9:45
  , for those of you know, the area with, and she's creating multiple campuses.
• 9:48
  And she bootstrapped this, , from standing in a field with some quirky
• 9:52
  clients while she was just trying to run a writing school and has brought
• 9:55
  this to, , an international community, , and is now working with, , scientists
• 10:01
  and, , doctors and, , all sorts of interesting people to create better.
• 10:07
  , for people all over the usa.
• 10:09
  , she also interestingly does this largely with off the track thoroughbreds and
• 10:14
  rehabs these guys into the therapeutic work in ways that you would think
• 10:18
  would not be possible given that a lot of the work is done mounted.
• 10:20
  How's she doing this?
• 10:22
  Well, she's gonna tell us, we're also gonna talk, , to the amazing joy o'.
• 10:27
  Of, , red Barn in Alabama, , who deals a lot with trauma
• 10:31
  work, , works very closely with.
• 10:34
  The Polyvagal Institute, equine Polyvagal Institute, and, , JC Dugard.
• 10:39
  Some of you may know JC Dugard.
• 10:41
  She was abducted, , as a teenager and kept as a sex slave, , for a couple
• 10:47
  of decades and then escaped, , and now has an amazing foundation, dealing
• 10:51
  with trauma and forgiveness and recovery and resilience and this work.
• 10:56
  At Red Barn goes very, very closely with this, in an equine assisted manner.
• 11:01
  Absolutely fascinating work.
• 11:03
  We're gonna be talking with, dr.
• 11:05
  Megan McGavin of Virginia, , is a
• 11:08
  very successful doctor on the East coast in Virginia, , who happens to
• 11:11
  also have a very severely autistic.
• 11:15
  Who, it wasn't just autism, it was, it was physical failure to thrive.
• 11:18
  And she has started, , a really extraordinary, , program there.
• 11:23
  not just dealing with autism now, but dealing with all sorts
• 11:25
  of other, , related issues.
• 11:27
  And she brings the medical perspective to it.
• 11:30
  And she's also very active in the medical conference world, bringing the work
• 11:33
  that we do in equine intervention out to the medical mainstream and getting
• 11:37
  more and more doctors, , referring clients to, , equine assisted centers.
• 11:43
  Absolutely amazing work.
• 11:44
  , we're gonna be heading over to Ireland, , to talk to Terry Brosnan of Child
• 11:49
  Vision in Dublin, , where they work.
• 11:52
  It started with just visually impaired kids.
• 11:54
  , then it moved.
• 11:55
  Kids who were visually impaired with autism, and then it moved to
• 11:59
  kids who were visually impaired with autism and other , physic.
• 12:03
  , challenges and now it's absolutely everybody.
• 12:06
  , and she's right there in the middle of the inner city, , in a place called
• 12:09
  Drum condre serving the kids who are coming out of apartments in the, , less
• 12:14
  moneyed end of Dublin, who would never normally get access to this stuff.
• 12:18
  , with an incredible team.
• 12:19
  How's she doing it?
• 12:20
  What's she.
• 12:22
  We're gonna be talking with Alex Vaughn, Dr.
• 12:24
  Alex Vaughn, who's fascinating man.
• 12:27
  He's, he is a half German, half American ardian, in fact, soldier.
• 12:33
  Well, psychologist, for the German army, the Bundes Fair, but he also works very
• 12:39
  closely with the US Air Force, with their veterans coming back from, hot zones and
• 12:44
  working with them and their families.
• 12:46
  And we are gonna be talking about the, the healing and resilience and trauma work
• 12:49
  that they do, with these personnel, both in Germany and in, the USA and many more.
• 12:56
  what's the.
• 12:58
  Okay, we're gonna do this as a double whammy.
• 13:01
  First we're just gonna interview these people and find out who they are, what
• 13:04
  they do, how they evolved, what they do, and where they want to take it from here.
• 13:09
  But then we're gonna do a follow up interview with each person in
• 13:11
  which you can ask them questions.
• 13:13
  And a certain number of you we're gonna c invite to come on live.
• 13:16
  You can ask your questions live and everyone else, you can, email
• 13:21
  your questions in and, we are gonna have them answer your questions.
• 13:25
  Direct.
• 13:26
  So this is gonna be absolutely fascinating.
• 13:29
  So there's a follow up for each interview.
• 13:30
  so why listen to Equine Assisted World?
• 13:33
  Well, are you already an equine professional looking to get
• 13:37
  into the equine assisted world?
• 13:38
  And you're just confused by the array of choice out there.
• 13:42
  , are you already an equine assisted professional looking for just more
• 13:46
  development in your profession?
• 13:47
  And again, just looking for what's, what's out there on the leading edge, so that
• 13:51
  you can develop your practice even better.
• 13:53
  Are you a parent?
• 13:54
  Are you a carer?
• 13:56
  Are you a therapist?
• 13:59
  No matter who you are in this rather like me, and you're just
• 14:02
  interested, you're going to learn from these people, what's out there.
• 14:07
  And crucially how we can take some of this work and apply it not just
• 14:11
  with the horses, but give it to people to take home into their daily
• 14:15
  lives, to apply even without the horse and how that crosses over.
• 14:21
  Okay, so that's equine assisted world.
• 14:24
  We hope you're gonna join us on this journey into this
• 14:26
  fascinating, fascinating universe.
• 14:28
  Don't forget to look us up on ntls.co.
• 14:33
  That's where you'll find Horse Boy Method Movement Method Athena.
• 14:38
  And we're gonna be feature.
• 14:39
  All of the people that we're talking to as well on there.
• 14:42
  And also long ride home.com, which is our Shamanism Personal Development
• 14:48
  and horse training website.
• 14:50
  And of course we are gonna be giving you the links to everybody that we're
• 14:53
  interviewing so that you can follow up with them directly yourself.
• 14:57
  Also, check out our other podcast, live Free, ride Free, in which we
• 15:01
  talk to people who are managing to lead self-actualized lives,
• 15:05
  doing things that everyone said you couldn't do for a living.
• 15:07
  Fascinating people over on that one.
• 15:09
  come with us on the adventure.
• 15:10
  thank you for joining us.
• 15:12
  We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
• 15:14
  Join our website, new trails learning.com, to check out our online
• 15:19
  courses and live workshops in Horse Boy Method, movement Method, and Athena.
• 15:25
  These evidence-based programs have helped children, veterans, and people
• 15:29
  dealing with trauma around the world.
• 15:32
  We also offer a horse training program and self-care program
• 15:35
  for riders on long ride home.com.
• 15:39
  These include easy to do online courses and tutorials that
• 15:43
  bring you and your horse joy.
• 15:45
  For an overview of all shows and programs, go to rupert isaacson.com.
• 15:50
  See you on the next show.
• 15:52
  And please remember to press, subscribe and share.