Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Healing Through Horses and Nature with Norunn Kogstad: Psychotherapy, Equine Welfare, and the Joy of Belonging | Ep 20 Equine Assisted World

Transcript

Healing Through Horses and Nature with Norunn Kogstad: Psychotherapy, Equine Welfare, and the Joy of Belonging | Ep 20 Equine Assisted World · 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 back to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:49
  We're going to Norway today.
• 0:51
  Amazing, amazing place.
• 0:54
  Amazing person up there, Norun Kogstad.
• 0:59
  She is a psychotherapist who runs an amazing, I keep saying that word, don't I?
• 1:04
  Because it's true, place called Lundehagen, halfway up Norway,
• 1:09
  where horse welfare, human welfare,
• 1:16
  psychotherapy, Equine psychotherapy, the different worlds of equine
• 1:23
  therapy, all come together in a really unique nexus that I think is
• 1:29
  uniquely Nordic, uniquely Scandinavian in a way in the breadth of vision.
• 1:36
  I think many of us further down in, towards the equator, which
• 1:42
  compared to Norway we are tend to get a bit mired in our local view.
• 1:46
  And I think those people up at the top of the world the Scandinavians,
• 1:50
  the Canadians, they often seem to have this sort of slightly broader view.
• 1:54
  It's like they're looking down on us and sort of going, Oh, look at
• 1:56
  those interesting, funny people down there or squabbling about things.
• 2:00
  And they seem to provide us with an interesting example of functional society.
• 2:05
  I think we know this is true in education.
• 2:07
  We know this is true in healthcare.
• 2:09
  We know this is true in just sort of the public and private sector in general
• 2:12
  compared to further down in Europe.
• 2:14
  North America, etc.
• 2:16
  So, I've always been a bit intrigued by this, like, why are
• 2:18
  the systems up there so functional?
• 2:22
  And, Norrin is a very good example of a functional system.
• 2:25
  So, I thought we'd get her on here to explain that, but
• 2:29
  also, what is psychotherapy?
• 2:31
  And what is equine psychotherapy?
• 2:33
  What even is it as a field?
• 2:34
  And why is it important?
• 2:35
  And how does it relate to what the rest of us are all doing in this
• 2:38
  great conversation that we're having about horses and humans and healing.
• 2:43
  So Norun, thank you so much for coming on.
• 2:47
  Can you tell us a bit about who you are and what you do?
• 2:51
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, first of all, Rupert, thank you so much for
• 2:54
  inviting me on to this podcast.
• 2:56
  Well, I am Norun, I'm a psychiatrist and psychotherapist.
• 3:01
  And as you said, I run Lundahagen.
• 3:03
  I've been including horses into psychotherapy for the last, yeah,
• 3:08
  10 to 15 years, more or less.
• 3:12
  And I sort of been, you know, a lifelong horse woman.
• 3:16
  I've always been drawn to horses wherever I were in the world.
• 3:20
  I was always drawn to horses.
• 3:22
  And when, when I heard.
• 3:24
  That it's possible to include horses into psychotherapy.
• 3:28
  I found that very intriguing.
• 3:32
  So I went ahead and I got to know this hospital in Norway where they
• 3:39
  offer specialized care, especially for people who has experienced
• 3:43
  overwhelming experiences like traumatic events and they include horses.
• 3:49
  And I I got to know the head psychologist of that apartment and she told me
• 3:53
  that, Well, Norin, if you want to do this work, you have to go to the U.
• 3:56
  S.
• 3:57
  and do a HEAL education and then you have to become a centered
• 4:00
  writing instructor and get yourself a proper psychotherapy education.
• 4:04
  Good luck.
• 4:05
  Quickly,
• 4:10
  Rupert Isaacson: what is HEAL?
• 4:10
  H E A L.
• 4:12
  Why, and why did she tell you to go do that?
• 4:15
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, HEAL stands for Human Equine Alliances for
• 4:19
  Psychotherapy and Learning.
• 4:20
  And it's a model developed by Lee Shambu.
• 4:26
  She also worked together with Linda Kohanov and some other people in the
• 4:29
  beginning of the founding of HEAL.
• 4:32
  And HEAL is emotion focused, body oriented psychotherapeutic intervention,
• 4:40
  including horses for trauma populations.
• 4:45
  This was back in 2013 when I did that education in the US.
• 4:50
  And at that time, this, you know, there was this wave of trauma informed care,
• 4:58
  asking the questions of what happened to you instead of what's wrong with you.
• 5:02
  And the emergent field of neuroscience was just opening up to the wide public.
• 5:15
  And it was fantastic for me to come into to that field through the HEAL model.
• 5:21
  Norway does have its, you know, functional competence of not being overly
• 5:30
  enthusiastic about new, new things.
• 5:34
  So I wouldn't say that, you know, the new, new knowledge and the new
• 5:39
  way of looking at relationship and trauma is very well integrated into
• 5:43
  the system as of yet, but especially not, you know, 10 to 15 years ago.
• 5:49
  So for me, that was really super exciting and just, you know, dive into all of
• 5:53
  this fantastic new ways of looking at people and the body oriented perspective
• 5:59
  from Veselvandar Kolk and, and Pat Ogden and The Body Keeps the Score and
• 6:04
  how, how that was opening up to so many perspectives, both on my own personal
• 6:11
  journey and on how to, how to work with clients and how to open up for the
• 6:20
  Rupert Isaacson: You say that Norway isn't so keen on new
• 6:24
  stuff and functional in that way.
• 6:27
  However, in the paragraph more or less before that, you said that
• 6:31
  you had gone to work and learn at a hospital which offers equine stuff.
• 6:39
  Now, if you're listening to that as a Brit or as a You think
• 6:45
  hospitals with horses and farms?
• 6:48
  That's not something you really hear.
• 6:49
  So that's an example of what I mean of perhaps in your perception, things
• 6:54
  move slowly for new stuff up in Norway.
• 6:56
  But from our point of view, looking up at, say, that health care
• 6:59
  system, that's not something you'd see at all, you know, in the UK.
• 7:03
  In in the U.
• 7:04
  S.
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  probably, you might see it in a private thing here and there, but you
• 7:07
  certainly wouldn't see it as a sort of state funded, state sponsored thing.
• 7:11
  Can you just backtrack a little bit?
• 7:14
  Why would you find horses, farms, nature, in hospitals in Norway?
• 7:24
  Like, what's the history of that, and what's their logic with that?
• 7:28
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, the history I think is quite common for both
• 7:33
  the, you know, continental countries and American countries that, you
• 7:37
  know, there was this huge movement of moving the, the people back into
• 7:43
  nature and farming and agriculture and you have the therapeutic society.
• 7:47
  Rupert Isaacson: When was this?
• 7:48
  I don't think it's within living memory.
• 7:50
  Norunn Kogstad: No, no, no.
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  That's, you know, a hundred years ago.
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  And, and then you have development of the more therapeutic society
• 7:57
  in the mid fifties maybe.
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  where you had the integration of, you know, the staff and the patients living
• 8:03
  together on the treatment facility, working together, creating stuff
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  together fantastic ideas, but also some problems of people enacting each
• 8:12
  other's problems, difficulties, keeping a professional framework and so on.
• 8:17
  But I think in Norway, there has been a very, a longstanding tradition for
• 8:22
  keeping mental health or mental treatment institutions in a agricultural setting.
• 8:32
  So all the major old institutions for mental treatment are actually old farms.
• 8:41
  And Norway has been governed in a sort of conservative way for
• 8:48
  many years where, where there has been a strong focus on science.
• 8:54
  And academic and development of treatment models that modalities that that would
• 9:02
  sort of help populations and help people.
• 9:05
  So by the beginning of the 2000, 2002, 2003, there were three hospitals in
• 9:11
  Norway incorporating equine assisted psychotherapy in their treatment.
• 9:17
  And this was not based on people liking horses, but this was
• 9:20
  based on specialist healthcare.
• 9:24
  That found that this population is really hard to reach.
• 9:28
  How can we sort of, you know, what can we do to help them?
• 9:32
  And I, I know that the, there are several places in Europe who started like that
• 9:36
  in the beginning of the two thousands.
• 9:38
  But the, the, the specialists have now less access to
• 9:45
  developing and utilizing treatment modalities that they find useful.
• 9:50
  because it costs money.
• 9:52
  And now the healthcare system of Norway, as many other places, is
• 9:56
  much more directed towards, you know, the economy of running healthcare.
• 10:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Is it getting privatized?
• 10:07
  Norunn Kogstad: Not yet, but Parts of it is getting privatized, but
• 10:11
  they're trying to run the public healthcare system as a private system.
• 10:14
  So it's a very complicated, very illogical system right now.
• 10:18
  Rupert Isaacson: So, okay.
• 10:19
  So that's where you sort of fill in the gap, I guess.
• 10:22
  You're running Lunderhagen.
• 10:24
  I've been there.
• 10:25
  It's an extraordinary place.
• 10:26
  I try not to keep saying amazing.
• 10:28
  What I mean by extraordinary is that what I've noticed when you go there is
• 10:33
  you can look at Obviously psychotherapy, which is human welfare your standard
• 10:40
  of horse welfare is exceptionally high and I want to go into that and why in
• 10:45
  a little bit you're doing research?
• 10:47
  There's, you know, a PhD in the offing, you guys are scientists.
• 10:50
  Obviously there's clinical work happening as well, there's consultations going on.
• 10:54
  And you're a nexus, you run these events where different people from
• 10:58
  different modalities can come and present what they do and add to the
• 11:03
  conversation of equine assisted work.
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  It's unusually open minded rather than saying, okay, we do
• 11:09
  this model or we do that model.
• 11:10
  It's like, no, we're open to all the models and that, as you know, that's
• 11:13
  not terribly usual in the horse world, let alone the equine assisted world,
• 11:17
  although hopefully it's changing.
• 11:19
  So you are, funnily enough, privately filling the public space.
• 11:26
  Sector gap a little bit there, but you're predicated on psychotherapy and equine
• 11:31
  assisted psychotherapy So here's the big question I think and I know I would
• 11:35
  be thinking of this if I was driving listening to this podcast What the hell
• 11:39
  is psychotherapy anyway, like what is it?
• 11:41
  It's a word that people use, but what the fuck is it?
• 11:45
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, I think The the theorist, Bruce Wample, he's done a lot of
• 11:51
  statistical research on therapy outcome.
• 11:54
  And he has compiled the model of the common factors and a conceptual model.
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  And there is a huge debate in the psychotherapy research field as to
• 12:05
  common factor versus specific factors.
• 12:08
  But I think what Bruce van Polt says is that psychotherapy is an intervention
• 12:12
  that aims at alleviating pain and create psychological changes and
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  it's based on psychological theories delivered by a trained therapist.
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  So I think sort of that way of thinking is what I would say
• 12:30
  maybe is most understandable.
• 12:33
  Rupert Isaacson: A lot of, we talked about hospitals, you're also, and I forgot
• 12:37
  to say this in your bios, you're also a medical doctor and so is your husband.
• 12:41
  Do you have to be a medical doctor in order to be a psychotherapist
• 12:44
  in the same way that you do to be a psychiatrist or not?
• 12:48
  Norunn Kogstad: No, not at all.
• 12:50
  And There is a lot of, you know, misunderstandings about those terms.
• 12:55
  So psychotherapy, that's, that's, you know, that's a separate education.
• 13:01
  In Norway, only psychiatrists and psychologists can become certified
• 13:08
  psychotherapists, but there is a lot of different kind of psychotherapy trainings.
• 13:14
  in brackets, where people learn something about something, but
• 13:19
  that's, you're not publicly certified as a psychotherapist, but very few
• 13:26
  psychologists and psychotherapists and psychiatrists at this date are.
• 13:31
  psychotherapist.
• 13:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Why?
• 13:35
  Norunn Kogstad: Because psychotherapy education, it's a long education.
• 13:39
  It requires a lot.
• 13:40
  It's very costly.
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  It's demanding.
• 13:42
  It's tiresome.
• 13:43
  You even have to have your own therapy and public funds are very scarcely
• 13:50
  available and the public system does not anymore see the value of
• 13:55
  psychotherapy when offering therapy.
• 13:59
  Rupert Isaacson: I suppose, playing devil's advocate, if you'd gone to
• 14:03
  medical school, as you did, and you went through all those years, and then
• 14:06
  you became, say, a psychiatrist, then you gotta add all this other training.
• 14:11
  I could see how that might not be so attractive.
• 14:13
  Quick question, are you also a psychiatrist?
• 14:16
  Or did you you are?
• 14:18
  So you're a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist.
• 14:21
  Norunn Kogstad: Yes.
• 14:21
  You're
• 14:22
  Rupert Isaacson: scary.
• 14:22
  Okay.
• 14:23
  Norunn Kogstad: No.
• 14:24
  So
• 14:24
  Rupert Isaacson: you can section me.
• 14:25
  But I guess you can also give me drugs.
• 14:27
  Do you think that that's important?
• 14:30
  Like in, for you to see the work flourish, and I want to talk
• 14:35
  about what it is and how it works.
• 14:37
  And you, you mentioned some jargony sounding words about factors and
• 14:41
  common factors, which I have no idea what those are, so I'm going
• 14:43
  to need you to explain those.
• 14:45
  But do you think that Do you think that your medical background makes you?
• 14:52
  What, what, what do you think it brings that's special, but equally,
• 14:56
  if someone didn't have that medical background, would they be just as good?
• 15:01
  Like, just, can you riff on that for, for a minute?
• 15:03
  Because I think some of us might think, oh, well, I'm interested in that, but I'm
• 15:05
  not gonna go to medical school and I'm certainly not gonna be a psychiatrist.
• 15:09
  And then, you know, so talk to us about the what, what it's brought for you,
• 15:13
  but also about accessibility, I guess.
• 15:15
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, I, I, in, in the States, there are six different
• 15:19
  professions that are able to be certified psychotherapist, but
• 15:23
  with a psychotherapy training.
• 15:26
  And for my part, I think that, you know, to have the medical profession
• 15:31
  as a background, is the useful and it gives it an academic and
• 15:37
  clinical standards to what I do.
• 15:40
  There is, you know, research about the therapist where you can see that
• 15:45
  therapists that have high sort of self not confidence, but trust or
• 15:52
  reliability and, and low professional self consciousness are the best therapists.
• 16:00
  And I do think that, you know, having a profound education does offer, you
• 16:05
  know, a support for you to be able to actually accept your own both
• 16:10
  faults and, and knowledges and accept.
• 16:15
  that you have to make decisions and you have to sort of be
• 16:20
  responsible for what you're doing.
• 16:22
  And it also opens up for the humbility and to be humble to understand that
• 16:26
  the world is not black and white.
• 16:28
  On yourself you know nobody and to be a part of somebody else's journey without
• 16:35
  coming in there with clear answers and knowing that the world is hard
• 16:40
  and it is difficult and it is unfair.
• 16:43
  And still having a framework for understanding.
• 16:47
  and a framework for, you know, allowing for the difficulties
• 16:51
  and, and the injustice to open up.
• 16:56
  Rupert Isaacson: So basically what you're saying is you've got to be an individual
• 16:58
  who understands the nature of ambiguity.
• 17:01
  Yes.
• 17:02
  Yeah.
• 17:02
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah.
• 17:03
  And, and I think that all of this can be acquired through whatever personality and
• 17:08
  life and so, but I do think that having a proper education will help you on the way.
• 17:14
  Rupert Isaacson: You know, I've just been, while you've been talking, I've been
• 17:16
  scanning history of psychotherapy because I wanted to see if I was right, like, is
• 17:20
  it a Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung thing, you know, and I'm like, okay, yes, it seems to
• 17:23
  be, but then it goes, we went back to some more ancient things, guess who pops up?
• 17:29
  As one of the fathers of ancient psychotherapy, at least on this
• 17:33
  website that I've been looking at.
• 17:35
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah, who?
• 17:37
  Now, who?
• 17:38
  Rupert Isaacson: A man called Xenophon.
• 17:40
  Norunn Kogstad: Oh!
• 17:40
  And so
• 17:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Xenophon, as you well know as many people listening
• 17:44
  will know, is often considered to be the father of dressage.
• 17:47
  He's actually not, and he never said he was, but he was
• 17:50
  writing in 400 BC, more or less.
• 17:55
  And he does, in fact, what is true is he does write the first European
• 17:58
  book on dressing the horse, but he himself admits in that book that he
• 18:03
  learned the whole thing in Persia.
• 18:04
  And that, and there are indeed previous Persian writers on the subject, but
• 18:09
  Xenophon, as we know, was also a.
• 18:11
  student of Socrates, friend of Plato and is regarded as the
• 18:16
  father of Stoic philosophy.
• 18:19
  So it's interesting that here you are Effectively, with talk therapy, right,
• 18:27
  coming from perhaps ancient roots
• 18:31
  Norunn Kogstad: of
• 18:31
  Rupert Isaacson: a horseman, and it'd be interesting to see how many of the other
• 18:33
  people involved in the, in the development of psychotherapy might have been.
• 18:37
  I don't know if Carl Jung was involved in horses, for example.
• 18:40
  He might have been but talk therapy, you don't talk to horses.
• 18:47
  Well, you do, but you know what I mean.
• 18:49
  The horses doesn't I guess I we've all seen that meme of the horse sitting on
• 18:52
  the couch to the psycho psychotherapist or psychiatrist going, Circles, circles!
• 18:56
  All she wants is circles!
• 18:57
  I keep giving her circles!
• 18:58
  What does she want?
• 18:58
  You know.
• 19:01
  How does talk therapy, human talk therapy, and horses, what's the connection there?
• 19:06
  Because you've got a nonverbal creature and the storytelling speaking ape.
• 19:12
  There seemed to be a bit of a Dichotomy there.
• 19:15
  So can you explain
• 19:18
  Norunn Kogstad: you sort of, you know, mentioned a little bit of
• 19:20
  the history and the talk therapy.
• 19:22
  Can we go back to that for just one second?
• 19:24
  And then we jump into the horses in the therapy again.
• 19:26
  Okay,
• 19:28
  Rupert Isaacson: please.
• 19:29
  Norunn Kogstad: Because I think it's, it's really, it's really cool to
• 19:31
  understand some of the extremely confusing stuff that happens through history.
• 19:36
  Because originally the theologists and the philosophers were the
• 19:40
  ones talking to people, you know?
• 19:43
  Yeah.
• 19:43
  So talking to people that were sick was not considered therapy or
• 19:47
  anything close to medical profession.
• 19:50
  And then you had the psychologist that in the early 18th century
• 19:54
  started investigating human behavior.
• 19:57
  utterly uninterested in psychological processes.
• 20:00
  You know, they were considering only behavioral, how, how does people work?
• 20:06
  How do people work?
• 20:07
  What, what are they?
• 20:08
  And then came the area of fraud, Freud, not fraud, Freud.
• 20:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Now that you could say that's a Freudian.
• 20:17
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah.
• 20:18
  Where, where people started getting interested in people's history.
• 20:24
  And that was a dramatic change in the medical.
• 20:29
  Field because in medical field that had never been considered relevant, almost
• 20:35
  before the era of Freud, and he's sort of starting to explore the human psyche.
• 20:44
  What what is the human psyche, as opposed to To the psychologist who were only
• 20:49
  interested in behavior and testing and functions, you know, yeah, and then
• 20:55
  sort of the, the medical doctors in neurologist as Freud was a neurologist
• 21:00
  sort of imposed on the theologist
• 21:04
  topics where they were talking to people.
• 21:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 21:08
  And
• 21:08
  Norunn Kogstad: then you talk
• 21:10
  Rupert Isaacson: to your priest.
• 21:11
  Yeah.
• 21:11
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah.
• 21:12
  The psychologists are now the one associated with the talk therapy.
• 21:18
  What happened when Freud started looking into the human psychology?
• 21:23
  What, what is the human psyche?
• 21:24
  How, how does it function?
• 21:26
  How, what happened to people?
• 21:27
  How do they talk about it?
• 21:28
  What, what, what, what are people?
• 21:30
  People are interesting and they seem to be quite complex.
• 21:33
  You know, we tried to talk about trees as being complex, but it
• 21:36
  seems like people are actually even more complex and Freud's.
• 21:41
  attribution or contribution to the science was just astounding.
• 21:46
  So extremely interesting.
• 21:48
  I've read I mean, I, I've never read about anyone, any scientist able to
• 21:55
  propose theories like he did, and then really getting into it, exploring it.
• 22:00
  And if it did not fit exactly, then he would just reject the
• 22:04
  whole theory and start over again.
• 22:06
  A fantastic capability of renewing himself totally every second year.
• 22:12
  And he was, of course, you know, he had all kind of stuff and ideas
• 22:15
  and things, but, but reading his, his life is just amazing as a
• 22:21
  interesting person, scientist, and quite intelligent when it comes to
• 22:25
  understanding the human, human mind.
• 22:28
  What psychoanalysis offered was a theory about personality development.
• 22:35
  So theory about how we develop our personality.
• 22:40
  And also a theory about how the development of the psychology
• 22:45
  of a person can go wrong.
• 22:47
  So a theory of the pathology of personality development,
• 22:51
  and then a theory of treatment.
• 22:53
  It must be said that psychoanalysis, you know, the talking cure, as the new,
• 22:58
  you know, new modality for therapy.
• 23:01
  Freud was not the greatest advocate of the talking cure.
• 23:06
  And he also even said that, well, he, he might not be the best candidate for
• 23:11
  being a talking cure therapist because of his temper and, and so, but it's it's
• 23:17
  a very interesting beginning for the understanding of the human psychology.
• 23:23
  What Freud discovered was that the free associations The
• 23:28
  way people talk about things.
• 23:30
  The associations they have.
• 23:33
  The metaphors, the symbols they use.
• 23:37
  The dreams they come with.
• 23:39
  How they are sort of wired together seemed to be what was important.
• 23:47
  in understanding the person in front of you.
• 23:49
  Not the words, not the stories, sort of, you know, but the latent
• 23:52
  content of what was being conveyed.
• 23:56
  And he early on considered that the countertransference, so the therapist's
• 24:03
  emotional and practical reaction and experience of the patient was not
• 24:08
  relevant because he said that the therapist should be like a blank screen.
• 24:13
  That was, of course, a very huge mistake.
• 24:18
  And he also rejected
• 24:20
  Rupert Isaacson: that, but
• 24:22
  Norunn Kogstad: he also rejected that and he also had, you know, the
• 24:25
  transference seemed to be the major part of what's going on in a therapy room.
• 24:30
  And the transference and the counter transference has, it's sort of, what is
• 24:35
  Rupert Isaacson: transference and what is counter transference?
• 24:37
  Norunn Kogstad: So transference is what, when I, when I meet you, Rupert,
• 24:41
  and I start talking to you, then I will bring in all of my pictures
• 24:45
  of, you know, my life from before.
• 24:46
  And if I've met somebody who has the same, you know, way of acting in many ways
• 24:52
  that you have, I will easily impose my previous, you know, experience into that.
• 24:58
  But also if I'm used to meeting wonderful men and they are really, really
• 25:03
  abusing me, then I will interact with you as a little bit how I've learned
• 25:08
  to interact with men like that, you know, so that will be my transference.
• 25:12
  But your counter transference will be your reaction to me back, which will include
• 25:18
  all of my transference stuff going on.
• 25:20
  Maybe you will meet me and we talk a little bit and you feel really like,
• 25:23
  Oh my God, Oh no, something's going on here, but I can't say it from the
• 25:28
  words, you know, there's, it just feels like, There is something really
• 25:32
  difficult in talking to this person.
• 25:34
  We all experience that, you know, when we talk to a person and all of a sudden
• 25:36
  we feel like, oh my god, I'm so guilty of your, something went wrong with you.
• 25:41
  Was that my fault or what, what happened in this room, you know, that's
• 25:46
  the countertransference going on.
• 25:48
  And the countertransference has, you know, of course, developed into what
• 25:53
  we called, or it's a huge part of what we call the relational psychotherapy.
• 25:57
  So when we are together, then.
• 26:00
  what's going on inside of me when I'm together with you.
• 26:03
  That's the important part of the relational psychotherapy.
• 26:06
  And that has been a major, major contribution when it comes to the
• 26:11
  attachment research developing with Volbia and his gang in the
• 26:17
  seventies, you know, where they talk about the early interaction
• 26:20
  and how, how that will influence.
• 26:23
  our lives and how we interact with the rest of the world.
• 26:27
  So when we talk about quickly, I
• 26:30
  Rupert Isaacson: know this is really hard.
• 26:31
  Explain attachment.
• 26:33
  Norunn Kogstad: So, attachment you can explain it from very many perspectives,
• 26:38
  but maybe I'll, I'll try to explain it from a simple neuro emotional perspective.
• 26:46
  So Punxsup is a neuroscientist and he proposes sort of this model
• 26:50
  of the primary emotional circuit.
• 26:53
  So we have seven primary emotions and Punxsup's models, there's a lot
• 26:59
  of different models of emotions, but Punxsup's models are now widely accepted
• 27:03
  and very useful and I think they're very very useful clinically as well.
• 27:07
  And he proposes fear, aggression, anxiety, care, seeking and lust as
• 27:15
  the main, main emotional circuit.
• 27:17
  So in the, in the panic circuit, What he proposes is that when a young
• 27:24
  baby of a mammal gives out the cry like that this, we all heard babies
• 27:32
  or dogs or puppies or kittens or whatever who gives out this cry.
• 27:36
  And then the mother will react immediately and it's an instinctive response like,
• 27:40
  Oh my God, there is this instinct response to that kind of infant cry.
• 27:46
  And well, what Panksepp sees is that when, when the anxiety in the
• 27:51
  infant is activated and this primal cry comes out, then there will be a
• 27:56
  correspondent activation in the care.
• 28:00
  care person or care individual, so that sort of the circuit of anxiety
• 28:04
  and the circuit of care will fit together and belongs together.
• 28:10
  And that's the neuroemotional way of understanding this attachment
• 28:14
  that we are linked together.
• 28:16
  The
• 28:16
  Rupert Isaacson: mammalian caregiving system, basically.
• 28:18
  Yes.
• 28:19
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah.
• 28:19
  Yes.
• 28:19
  Okay.
• 28:20
  Yes.
• 28:20
  And the attachment research showed that the interaction with early care girls.
• 28:27
  will give the print on how you will operate in the world.
• 28:32
  And they have four different types of attachment models based on which
• 28:37
  circumstances you grow up in and the understanding of this relational
• 28:43
  dynamics with the early caregivers from first second of living.
• 28:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I mean, it's, it, I think a useful piece of mentorship
• 28:59
  that I got Which I think helps understand this, was from spending so much time
• 29:04
  with the Bushman, son, Khoisan Bushman, in the Kalahari, and watching how
• 29:11
  complete and unconditional love, and including the kids in every single thing
• 29:15
  that was going on, because they're on your back, so they watch you track,
• 29:18
  they listen to the conversations, they see you engaging in every activity,
• 29:22
  and then little by little they just but also they've been cared for all the time
• 29:25
  because you would never let your kid cry it out in another room because as soon
• 29:30
  as the kid cries, the hyenas go lunch.
• 29:33
  And you would never put your kid away from you, even in the hut, because the
• 29:36
  hyenas will come into your heart at night.
• 29:38
  They'll find a way and they will absolutely take your kid
• 29:41
  and we'll never hear them.
• 29:42
  They'll be, you know, so.
• 29:44
  You would never dream of putting your kid over there.
• 29:46
  You would put it between two adults to keep it warm and to
• 29:49
  protect it and so on and so on.
• 29:51
  And that this is just how human life has evolved.
• 29:53
  And so a baby, if it cries and cries it out thinking on some fundamental level, Oh
• 30:00
  shit, the hyenas are going to come get me.
• 30:02
  Nobody cares.
• 30:03
  And you know, many of us have wondered how much of our quote unquote stuff goes back
• 30:09
  to that primal experience of just having been made to cry it out as babies because
• 30:12
  most people from certainly my generation.
• 30:14
  Okay.
• 30:15
  So let's say in that case, I perhaps have insecure attachment, right?
• 30:20
  Would that be correct to say?
• 30:21
  Because I would then look for other things to fill the hole
• 30:27
  of not feeling attached enough.
• 30:29
  And I've done that in many ways in my life.
• 30:31
  So I've done thorough research.
• 30:34
  I like to think I put the fun back in dysfunction.
• 30:36
  So then let's say I am not securely attached and I then end up in, It develops
• 30:41
  some pathologies and I end up in front of you with my pathology and perhaps I'm
• 30:48
  addicted, perhaps I'm whatever I'm, you know, and I've got something going on
• 30:52
  and it's now impacting my life and it's impacting the lives of others around me.
• 30:56
  I'm in front of you and you're a psychotherapist and this is
• 31:00
  about talk and you're going to now pair me up with horses.
• 31:03
  Why?
• 31:04
  And what's the benefit?
• 31:06
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, first of all, one, when we talk about the attachment
• 31:12
  styles and we have the, the safe attachment and the ambivalent attachment
• 31:17
  and avoidant insecure attachment, and then the last type, which is a complete
• 31:20
  disorganized attachment, then what, what I
• 31:24
  Rupert Isaacson: write.
• 31:25
  Okay.
• 31:26
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah.
• 31:26
  But what I think is really important here is that these are theories.
• 31:30
  These are not clinically, these are not psychotherapies, you know, these
• 31:34
  are theories for therapists to sort of make a scaffold in your head.
• 31:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Like a bit of a framework to work.
• 31:41
  Yes.
• 31:41
  Yeah.
• 31:41
  You
• 31:42
  Norunn Kogstad: need to have sort of a framework understanding of what's
• 31:44
  going on in front of me, you know.
• 31:47
  Because that can help you to be able to just withstand whatever
• 31:51
  is going on in the therapy.
• 31:53
  And I think quite a lot of, you know, what we learn about how it's so
• 31:58
  important to meet each other, understand each other, listen to each other.
• 32:01
  It comes with every kind of attachment style you have and whatever kind of
• 32:06
  issues or problems or emotional reactions.
• 32:08
  they are valid, you know, so it's not like, oh, you have an ambivalent style.
• 32:12
  So you're kind of craving stuff.
• 32:14
  That's just because you have an ambivalent that it's not whatever
• 32:17
  comes up is valid and needs to be responded to and understood properly.
• 32:22
  And it's the relationship to the therapist, which is the healing part.
• 32:27
  Of what's going on.
• 32:28
  If we look at the attachment theory, and I do think that what's really important
• 32:34
  to understand in in that aspect is that
• 32:42
  what is that relationship, you know, because Transcribed When when you come
• 32:47
  to me, then there needs to be some fundamental thing going on between me
• 32:52
  and you for you to have a relationship with me where you can experience
• 32:55
  what's important for you and where you can start to explore what's going on
• 32:59
  inside of you because we all suffer.
• 33:01
  We all feel bad.
• 33:02
  We all have horrible, horrible illnesses, but to alleviate that suffering to be
• 33:08
  able to live with yourself and your needs.
• 33:11
  and who you actually are.
• 33:13
  That's, that's what I think about real psychotherapy.
• 33:17
  It's not fixing, we can't fix history.
• 33:20
  History is history, but we have to fix the responses.
• 33:23
  We have to fix the suffering to the responses that we have in our body.
• 33:28
  And
• 33:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, that makes perfect sense.
• 33:32
  Why horses?
• 33:34
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah, and when I include people who has experienced a
• 33:37
  lot of, a lot of difficult things, you know, and they have a lot of reactions
• 33:41
  and they often have immense amount of self hatred and shame going on.
• 33:48
  And it takes a lot of time in an office, even though I have a nice office.
• 33:52
  I've built an office, which is not a white office, but it's, it's a cozy,
• 33:56
  I'm trying to make it, and it, I don't think, I don't believe in the neutral
• 34:01
  therapist, so it's my office, and this is the place, and I want to show you that
• 34:05
  you are important, and this is a this should be a good place to be, you know?
• 34:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, your dog is there too, which is
• 34:12
  Norunn Kogstad: my dog is there and she loves my clients and she develops
• 34:16
  a very special bond to each client.
• 34:17
  You know, she's, she's quite undernourished when it comes to
• 34:21
  care, but she can, she can manage.
• 34:24
  So, but it takes a lot of time for people who has had a lifetime of.
• 34:31
  Self hatred, trouble rejections violence to, to, to come to that space where we
• 34:38
  can be together and trust each other.
• 34:42
  And what I think is really needed, I think it's really nice to, to look into
• 34:49
  some, some of this basic understanding of the human social interaction needs.
• 34:58
  And by that I can, for example, polyvagal theory that I think can give a good,
• 35:06
  a good way of looking at the social engagement system that we need each other.
• 35:11
  We need to feel contact.
• 35:13
  We need to feel seen.
• 35:14
  We need to feel understood.
• 35:16
  It's not the absence of threat that determines whether you feel safe or not.
• 35:21
  It's the presence of connection.
• 35:23
  These things make sense to me, you know?
• 35:25
  And when I bring people to the horses.
• 35:31
  People quite often, we start by just observing the horses, talking about
• 35:37
  what's going on, what are they doing.
• 35:39
  And people quite often say very quickly, you know, when
• 35:45
  I came here, I was stressed.
• 35:47
  When I leave, I feel relaxed.
• 35:51
  And very quickly in that first session, when they start observing the horses,
• 35:58
  this very profound metaphors, symbols, the way of looking at the world and people
• 36:06
  comes up when we look at the horses.
• 36:09
  I, I just did a study interviewing youths that, and that were included
• 36:16
  in psychotherapy with horses.
• 36:18
  And they had some fantastic comments about the first session with the horses.
• 36:25
  One of them said that, you know, we stood there, looked at the horses.
• 36:27
  It was really freezing cold.
• 36:29
  It was really boring.
• 36:30
  And I felt horrible.
• 36:32
  I didn't trust anybody.
• 36:33
  And then by just looking at the horses after some time,
• 36:38
  it was actually kind of nice.
• 36:39
  You know, I could stand there with my pain and my emotion
• 36:42
  and feeling bad in the group.
• 36:44
  And all of a sudden it was okay.
• 36:48
  And this person was quite sure that It would be impossible for him or
• 36:55
  her to continue in a group session if there were no horses present.
• 37:02
  Rupert Isaacson: Why?
• 37:03
  Why did just the presence of the horses make that person feel better?
• 37:12
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah, exactly.
• 37:13
  Why?
• 37:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Here's the thing.
• 37:15
  You can totally understand the dog, right?
• 37:16
  You
• 37:17
  Norunn Kogstad: know,
• 37:17
  Rupert Isaacson: the dog greets you when you come in.
• 37:19
  The dog is very human like in its, in its behavior and its emotional state.
• 37:25
  Presentation we know this is why we all have dogs.
• 37:28
  Yeah, so I can totally see you're feeling like shit.
• 37:32
  You've come to your, your psychotherapist.
• 37:34
  They've got a nice dog.
• 37:35
  The dog greets you.
• 37:36
  You're going to get, I guess your word would be transference of
• 37:40
  emotion positively from that dog.
• 37:42
  Unconditionally, they're just happy to see you.
• 37:45
  Horse doesn't react that way.
• 37:46
  Now aesthetically horses are beautiful.
• 37:50
  This we know.
• 37:51
  But beyond that beauty, Or is the beauty part of it?
• 37:57
  What, what's going on, do you think, before we even get into
• 38:04
  how we're working with that horse?
• 38:06
  Why does the mere presence of a horse help in this way, do you think?
• 38:12
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, I'd love to get into the academics of it,
• 38:14
  but let's do that afterwards.
• 38:17
  What these young people say, they are, I mean, it's amazing what they say.
• 38:22
  They, they have huge problems, huge problems.
• 38:24
  And they say, well, you know, the horse, it's not like a dog.
• 38:28
  They won't come over and, you know, please you in any way, but they
• 38:32
  just require you to be who you are.
• 38:35
  And that's kind of uncommon, one of them said.
• 38:40
  Isn't that amazing?
• 38:41
  The horse just requires you to be who you are?
• 38:44
  I mean That's really insane.
• 38:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, and what's interesting about that is that
• 38:50
  that's also a perception, right?
• 38:52
  Because we actually know if we work with horses, that horses require us
• 38:55
  to not be who we are in certain ways.
• 38:57
  Like if I'm hungry, the horse requires me not to eat it, you know,
• 39:01
  or to override my hunting instinct.
• 39:04
  Or if I'm afraid of the horse, it's definitely helpful for me to.
• 39:09
  engage in some kind of masking so I don't transfer my Distress
• 39:13
  to the horse and the horse.
• 39:14
  Oh shit.
• 39:15
  What's going on?
• 39:15
  Why is this person afraid?
• 39:16
  Yeah that so what's interesting is that you know, you hear a lot of people saying
• 39:21
  horses Accept you for who you are and I don't know if it's true or not true
• 39:26
  I think it that that statement raises as many questions as it does things.
• 39:30
  However, I think what is true is it makes people feel that way.
• 39:34
  And if horses seem to make people feel that way, and So that begs,
• 39:40
  you know, another rather interesting question is why, why do horses
• 39:43
  make people feel so accepted?
• 39:44
  Why do horses make people feel that the horse only requires
• 39:50
  them to be who they are?
• 39:52
  What do you think is, causes somebody to interpret that?
• 39:55
  And it's a positive thing, but whether it's accurate or not, if it's healing,
• 39:58
  hey, we're going to go with it.
• 39:59
  But why, why do you think they, they come to this conclusion?
• 40:04
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah, I'm really, really, really intrigued by that as well.
• 40:08
  And I tried to look at it from, you know, the perspective of their experience,
• 40:16
  how they describe the interaction.
• 40:19
  They immediately, most of them immediately say something about one
• 40:23
  of the horses being similar to them or special to them, or something goes on
• 40:29
  in them relationally towards one horse.
• 40:33
  So there seemed to be some sort of immediate, you know, attraction
• 40:39
  towards the horses in a way.
• 40:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Almost allegorical immediately.
• 40:43
  Yeah.
• 40:44
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah.
• 40:46
  Rupert Isaacson: But why?
• 40:47
  What's going on in the human psyche with that?
• 40:50
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah.
• 40:51
  I think that's amazing.
• 40:52
  I mean, from an academic side, what I, what I'm thinking and that what we are
• 40:59
  looking into from the videos that we're doing is that, you know, this ability
• 41:06
  of the horse to notice and be aware of so many things in its surroundings
• 41:16
  at once seems to be magic for people.
• 41:21
  So does a dog not
• 41:22
  Rupert Isaacson: do that too?
• 41:23
  It doesn't
• 41:24
  Norunn Kogstad: seem like that.
• 41:26
  It seems like horses are able to respond and notice more things in the surrounding
• 41:35
  without physically and acting towards it.
• 41:40
  So it seems like, well my theory, I don't know, well my theory is that
• 41:47
  when people come in with some sort of physical sensation and they're being
• 41:53
  responded to without being overwhelmed with, you know, huggings and licking
• 41:58
  or barking or whatever, but just small, small, small, like now, when I said that
• 42:04
  you started nodding your head, it's a very small thing, but I felt seen and
• 42:08
  understood sort of, it feels comfortable.
• 42:10
  It feels like you're listening to me.
• 42:12
  It feels like you understand what I'm talking about.
• 42:14
  It feels really good.
• 42:15
  If you would sort of just think about something else, chewing
• 42:19
  some food, get going away from the picture, you know, I would feel like.
• 42:22
  Hello.
• 42:23
  Am I, you know, getting through here?
• 42:25
  And this feeling of these micro things that you're doing right now, the way
• 42:29
  you blinked right now, it was like, you were like, yeah, you know, it
• 42:34
  feels like you're conveying a lot of messages that my body immediately
• 42:39
  responds to, even through the screen.
• 42:41
  I think that's quite much more potent and powerful when we're in the same
• 42:44
  room, but even through the screen, I can feel this sort of understanding
• 42:49
  and connection and interest, you know, and that does something to me.
• 42:54
  I think it does more to my physiology when we're in the same room, but
• 42:59
  still through the screen, it does quite a lot of things to me, like when
• 43:03
  we're done research on physiologic or the physiology behind regulation.
• 43:11
  And you look at infants as we know something about that when babies
• 43:15
  have not been touched or cared for, they will die before the age of four.
• 43:20
  But we also know that, you know, when twins are born, their regulation of
• 43:25
  heart rate blood pressure hormones.
• 43:28
  And so that's more, more or less a hundred percent.
• 43:33
  Relate
• 43:34
  Rupert Isaacson: related to
• 43:35
  Norunn Kogstad: the dependent on, yeah, another living being, the
• 43:40
  twin and infants are very highly dependent on the physiologically
• 43:46
  regulation of another living being
• 43:50
  Rupert Isaacson: indeed.
• 43:51
  Norunn Kogstad: And so we continue when we grow up, we tend to think
• 43:55
  that we're grown up, so we don't need this physical regulation, but we do.
• 44:00
  We do.
• 44:01
  And our, I think our blood pressure, our hormone levels, our circadian
• 44:07
  rhythm, I think that's up to 50 percent regulation by physiological
• 44:12
  interaction with caring others.
• 44:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, with social mammals, you know.
• 44:17
  Yeah.
• 44:17
  Norunn Kogstad: And you, do you know that they figured out that men that
• 44:20
  kisses their wives more than six seconds when they leave every morning,
• 44:24
  they live like four years longer.
• 44:27
  Really?
• 44:28
  So go kissing, you know.
• 44:31
  Love each other.
• 44:32
  Liliana, sorry.
• 44:33
  That's the best idea ever.
• 44:36
  And I think that there's something about the kiss.
• 44:38
  The kiss
• 44:38
  Rupert Isaacson: has to last for six seconds.
• 44:40
  Norunn Kogstad: Yes, yes.
• 44:42
  Rupert Isaacson: So not, we're not talking pecs here.
• 44:44
  Norunn Kogstad: No, no, no.
• 44:45
  It has to be six seconds in one batch.
• 44:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, making a note here.
• 44:50
  Yes,
• 44:50
  Norunn Kogstad: yes, yes.
• 44:51
  It's important.
• 44:52
  Do long kisses.
• 44:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, right.
• 44:54
  I might go do some research.
• 44:55
  I'll speak to you when I'm 90 and see.
• 45:00
  Go for it.
• 45:00
  So there is something about
• 45:02
  Norunn Kogstad: this
• 45:05
  physiological regulation that goes on between human and horses, I think.
• 45:10
  Which seems to be of importance,
• 45:13
  Rupert Isaacson: right?
• 45:13
  And again, you could, you can understand this in close quarters.
• 45:17
  Once you get within the warmth and you know, you probably.
• 45:24
  You might have listened to the podcast I did with Kansas Carradine, you know,
• 45:28
  talking about heart math and Linda Townsend Jones talking about heart
• 45:32
  math and so on and the electromagnetic resonance of, you know, hearts and
• 45:37
  our hearts come into that, you know, electromagnetic field of this very
• 45:41
  powerful heart from the horse and boom, we co regulate and get it.
• 45:44
  Coherence in our own physiology.
• 45:47
  This is now well studied.
• 45:48
  There's even, I only discovered back in 1993, there was a study at
• 45:54
  the University of Castle here in Germany where I live, which summary
• 45:57
  has gone completely under the radar.
• 45:59
  But.
• 46:00
  Kansas Caridine turned me on to it where they were measuring
• 46:02
  photons being emitted from hearts when they're thinking about love.
• 46:07
  And she sent me a meme about this and how far it goes and I said, Oh, yes,
• 46:11
  gosh, if you had a horse one, you know, you got that kind of co regulation.
• 46:14
  Wow.
• 46:14
  It'd be a big amplifier.
• 46:16
  But I thought, is that real?
• 46:17
  That sounds a bit new agey, Anna.
• 46:19
  So I went in search of it.
• 46:20
  I found the study.
• 46:21
  I'll send it to you.
• 46:22
  It's that.
• 46:23
  And what's so weird is that study for 30, 35 years ago, and we don't know about it.
• 46:29
  But I can get that, and obviously you'd have to get over your fear of
• 46:33
  horses or the unfamiliarity and is the horse going to hurt me and da da da.
• 46:37
  But let's say you've gotten over all that, the horse is next to you and
• 46:39
  you're maybe even hugging on it and you're co regulating it, blah blah blah.
• 46:43
  That I can get, but when the horse is on the other end of the arena, when
• 46:46
  the horse is just standing there in the field, it seems to have a no less
• 46:50
  powerful effect, even at a distance.
• 46:52
  That is interesting to me.
• 46:54
  What do you think about that?
• 46:55
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, it's, it's not that difficult to understand really, if you get
• 46:58
  into a room of, you know, people you don't know and everybody look really angry, and
• 47:03
  then, you know, at the far end of that room, one person turns towards you, smiles
• 47:06
  and says, Hi Aru, I'm gonna help you.
• 47:08
  I'm here.
• 47:10
  What does that do to your physiology?
• 47:11
  Oh sure, but
• 47:12
  Rupert Isaacson: a horse doesn't do that, a horse is just a horse.
• 47:13
  Well,
• 47:14
  Norunn Kogstad: maybe the horse actually does that, you know,
• 47:16
  with the miniature signals.
• 47:19
  When I have people here doing the horse in therapy courses, I put them
• 47:23
  out into the field to the horses and I ask them to focus on one horse on
• 47:27
  a distance and just notice whatever that horse is doing on a distance.
• 47:32
  And that can be, you know, a hundred, 200 meters away, just making note of what
• 47:36
  that one horse, what that horse is doing.
• 47:38
  And when they come back, they are so filled with
• 47:41
  connection with that one horse.
• 47:44
  Because what I do hope that we find and what I observe clinically, but this is not
• 47:52
  what I've, you know, proven academically as of yet, is that the horse, when
• 47:58
  somebody is in its, you know, I don't know how far, but they can see quite
• 48:03
  far and notice quite far, then they will immediately be able to respond to
• 48:08
  the small, small, small signals of that person just by a flicker of their eye.
• 48:12
  Which, you know, physiologically, in that person, will make a
• 48:16
  response, I'm being responded to.
• 48:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 48:25
  Talk.
• 48:25
  So, talk therapy, observation of horses, I mean, you might be
• 48:30
  talking a bit, but obviously now you're talking about the horse.
• 48:34
  You've also talked about your office, which is presumably more talking like
• 48:38
  we're talking now, you're seated, you're sitting across from each other.
• 48:42
  So can you describe to me an equine psychotherapy session?
• 48:46
  I arrive.
• 48:47
  Do I first come to your office and talk to you there?
• 48:49
  And then we go and we interact with the horses and then we come back into
• 48:52
  your office afterwards and we talk again about what our experience was?
• 48:56
  Or does it play out differently?
• 48:58
  Norunn Kogstad: We have a pre evaluation talk.
• 49:01
  Everybody who contacts us is invited to come to my office to have, you
• 49:05
  know, a 45 minute talk where we're talking about what we're doing, What
• 49:09
  they're looking for, expectations, could this be a fit, you know,
• 49:12
  should we go ahead and work together?
• 49:15
  And then it depends a little bit on the background, but usually I'll
• 49:18
  offer like one or two evaluation sessions where we if we need to do
• 49:24
  some diagnostic or if we need to do some formal stuff, we'll do that.
• 49:29
  And then we will go to the horses.
• 49:31
  When we do the horse sessions, we meet out at the indoor arena
• 49:35
  where we have on a sitting area.
• 49:39
  We meet there.
• 49:39
  We talk about sort of.
• 49:41
  topic of today.
• 49:42
  What's going on?
• 49:43
  And it depends.
• 49:44
  Some, some people have sort of a treatment plan.
• 49:48
  Some people are in a long process oriented therapy where it's more
• 49:56
  in depth experience of what's going on in that day, per day, per day.
• 50:01
  When a longer treatment plan, which is not that concrete groups,
• 50:06
  often we either have open groups or we are closed to closed groups.
• 50:09
  So the open groups is a more psychoeducative group where we go
• 50:13
  through specific topics related to that populations and closed groups.
• 50:18
  There's a process group where we start the first day by setting
• 50:22
  sort of the goals and the thoughts and expectations in the group.
• 50:26
  And then we go to the horses, the open groups, more
• 50:29
  psychoeducational teaching groups.
• 50:30
  We choose the horses the process groups, the patients.
• 50:35
  Choose the horses, we bring the horses to the indoor arena, we let the horses free,
• 50:38
  and we start observing the horses and allowing them to do whatever they need.
• 50:43
  And when we have younger clients or more disorganized clients, then
• 50:48
  we do more structured activities, and we have a shorter period
• 50:54
  of, unstructured observations.
• 50:58
  We do minor observations where we communicate together like,
• 51:01
  Oh look, there's movements.
• 51:03
  What's going on over there?
• 51:04
  Who of these horses would you have been if you were a horse?
• 51:06
  And then straight to greeting the horse.
• 51:09
  When people are longer into their therapy, they can spend almost a whole
• 51:13
  session just observing the horses.
• 51:15
  Having metaphors, thoughts, projections, thinkings, looking
• 51:19
  how things play out, requires quite a lot of patience, calmness,
• 51:24
  and stability inside of yourself.
• 51:27
  And it needs to be experienced as meaningful and interesting
• 51:30
  and sort of powerful.
• 51:32
  I know in some trauma centers, they only do observing of horses, but maybe
• 51:37
  only five minutes, and then spend the rest of the week working with
• 51:41
  sort of ideas, thoughts, projections, fantasize, associations, and so
• 51:44
  that came up from just that Brief observational interaction with horses.
• 51:49
  And then after the horse session, when we end the session with the horses, then I
• 51:55
  will sort of say, okay, we are approaching the end of the session for today.
• 51:59
  Let's bring the horses out.
• 52:00
  And then usually we have like a very short closing circuit by the end.
• 52:06
  anything in particular that came up that, you know, people would like
• 52:09
  to say about today or something.
• 52:12
  And then we allow as much as possible to be brought into the next session.
• 52:17
  And then we bring up the next session, what happened in the last
• 52:19
  session, if it comes up naturally.
• 52:21
  Rupert Isaacson: If they're coming to you, is it like they
• 52:23
  do 12 sessions or they do 25?
• 52:26
  In groups,
• 52:26
  Norunn Kogstad: groups are six sessions.
• 52:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 52:30
  Norunn Kogstad: And individual patients are, yeah, different,
• 52:33
  come totally different on what, what, what the question is.
• 52:36
  Is there sort of an
• 52:37
  Rupert Isaacson: average?
• 52:38
  What did you say?
• 52:39
  Is there sort of an average where you sort of see this profound change
• 52:44
  happen by a certain time and then the point where you feel, or they feel.
• 52:51
  Okay, they sort of don't need to come anymore or do people come indefinitely?
• 52:56
  Norunn Kogstad: I have some patients combined office therapy and horse
• 52:59
  therapy for years, for many, many years where we have both the severe
• 53:04
  pathology, but also our continuing, you know, self development quest.
• 53:09
  And also some people that comes in for supervision around the, their relationship
• 53:15
  and interaction with their horse.
• 53:17
  But I'd say that the major part of the individual clients I
• 53:22
  have is from six to 12 months.
• 53:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 53:25
  Okay.
• 53:25
  And what happens at the end of that 12 months?
• 53:27
  Do they feel like, Hey, I feel better.
• 53:29
  And you give them a certificate of betterness and off they go.
• 53:32
  Or how, how does the process of kind of deciding, you know, I'm
• 53:35
  okay to move on with the next phase of my life sort of happen?
• 53:39
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, usually they buy a batch of 10, 10 sessions.
• 53:43
  And then sort of, we, we make a plan for the 10 sessions and then
• 53:46
  we have an evaluation and we talk about where we are in the process.
• 53:49
  And then we talk about, you know, let's do 10 more sessions and we
• 53:52
  have an indefinite period of time.
• 53:54
  Or we talk about, I think maybe one period of 10 sessions could be okay.
• 53:58
  Now that would be good.
• 53:59
  And then throughout those 10 sessions, we will talk about, you
• 54:02
  know, this is going to be an ending.
• 54:04
  How is that affecting you?
• 54:06
  What does that mean to you?
• 54:07
  What's going to happen further on?
• 54:09
  And how is this process working for you?
• 54:12
  Rupert Isaacson: See, I would imagine that I've been to
• 54:14
  Lundakarngen obviously a few times.
• 54:16
  It's fabulously physically beautiful.
• 54:18
  You're on this mountain overlooking this lake.
• 54:20
  Your horses are lovely.
• 54:22
  And I want to go into your, your life.
• 54:23
  Horse welfare and horse care, why they look so good in a minute.
• 54:27
  The vibe is just gorgeous.
• 54:28
  It's this old Scandinavian farm, beautiful old farmhouse.
• 54:31
  So, there must be some sort of grief when people feel they're going to
• 54:36
  leave the relationship with you, the relationship with the horses, the
• 54:40
  relationship with the place itself.
• 54:43
  How do you mitigate that so that they don't then, you know, fall
• 54:48
  into some sort of pathology from the grief of just not being able
• 54:53
  to hang out at Lunderhagen anymore?
• 54:55
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, you know, I do work quite a lot with patients who has
• 55:00
  severe symptomatology on different levels.
• 55:04
  And most of my patient has been in many, many therapy, whatever kind of
• 55:10
  things before, and they bring along with them major amounts of rejections,
• 55:16
  disappointments anger, grief and, and we, we almost always start by
• 55:22
  working with that quite immediately.
• 55:25
  And for many patients, you know, the first half year is about
• 55:30
  how to cope with, because every ending is going to reactivate.
• 55:37
  early rejections, right?
• 55:40
  Losses and griefs, you know, and then we really need to get, get to that
• 55:46
  before we can really get to the process.
• 55:48
  And then we can start working on the ending as its own process.
• 55:54
  For many patients and I rarely spend less than three months working on unending.
• 55:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay What is the you can't even say reoffending rate or re?
• 56:07
  pathology rate or
• 56:11
  not falling back down into the hole right once people have have gone
• 56:17
  through whatever their What is right for them number of sessions is with you?
• 56:24
  I'm thinking about Some research from the University of Bournemouth, which
• 56:29
  I think it was the horse course they did into the horse course in The
• 56:32
  UK who are interesting people and we've got to have them on the show
• 56:36
  Where they had looked at domestic violence a domestic violence
• 56:40
  intervention with horses and had found that there was still a 50% decrease
• 56:45
  in the violence a year after the e equine intervention had finished,
• 56:52
  which is an astonishing, you know.
• 56:55
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah.
• 56:56
  Rupert Isaacson: So for you, what do you pick up data on that as well?
• 56:59
  Like what's the, the after effects once people have gone
• 57:03
  through their lunda, Hargan?
• 57:05
  Norunn Kogstad: I don't have data on that, but the, my clinical experience is that.
• 57:11
  the, the, what would you call it?
• 57:14
  The patients that decide for themselves for how long they want
• 57:19
  and who can be a part of making the treatment plan and endings.
• 57:26
  They, they rarely come back.
• 57:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you get to, do you have any way, has there been follow up,
• 57:34
  you know, even if it's unofficial where you kind of keep a bit of tabs on people?
• 57:40
  Yeah, well,
• 57:40
  Norunn Kogstad: they can recontact me.
• 57:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Say that again.
• 57:44
  Norunn Kogstad: They can re contact me.
• 57:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 57:46
  So
• 57:46
  Norunn Kogstad: we have the agreement that you know within so
• 57:48
  and so long You can re contact me and you can always be re referred.
• 57:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so they always have the the idea that the door is open
• 57:58
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah, while while patients that have a limited amount
• 58:01
  of time even because either because they're government if Governmentally
• 58:06
  funded or if they're from an institution, I'd say that the relapse
• 58:12
  rate there is You Yeah, I don't know.
• 58:16
  Pretty high.
• 58:19
  Rupert Isaacson: What's, what's the, I mean that's very honest to admit, what,
• 58:22
  what's the What is the solution for that if you know, okay, these people are coming
• 58:28
  for this very set, perhaps rather minimal period of time with me, you yourself,
• 58:35
  just because of your own emotion, must find that saddening to think.
• 58:40
  Yeah, they're very likely to relapse.
• 58:42
  The rates could be quite high in your view.
• 58:47
  What?
• 58:47
  What's the best way to mitigate that minimize that?
• 58:50
  And how do you deal with that?
• 58:51
  Norunn Kogstad: But, you know, I, I, I really, I'm really, you know, strongly
• 58:58
  thinking that I, I'm not going to be able to fix things in six times.
• 59:04
  I mean, that's not real, but, but, but I find it really meaningful.
• 59:09
  And I find that many of the clients that come here, even for just six
• 59:12
  times, even if they relapse, or even if things becomes difficult, then.
• 59:17
  Making these six times the most useful and the most meaningful possible.
• 59:21
  And we all agree, you know, if you have some sort of severe.
• 59:26
  issue, then six sessions is not going to change a lifetime of, of things.
• 59:31
  So we all agree on that when we start.
• 59:33
  And we talk about that and we talk about the ambivalence of, you know, life.
• 59:38
  And we talk about the difficulties and we talk about sort of, you know,
• 59:41
  if you come in and you're a substance use disorder patient with huge trauma
• 59:45
  problems, criminal background, and you're like, I just want a family and a job.
• 59:50
  No, that's really cool.
• 59:52
  It might take some time, you know, so we just talk about what's, what's
• 59:55
  real, what's reality going on.
• 59:58
  And I think it's important to be, you know, to be reasonable and to be sensible.
• 1:00:03
  I am no magician.
• 1:00:05
  I'm just here to be a part of,
• 1:00:07
  Rupert Isaacson: I think what you're putting your finger on is
• 1:00:08
  that you are the, you are a good chapter in somebody's life story.
• 1:00:14
  Yes.
• 1:00:15
  And if that chapter can then inform further good
• 1:00:19
  chapters, that's a good thing.
• 1:00:22
  You know, I often struggle with this with the horse boy work and,
• 1:00:25
  you know, movement method work.
• 1:00:26
  There are some families who we worked with for years and we saw amazing
• 1:00:29
  outcomes or even short times we saw amazing outcomes and other families
• 1:00:33
  who went away and then perhaps fell into some really difficult situations
• 1:00:37
  and then your, your heart really went out to them and thought, well, yeah.
• 1:00:40
  But then some.
• 1:00:42
  Now I've sort of been in the game for upwards of 20 years.
• 1:00:45
  I've seen some of those families then recover and interestingly use the
• 1:00:50
  resilience that they learned while they were or Helped to learn while
• 1:00:56
  they were with us kick in and I've even had some people come back and
• 1:01:02
  say hey look it was actually those times at Horseboy or those times You
• 1:01:06
  know another Horseboy place might not even been ours that So when I did fall
• 1:01:11
  back in that hole, I had more tools.
• 1:01:13
  So I think the reason I ask that question is I think a lot of people,
• 1:01:17
  when they're getting into this world of equine assisted stuff it can be daunting.
• 1:01:25
  When you realize that despite the miracles horses bring, those
• 1:01:32
  miracles might be in the moment, but they might or might not be.
• 1:01:37
  carry over.
• 1:01:38
  But at the same time, then there's a secondary set of miracles that can
• 1:01:41
  happen, where there's almost like a gestation period or a myelination
• 1:01:45
  period, where those resilience tools that the horses gave then can
• 1:01:50
  sort of resurface at a later date.
• 1:01:51
  And I think That's perhaps something that's not talked about very much.
• 1:01:54
  We tend to think in terms of, you know, six month follow ups or a year follow up.
• 1:01:58
  And that actually brings me a bit more to your personal story, because
• 1:02:01
  you, you know, yourself have told me a little bit about how you
• 1:02:04
  got into this in the first place.
• 1:02:06
  And none of us, or very few of us, I think, get into this kind of
• 1:02:10
  work, because we wake up at six.
• 1:02:13
  You know, years old going, I want to be an equine, you know, psychotherapist
• 1:02:17
  or me going, I want to run, you know, do this horse boy thing.
• 1:02:20
  And it's not like that at all.
• 1:02:21
  I, as everyone knows, you know, fell into it.
• 1:02:25
  Because my, of my son and stumbled into something that worked and then sort of
• 1:02:30
  kept doing it because why would you not?
• 1:02:33
  but I think most of us have a personal reason why and we also know that we
• 1:02:40
  are ourselves the metaphors of going of the ups and downs of life and The
• 1:02:46
  consistency of horses in our lives and nature in our lives, you know is what
• 1:02:51
  Keeps us thriving, not just surviving.
• 1:02:55
  Talk to us about you.
• 1:02:57
  What brought you to Lunderhagen?
• 1:02:59
  Take us back to your girlhood.
• 1:03:01
  You've told me stories of being up on them in the mountain with your horse
• 1:03:07
  Really in the wilds as a young girl.
• 1:03:09
  Why what took you there?
• 1:03:11
  What are you looking for?
• 1:03:13
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, you know, I could I could talk about that.
• 1:03:16
  I was always curious about nature and I loved being with animals.
• 1:03:20
  I was crazy about horses from age of two and I came from
• 1:03:24
  absolutely no horse family.
• 1:03:27
  And I grew up with a single mom and she was she had She had her own struggles and
• 1:03:32
  she was working a lot and we were moving a lot and somehow I found it really hard
• 1:03:36
  to sort of fit in, adjust to my family and to whatever place I was moving here
• 1:03:45
  and there and hoping to find something and also with extreme amount of energy.
• 1:03:51
  And just the other day I was added on Facebook, you know, this new
• 1:03:55
  thing on the internet by a woman.
• 1:04:00
  Who, who lived in the same city as me when I was like, maybe 13 or 14.
• 1:04:05
  And all of these memories came back because.
• 1:04:08
  She was, she's grown up to be this beautiful, very nice, she's a politician
• 1:04:14
  or advisor for politics or something.
• 1:04:17
  And I looked at the pictures of her and her friends and I realized
• 1:04:21
  that, you know, I knew those girls.
• 1:04:23
  I knew them when I was, you know, 13, 14, 12, 15, whatever.
• 1:04:29
  And I knew a lot of really nice people at that time.
• 1:04:33
  And then I remember that once I was out riding, I had an Icelandic horse at that
• 1:04:38
  time and we were roaming everywhere, up in the mountains, out in the fields.
• 1:04:42
  And I was out riding and I met one of the guys in that group of people and I was
• 1:04:48
  talking to him and he was really nice.
• 1:04:50
  He was just being, you know, normal, polite.
• 1:04:51
  Hi, how are you doing?
• 1:04:52
  Oh, nice horse, whatever.
• 1:04:55
  And I remember a distinct feeling of I can't do this.
• 1:05:01
  I have to get away.
• 1:05:04
  And so I said, bye bye.
• 1:05:06
  And I took my horse and I rode.
• 1:05:08
  And I think it was not very long after that I moved away from home.
• 1:05:14
  And I'm, I had, I knew a lot of people in that area and they were quite nice,
• 1:05:19
  you know, quite nice group of people, but there was something inside of me.
• 1:05:24
  It was not them, but it was something inside of me that was really, upset.
• 1:05:29
  And of course, throughout my life, I've been working a lot
• 1:05:32
  with what's going on in my life.
• 1:05:34
  And I know that, you know, this turbulent childhood of my mom and dad
• 1:05:40
  splitting up and my mom having a lot of work and having a lot of her own
• 1:05:45
  struggles, very complicated relationship and my dad not being present at all.
• 1:05:50
  And somehow inside of me that made some very strong feeling of
• 1:05:55
  not belonging anywhere, I think.
• 1:05:58
  But the stables, I always belonged in the stables.
• 1:06:02
  Wherever I could find a horse, I would feel that I belonged somewhere.
• 1:06:06
  And what I know from, you know, theory of attachment is that it's when you
• 1:06:11
  feel belonged and understood that you start to develop the capacity
• 1:06:15
  to mentalize, understand what's going on inside of other people.
• 1:06:20
  And you start to develop the capacity for empathy.
• 1:06:23
  So I think that, you know, my.
• 1:06:27
  My attraction to the horses and to the stables became
• 1:06:30
  my sort of safe, safe place.
• 1:06:34
  And also, you know, going back to the psychotherapeutic literature and listening
• 1:06:37
  to Bjorn or Winnicott and listening about the The holding environment
• 1:06:43
  and the, the ability to be, to be understood and, and, um, tolerated.
• 1:06:52
  I think that, you know, me growing up in this, I think I was maybe 10 years
• 1:06:56
  old when I started living in disabled.
• 1:06:58
  And I literally grew up in the stable, you know, and when I was 17, I moved
• 1:07:02
  to Iceland to work with wild horses.
• 1:07:06
  And then I came back to Norway and I imported 24 horses from Iceland on
• 1:07:10
  an airplane, and that went completely crazy on the airport in Norway.
• 1:07:13
  So they never ever imported horses by plane to Norway after that.
• 1:07:18
  So horses became sort of a part of my family and my safe place
• 1:07:24
  and my, my, my safe place.
• 1:07:27
  my companion in life.
• 1:07:31
  And yeah, that's the place where I turn to when I'm stressed, when I have,
• 1:07:39
  when there are things going on in life, which is too difficult to deal with.
• 1:07:43
  Then I just go there and I'm, I'm lost with my animals for a while.
• 1:07:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:07:47
  You came, your mum was not horsey, single mum.
• 1:07:50
  Overwhelmed with work, her own difficulties, dad not there.
• 1:07:53
  So, okay, you find your way to stables, but how did you end up owning a horse?
• 1:07:57
  That's a more difficult thing, and that takes a little bit
• 1:08:00
  of obviously financial stuff.
• 1:08:03
  How did you find, how did you manage to put that together?
• 1:08:06
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, I do think that my mom, being overwhelmed with life, I think
• 1:08:11
  she, she had some sensible, instincts.
• 1:08:14
  I think she realized that, you know, if I, if I were just in a stable, I would
• 1:08:18
  be relatively safe and she could go off to work or whatever she needed to do.
• 1:08:23
  So when I was 10 or something, she managed to buy a small pony.
• 1:08:29
  It costs 500 euros, I think, or less.
• 1:08:32
  And I would pay quite a lot for the boarding of that pony,
• 1:08:35
  and it was completely crazy.
• 1:08:38
  Oh, I don't think I could ride him very much because he would just run.
• 1:08:41
  But we had a lot of fun nevertheless.
• 1:08:43
  And we built, you know, obstacle courses in the forest.
• 1:08:47
  And I lived there with him.
• 1:08:49
  And after a while I managed to sell him and buy this Icelandic horse.
• 1:08:53
  And I started working at an early age so that I could
• 1:08:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Right,
• 1:08:58
  Norunn Kogstad: feed them and care for them.
• 1:09:01
  And then
• 1:09:02
  Rupert Isaacson: you've talked about disappearing off into the mountains
• 1:09:07
  Norunn Kogstad: Yeah,
• 1:09:07
  Rupert Isaacson: walked a little bit with you in the mountains
• 1:09:10
  behind your house at Lunderhagen.
• 1:09:13
  It gets pretty wild pretty quick.
• 1:09:15
  So Norway, we know, it's a bit like Canada.
• 1:09:18
  You get out of a certain line of the farmland and boof, it's just
• 1:09:22
  forest and mountain and lakes.
• 1:09:26
  What did you find out there in that nature?
• 1:09:31
  And how was going in there on a horse more healing than just going in on foot?
• 1:09:40
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, it's, it's kind of interesting, you know, in this
• 1:09:44
  a little bit unsettled life getting into nature and this solid concrete.
• 1:09:53
  living environment felt very meaningful and my restlessness could,
• 1:10:01
  could sort of, you know, be useful.
• 1:10:04
  So I managed to get a dog when I was 13.
• 1:10:08
  Then I had this Icelandic horse, and I think I was 14 the first time I
• 1:10:12
  brought him into the wilderness and we And I slept under the, under the stars
• 1:10:17
  and just exploring with those two.
• 1:10:20
  And those were my, my pack, you know, we were the herd out there and he
• 1:10:24
  would be, the Icelandic pony would be even more loyal than the, the dog.
• 1:10:28
  She was a German shepherd, Norwegian moose dog mix.
• 1:10:32
  So if she was hunting, then she would be off for a couple of
• 1:10:34
  weeks and then she came back.
• 1:10:36
  But the pony here would come.
• 1:10:38
  So whenever there was this.
• 1:10:39
  area which was a little bit difficult to to rocky or something then I would let him
• 1:10:44
  loose and I will go first and I would call him and then he would find his way over
• 1:10:48
  the the wetlands or or the stony areas.
• 1:10:52
  And that was, you know, what did I find?
• 1:10:56
  I think, well, it's, oh, that's really hard to say, but somehow
• 1:11:00
  I found myself, you know, I was there with my, my little herd.
• 1:11:05
  And that was, you know, a place in the world where I belonged.
• 1:11:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, when I picture that, I picture this younger Noren
• 1:11:18
  up out there in this beautiful wilderness with this loyal pony
• 1:11:22
  and this selectively loyal dog.
• 1:11:25
  The word that springs to mind is joy.
• 1:11:29
  The joyful picture and you know, to be out there, there's the moose,
• 1:11:33
  there's the deer, there's the bears and there's the trees themselves.
• 1:11:38
  There's the berries, there's the birds, there's the insects,
• 1:11:39
  there's the, you know, it's nature.
• 1:11:43
  Exploring joyfully, as you said, that was a very nice thing that you said that that
• 1:11:46
  was where my restlessness was useful.
• 1:11:50
  And feeling useful, of course, is feeling purpose
• 1:11:54
  Norunn Kogstad: is
• 1:11:54
  Rupert Isaacson: fundamental to feeling joyful.
• 1:11:56
  And we talked about what can psychotherapy do.
• 1:12:01
  If it's alleviating suffering, and it's funny you said that as I was making a note
• 1:12:06
  saying, how does this alleviate suffering?
• 1:12:08
  And then he immediately started talking about alleviating suffering.
• 1:12:12
  I can absolutely see the joy having also experienced it myself of disappearing into
• 1:12:18
  the world, into nature with your horse.
• 1:12:20
  And although I've done it on foot and I've done it in canoes and
• 1:12:22
  I've done it in many other ways.
• 1:12:24
  And I, absolutely endorse them all as agents of joy.
• 1:12:28
  I think for those of us who are horse people, it is never more joyful
• 1:12:32
  than when we're with our horse and connecting with our horse in that way.
• 1:12:39
  When let's say I'm a patient though, and I'm coming to you and despite the fact
• 1:12:44
  that Lunderhagen is in this beautiful setting We're in standing in an indoor
• 1:12:49
  arena, or we're you know looking out into the field We're not out there in
• 1:12:52
  the wilderness the alleviating suffering.
• 1:12:56
  Here's my question.
• 1:12:56
  Where's the joy?
• 1:13:04
  Norunn Kogstad: I
• 1:13:07
  I'd say that when I bring clients to my horses whether it's into the herd
• 1:13:14
  or the horses into the indoor arena and people get to You Interact with them,
• 1:13:20
  get to know them, explore the contact.
• 1:13:24
  I think what most frequently comes up is joy.
• 1:13:30
  and this spontaneity that we allow for and encourage and this individual exploring.
• 1:13:39
  We do sort of, we do quite a lot of work at Liberty and relational work, exploring
• 1:13:44
  things together with the horse, but you also do some basic teaching that many
• 1:13:49
  clients find comforting, you know, but the teaching will always allow for individual
• 1:13:56
  exploring and different solutions.
• 1:13:59
  It's not, you have to keep your horse on the right side,
• 1:14:02
  holding this hand like that.
• 1:14:04
  It's more, we need to have this communication going where you can
• 1:14:08
  sort of, you know, convey to the horse that you need to move now, and
• 1:14:12
  we're going to move in this direction.
• 1:14:14
  And then how do we figure out a language between the two of you, you
• 1:14:17
  know, and to see some of the clients.
• 1:14:22
  dancing around with the horses.
• 1:14:23
  It's just amazing.
• 1:14:25
  So we always say that, you know, when you lead the horse from the stable or from
• 1:14:28
  the fields into the indoor arena, then remember that this, this horse is attached
• 1:14:34
  to you now, you know, through the rope.
• 1:14:35
  So you need to be really careful where you put that horse, because it's going
• 1:14:40
  to be uncomfortable for that horse.
• 1:14:42
  You cannot move away if there's a situation or another horse close to it.
• 1:14:47
  And it's fantastic how people immediately understand that.
• 1:14:50
  Okay, he's attached to me.
• 1:14:52
  It's not they're leading the horse, but the horse is attached to you.
• 1:14:55
  And they become so responsible so quickly.
• 1:14:59
  And the other day we had a group.
• 1:15:00
  And one of the guys in the group, he was completely chaotic.
• 1:15:03
  He's gonna be in court after the therapy session.
• 1:15:07
  Up and down, hysteric.
• 1:15:10
  And we were thinking, oh my god, okay, so, yeah.
• 1:15:14
  Well, go pick a horse.
• 1:15:16
  And he would find the horse, and before we could talk to him, he had put the
• 1:15:18
  halter on and turned the horse around and started walking in one direction.
• 1:15:21
  And the horse stepped on him.
• 1:15:23
  Of course.
• 1:15:23
  I mean, that happens when you're completely chaotic around a horse.
• 1:15:26
  There can easily be a human foot under a horse foot.
• 1:15:31
  He was like shocked, Oh my God, of the pain and realization that
• 1:15:38
  something is going on here and have to interact with this animal.
• 1:15:43
  And he didn't talk too much about that, but then he went into the indoor
• 1:15:47
  arena and he started doing some of the exercises that we have been practicing,
• 1:15:51
  how to communicate with this horse.
• 1:15:55
  And after a while, he definitely didn't do anything that I suggested,
• 1:15:58
  he just did it completely his way.
• 1:16:01
  Him and the horse, they found something that they were doing and they were
• 1:16:04
  completely in their own bubble.
• 1:16:06
  And then after a while, this horse had never participated in that kind
• 1:16:10
  of therapy before, so it was a little bit interesting to see how she would
• 1:16:14
  react to being a part of that therapy.
• 1:16:18
  And after a while, he would just take off the leash.
• 1:16:21
  the halter and everything, while the others were still doing their things.
• 1:16:26
  And then he would just lead his forehead onto the forehead of the horse.
• 1:16:31
  And they were standing completely silent together.
• 1:16:37
  That was a very special moment for me because I was so happy that the
• 1:16:41
  horse was allowed to participate in a therapy session like this,
• 1:16:44
  you know, and really communicating with this but the joy on his face.
• 1:16:52
  After that session, that was just, he was completely calm in his
• 1:16:57
  face and his body, and he was so filled with, this was fantastic.
• 1:17:02
  This was so much fun.
• 1:17:05
  We could communicate.
• 1:17:07
  We were there together.
• 1:17:09
  And he had no idea that the rest of the group were doing something
• 1:17:11
  completely different, you know, but the joy of this was extreme.
• 1:17:17
  And in my interviews of the young people, what comes out the most.
• 1:17:23
  It was so cool, you know, we could bring the horses along that road or
• 1:17:29
  we could walk through the obstacle course or, you know, it was so cool.
• 1:17:32
  We could talk to each other and communicate about which
• 1:17:35
  horses we wanted to include and.
• 1:17:37
  we could be together in what we're doing.
• 1:17:42
  Rupert Isaacson: I mean, taking a few notes,
• 1:17:46
  it seems that what you, you've been highlighting is specific components
• 1:17:54
  of joy, which I would like to just go over for the benefit of the listeners.
• 1:18:02
  And I want to, Nora, and I'd like you to give your two cents
• 1:18:07
  on whether you agree with this.
• 1:18:08
  So I'll pose a question.
• 1:18:11
  Is joy
• 1:18:14
  a component, a sort of composite?
• 1:18:18
  of a certain number of components.
• 1:18:22
  Because we, we, we talk about a difference between, we have the word
• 1:18:27
  happiness and we have the word joy.
• 1:18:28
  And that's to some degree interchangeable, but they're also different words.
• 1:18:31
  And I think they carry a slightly different thing.
• 1:18:34
  I think we think of happiness perhaps as
• 1:18:43
  a lower state and joy is a higher state somehow.
• 1:18:48
  So go back to you in the mountains.
• 1:18:52
  I was picturing you in the nature, and I was picturing the components of the
• 1:18:58
  nature, the trees, the animals, the birds, the insects, the flowers and the
• 1:19:01
  picture of you and the horse and the dog.
• 1:19:05
  But you said, They were my pack.
• 1:19:10
  That led me to make a little note here of a question is, which is belonging.
• 1:19:18
  And is Belonging,
• 1:19:24
  because with belonging, okay, I also wrote dancing with horses, Joy, they're
• 1:19:30
  attached to their horses and they're dancing with horses and how can that
• 1:19:32
  not make one joyful you'd think.
• 1:19:34
  But it's belonging, Joy, and then with belonging comes,
• 1:19:39
  of course, responsibility.
• 1:19:41
  You said you're attached to that horse and how quickly they
• 1:19:46
  figure a sense of responsibility.
• 1:19:50
  And of course, what's responsibility but purpose and a sort of mixture
• 1:19:55
  of a purpose and achievement.
• 1:19:59
  Are necessary components for joy
• 1:20:04
  a sort of a happy experience?
• 1:20:06
  So let's say that's being in nature with the horse, or dancing with
• 1:20:08
  the horse attached to the horse.
• 1:20:10
  But then this feeling of my pack, I and this horse, or I and
• 1:20:13
  this herd of horses, I belong.
• 1:20:18
  And now with that belonging comes a responsibility, purpose and achievement,
• 1:20:22
  and that elevates happiness to joy.
• 1:20:26
  Is something like that going on?
• 1:20:29
  Norunn Kogstad: I think you're you put, you put so many
• 1:20:32
  important components into words.
• 1:20:38
  I think the word that we, we need to include is love.
• 1:20:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Love.
• 1:20:44
  Speak to me of love.
• 1:20:47
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, when we talk about, I think love, And
• 1:20:53
  empathy needs to be important part of a good relationship and also
• 1:21:01
  a good therapeutic relationship.
• 1:21:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Someone might say, well, okay, these people come through the door.
• 1:21:17
  They don't live with you.
• 1:21:18
  They're not part of your family.
• 1:21:21
  And they're coming in a professional capacity.
• 1:21:22
  So.
• 1:21:23
  How does love come into this?
• 1:21:26
  Can you tell us that?
• 1:21:30
  Norunn Kogstad: Well,
• 1:21:33
  I think many of my clients, they say when they have met the horses
• 1:21:39
  once or twice, they say that it's so crazy, you know, I feel so filled
• 1:21:44
  with love when I leave from here.
• 1:21:49
  And I think that in talk therapy, what I aim at, I mean, it's really
• 1:21:55
  important to work with people that you also feel a certain match with,
• 1:22:00
  because I need to care for my patients.
• 1:22:04
  I need to really be in tuned into and to, you know, activate my
• 1:22:10
  empathy and my mentalization skills.
• 1:22:13
  and my ability to tune into their suffering without judgment,
• 1:22:21
  without becoming, you know, some sort of condemning figure.
• 1:22:27
  And I think that's a major part of love.
• 1:22:31
  And I do think that somehow people when they meet the horses and they
• 1:22:36
  can feel them physically, oxytocin, you know, social bonding relations
• 1:22:42
  being responded to, they quite easily feel connected to, to, to love and
• 1:22:51
  relationship and understanding and care.
• 1:22:54
  And I think that's a huge component and it's very empowering, you know?
• 1:23:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:23:03
  You know, you were, you were, we were talking perhaps 30 minutes ago
• 1:23:08
  about Well, if someone is, what is it about the presence of horses?
• 1:23:16
  Is it their physical beauty?
• 1:23:17
  What is it?
• 1:23:19
  But I think you've hit on something there, where I think all, all, all
• 1:23:25
  beings embody love, because love is actually what the universe is
• 1:23:29
  composed of, at least I believe that.
• 1:23:33
  I think, though, that horses embody it in a way that speaks to the
• 1:23:37
  human in a very particular way.
• 1:23:41
  Because you say, well, why not a dog?
• 1:23:42
  Dogs are full of love.
• 1:23:43
  You know, they offer us love.
• 1:23:44
  That's why we keep, you know, that's why we have them, really.
• 1:23:47
  These days.
• 1:23:51
  It seems though that horses, they have this thing where they
• 1:23:54
  stand apart from us, as you said, the dog comes, wants to please.
• 1:23:58
  And actually we know horses kind of want to please as
• 1:24:00
  well, but it's not as obvious.
• 1:24:03
  So perhaps it's this feeling of being accepted and therefore perhaps loved
• 1:24:09
  by something that's independent.
• 1:24:12
  Of one and beautiful and iconic horses are beautiful and iconic.
• 1:24:16
  So it's almost like being accepted and loved by the best looking person in the
• 1:24:19
  room sort of thing, who is so glamorous and is so interesting and is so and
• 1:24:25
  wow, they've accepted me, little old me, you know, gosh, that makes me feel
• 1:24:30
  joyful and that makes me feel loved.
• 1:24:32
  And whether or not that's actually going on in the horse's brain, or
• 1:24:36
  not doesn't matter in terms of the effect that it has on the human.
• 1:24:41
  Norunn Kogstad: Not only that they feel love, but by feeling understood.
• 1:24:46
  and accepted, they feel love for the other.
• 1:24:50
  And I think that's the most healing part.
• 1:24:54
  Rupert Isaacson: So that brings us, of course, to the horse themselves.
• 1:24:59
  For a horse to offer well being, a horse must have well being.
• 1:25:04
  For a human to offer well being to another human or to a horse, the human
• 1:25:08
  must have well being, self care, welfare.
• 1:25:12
  One of the things I've noticed when I've come to Lunderhagen
• 1:25:15
  is the horses look fabulous.
• 1:25:18
  What do I mean by that?
• 1:25:20
  They've got top lines they're muscled, they are supple.
• 1:25:26
  Their coats are shining.
• 1:25:29
  They're happy when they interact with each other.
• 1:25:34
  I'm working with a hospital in a country I won't disclose because the
• 1:25:39
  And they have a, they have a small equine program to a mental hospital.
• 1:25:46
  And they want, they know they need to change, but They're having
• 1:25:49
  trouble figuring out how, and we're trying to help them with that.
• 1:25:52
  And it's pretty clear the horses do not have any well being.
• 1:25:55
  They're sad looking and sad acting.
• 1:25:59
  Yours are not.
• 1:26:00
  They look physically fabulous.
• 1:26:02
  Like I say, they're muscle, they're real athletes.
• 1:26:05
  You, they come into the presence like, Hey, yeah, what's shaking?
• 1:26:11
  What do you do?
• 1:26:12
  How do you?
• 1:26:13
  For those people who are out there running programs, I think everyone would like to
• 1:26:19
  have horses that look and act like that.
• 1:26:21
  So what's the Lunderhagen way?
• 1:26:22
  Tell us, tell us your program for your horse welfare and well being.
• 1:26:27
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, that's extraordinarily
• 1:26:30
  kind of you to say, and it makes me very happy that you say that.
• 1:26:33
  Well,
• 1:26:35
  for psychotherapeutic reasons, you know, when I include horses into to therapy
• 1:26:43
  I think it's really a good idea to include horses because they are horses
• 1:26:48
  and to be really clear about why we would like to include horses instead of, you
• 1:26:52
  know, dogs or camels or wheelbarrows or, you know, instruments or something.
• 1:26:57
  Which I think can be fantastic, all of them.
• 1:26:59
  And for me, the, the relational kind of work that I do in psychotherapy,
• 1:27:05
  there is You have the behavioral kind of work and the cognitive therapies and
• 1:27:09
  the interventional kind of therapies.
• 1:27:10
  And then you have more of the relational kind of work that we've been
• 1:27:13
  talking about what's going on inside of me when I'm together with you.
• 1:27:15
  And how do we work with the empathy and the mentalization capacity and
• 1:27:20
  development of functional strategies to get what you need in life.
• 1:27:23
  But we also have sort of the conflict level.
• 1:27:26
  So what's going on inside of you.
• 1:27:28
  What kind of defeat self defeating sort of systems and programs and
• 1:27:31
  stuff and whatever are you doing, and I mean, I'm in both of those, I work
• 1:27:36
  in the relational, you know, field and I work in the conflict field.
• 1:27:40
  And when considering relational work.
• 1:27:43
  It's super important that we.
• 1:27:46
  include the horses into the relational work as well.
• 1:27:51
  If I'm not treating my horses as a sentient being, how am I going to
• 1:27:56
  expect my clients to learn about relational real work of what's going on?
• 1:28:04
  Which means number one, I need to know my horses.
• 1:28:07
  I need to have people on team who really knows horses.
• 1:28:10
  I can really be open minded.
• 1:28:12
  Like we talk about, you know, having the knowledge to be really curious, having
• 1:28:16
  the, being humble enough to say that we might be wrong, we're exploring this.
• 1:28:21
  And we need to sort of accept.
• 1:28:25
  that something is going on here and we don't always know what's going on
• 1:28:29
  and we need to understand that each horse is a individual on its own with
• 1:28:34
  its own needs, history, background, you know, personality, and so on.
• 1:28:38
  But to strive for the most knowledge available about horses and our horses,
• 1:28:44
  we is essential for good psychotherapy.
• 1:28:48
  Because when we're doing, when we're observing horses and people are,
• 1:28:51
  you know, all kinds of projections, metaphors, thinking about what's going
• 1:28:55
  on there in a group, one person can say, look, the horses, they hate us.
• 1:28:59
  They don't want to have anything to do with us.
• 1:29:01
  And another person will say, Oh, all of those horses are so cute.
• 1:29:04
  They really want to hang out with us.
• 1:29:06
  One person will say that horse, he's really, you know, very, very, Narcissistic
• 1:29:11
  and disgusting and he has so many opinions about things and another
• 1:29:15
  person will say, Oh, look at that horse.
• 1:29:17
  Maybe, I think maybe he has, you know, pain somewhere.
• 1:29:20
  So we immediately get so much metaphors and so much projections and so much
• 1:29:25
  thinkings about what they see, which will immediately inform us about how
• 1:29:31
  do they sort of operate in the world.
• 1:29:34
  And how can I understand the way you approach other living beings, you know,
• 1:29:38
  but if I don't have the capacity to, in my head at the same time, be a part of what
• 1:29:43
  they're experiencing and silently also be able to observe the horses for, you know,
• 1:29:50
  what's going on out there, then I think we are prone to go into the enactment of
• 1:29:57
  the pathological structure of our clients.
• 1:30:00
  So to provide the best practice possible, good horse knowledge is
• 1:30:05
  essential in my world when you work in a relational kind of setting.
• 1:30:10
  And that's sort of the, the main goal for the interaction and the structure.
• 1:30:15
  And when, when we work in that world, then each horse becomes really
• 1:30:18
  important and each horse physical needs.
• 1:30:22
  So I think that, you know, for some of our horses that are actual able
• 1:30:28
  to go back to back in sessions for six hours in a day, it's amazing.
• 1:30:35
  It's quite demanding, but, but some of them are really able to do that.
• 1:30:39
  Then I need to provide them with a.
• 1:30:41
  Surrounding in a life that makes them able to do that because they're
• 1:30:44
  my best colleagues, you know, and then some of our horses, they can
• 1:30:47
  do one, maybe two sessions a week, if not, they're going to check out.
• 1:30:53
  So we encourage our horses to say no.
• 1:30:56
  We encourage our horses to opt out.
• 1:30:58
  And our clients, they love that.
• 1:31:01
  When they come and they choose three horses and one of the horses
• 1:31:03
  says, not today, no, thank you.
• 1:31:05
  And we say, Oh, I think he said, Nate, no, thank you today.
• 1:31:07
  Let's take another one.
• 1:31:08
  And they're like, Oh, it's so fantastic to see.
• 1:31:11
  He can say no.
• 1:31:12
  Oh my God.
• 1:31:13
  Maybe I can say no too.
• 1:31:15
  That's wonderful.
• 1:31:16
  So, so that's a huge major part of how we interact with our horses,
• 1:31:22
  but then it's, it's, it's hard to do all these sessions back to back.
• 1:31:26
  So they need to have physical strength as well.
• 1:31:29
  And I've learned a lot from you, Rupert, of course, and I'm really
• 1:31:31
  inspired by, by your thinking of the, the physical needs of the horses.
• 1:31:36
  We've always been sort of concerned with physical needs of the horses, that they
• 1:31:41
  need to be, you know, at the medium level of physical strength and that their body
• 1:31:45
  needs to be sort Okay, arranged, but we have placed even more emphasis on that the
• 1:31:52
  last few years and also the way of working with them that we're always considering,
• 1:31:59
  you know, what do they think about this?
• 1:32:01
  How can we show them?
• 1:32:02
  And what we see is, of course, that whenever we give the horses choice and
• 1:32:05
  we show them what we want, then they have a tendency to say, yes, I'll do that.
• 1:32:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you talk us through the basic weekly.
• 1:32:15
  Program that for mental and physical well being that you have for your
• 1:32:20
  horses because you've got a variety of different horses you've got everything
• 1:32:22
  from fancy ish warm bloods there to you know, good working Fjords and Icelandic
• 1:32:29
  ponies and minis and you got you got all sorts there and different types
• 1:32:34
  different needs and you've got some really happy old seniors who are still
• 1:32:41
  feeling pretty good in themselves.
• 1:32:43
  So, but there's a common denominator in how you're approaching how they're
• 1:32:49
  living and what they're doing and how they're worked out physically
• 1:32:51
  and how they're worked out mentally.
• 1:32:53
  Talk us through the living conditions and talk us through the
• 1:32:57
  physical workouts that they do.
• 1:32:59
  Norunn Kogstad: So all of our horses live in herds.
• 1:33:02
  And our herds are now divided on the basis of, you know,
• 1:33:05
  their needs, nutritional needs.
• 1:33:07
  We have some horses, fjords, they don't need food.
• 1:33:11
  They rock, that's
• 1:33:12
  Rupert Isaacson: true, yeah.
• 1:33:14
  Norunn Kogstad: Then we have some warbloods and some ponies that need,
• 1:33:17
  you know, unlimited amount of food.
• 1:33:20
  So right now they're divided into two herds of needing food, not needing food.
• 1:33:24
  And then they live outdoors in big, As big as possible areas.
• 1:33:28
  Maybe it could be bigger always, but we try to give them a variety of of areas to
• 1:33:33
  explore and they have good sleeping areas.
• 1:33:37
  And of course, hot water in the winter.
• 1:33:39
  And so, and then all of them are trained physically either on a treadmill or
• 1:33:45
  in groundwork, dressage or out in the forest at least three times a week.
• 1:33:51
  Rupert Isaacson: When you say treadmill, do you mean a water treadmill, like a Yes,
• 1:33:54
  Norunn Kogstad: yes, we have a rehabilitation facility
• 1:33:57
  for horses on our farm.
• 1:33:59
  So there's a separate program, another person leading that program.
• 1:34:04
  A horse rehab,
• 1:34:05
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 1:34:06
  Norunn Kogstad: So,
• 1:34:07
  Rupert Isaacson: those are
• 1:34:07
  Norunn Kogstad: our horses that need to have some more You mentioned
• 1:34:09
  Rupert Isaacson: groundwork, what kind of, and dressage, what kind of
• 1:34:12
  groundwork and dressage are they doing?
• 1:34:14
  Norunn Kogstad: Well, we start off with all of our horses doing a
• 1:34:17
  basic of relational based natural horsemanship groundwork so that they
• 1:34:22
  learn, you know, the basic yields, the basic pressure and release.
• 1:34:27
  And they learn sort of, basic manners that we really need horses to, to know.
• 1:34:33
  So skills, basic skills that they need to know and, and basic skills of how to be
• 1:34:40
  mounted and to some basic desensitization or how to deal with stress and stuff.
• 1:34:47
  And then we proceed to do basic groundwork from the now from the classical
• 1:34:52
  dressage, very much inspired by youth.
• 1:34:54
  From before, I've done quite a lot of basic groundwork from classical
• 1:34:58
  or academic dressage, but we sort of upped that work a little
• 1:35:01
  bit to make it a little bit more efficient when it comes to building.
• 1:35:05
  muscles and body structure really, because the work that I've done
• 1:35:10
  mostly before is fantastic for building relaxation and suppleness.
• 1:35:15
  But I think incorporating a little bit more of the active groundwork makes can
• 1:35:21
  help our horses build even more muscles.
• 1:35:24
  And then, so they do that for about three times a week.
• 1:35:28
  Some of the horses they do jumping without the rider.
• 1:35:31
  So some sort of free jumping.
• 1:35:32
  a couple of times a week, especially during the winters.
• 1:35:35
  In the summers, they tend to just want to sleep when they come
• 1:35:38
  into the shadow in Lindorene.
• 1:35:40
  And then all of our horses participate in some sort of
• 1:35:44
  ridden lessons or instructors.
• 1:35:47
  instructions and so.
• 1:35:48
  We also have a kids riding school on Thursdays, where we do lessons with kids
• 1:35:54
  where they learn to interact with the horses in a, in a more relational way.
• 1:35:58
  And they communicate with the horses with their energy and, and asking
• 1:36:01
  them things in a very nice way.
• 1:36:03
  And kids love it.
• 1:36:03
  You know, they think it's fantastic when I can start to stop a horse
• 1:36:06
  without pulling the reins and so on.
• 1:36:08
  They have a lot of fun doing cool things and they do.
• 1:36:11
  Some trails and we do some working quotation or amount of games things
• 1:36:15
  so that they get, you know, accustomed to a lot of things going on on
• 1:36:19
  them around them and with them, and with different kind of populations.
• 1:36:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned what you're talking
• 1:36:26
  about here is like a full variety of work, and I think that this is
• 1:36:31
  something which is often neglected.
• 1:36:34
  People often.
• 1:36:35
  We often all of us often over specialize in many areas of our lives And I think
• 1:36:39
  that can end up we can end up projecting that onto our horses And we we know that
• 1:36:44
  we actually like variety in our lives and sense as a purpose But we often say
• 1:36:49
  well I'm a this kind of rider or I'm a that kind of groundwork and then you just
• 1:36:53
  sort of endlessly do that same thing with The horse and they get bored What I like
• 1:36:59
  about what you're saying there is that is that variety they get to live in herds.
• 1:37:03
  Okay, great.
• 1:37:03
  They get to live outside.
• 1:37:04
  Great.
• 1:37:05
  And we also know that's not available to everybody.
• 1:37:07
  So I don't want people to feel bad if they have to keep their horses
• 1:37:10
  in a public stable in boxes or what.
• 1:37:12
  Then it's about making it as good as we can.
• 1:37:14
  But definitely herd structures and living outside is, is,
• 1:37:18
  you know, you have that down.
• 1:37:20
  And you talked about the free jumping as well as the classical work.
• 1:37:23
  And with that, of course, one observes a lot of joy.
• 1:37:25
  Horses basically having a laugh running around what we call crazy time.
• 1:37:30
  I think that's so often neglected.
• 1:37:31
  And again, the trail riding as part of that, you know, outside exploring, brain
• 1:37:36
  building, puzzle solving, going over different types of ground and just being
• 1:37:40
  out there in the, in the environment that the organism is designed to be in.
• 1:37:45
  But I, you know, I've observed your, the way in which you bring that into
• 1:37:51
  working with the clients at the same time.
• 1:37:52
  And I think that's the key.
• 1:37:54
  I think.
• 1:37:56
  So many programs end up in a stressful time conflict where, where am I, how am I
• 1:38:02
  going to find time to condition my horses?
• 1:38:04
  And I see what you've done at Lunderhagen is you've really
• 1:38:09
  figured out how to integrate.
• 1:38:12
  The conditioning of the horse into the sessions with the client.
• 1:38:15
  So the horses are getting their needs met at the same time, which
• 1:38:19
  takes that time conflict out.
• 1:38:21
  I know that you have to leave quite soon and I think a lot of people
• 1:38:25
  would like to learn from Lundehagen.
• 1:38:27
  By the way, they're leaving quite soon so that she can go off and be
• 1:38:30
  with her research advisor for the PhD that will soon be coming out
• 1:38:34
  of Lunderhagen, so that's great.
• 1:38:36
  So I don't want to keep you too much.
• 1:38:37
  How do people contact you and can they come to Lunderhagen and learn?
• 1:38:42
  And I also know that you, every couple of years, you do like a a Congress, like
• 1:38:46
  a, you know, conference there overlooking the lake with different horse people
• 1:38:51
  coming in from all over the world.
• 1:38:53
  Can you tell us, how do people contact you?
• 1:38:55
  How do they come and learn from you?
• 1:38:58
  What do they, what do they need to know?
• 1:39:00
  Norunn Kogstad: So we have a homepage called lundahagen.
• 1:39:02
  no and you are more than welcome to contact me anytime.
• 1:39:07
  The email is post at lundahagen.
• 1:39:09
  no.
• 1:39:09
  Just ask me if there's any questions.
• 1:39:11
  Yeah, the question
• 1:39:12
  Rupert Isaacson: is, you just said that and it sounded like Norwegian.
• 1:39:15
  So can you give us the website and the, and the and the email
• 1:39:21
  in dumbed down English for people like me, what taught London in it.
• 1:39:27
  Norunn Kogstad: So, the webpage is
• 1:39:32
  Lundehagen,
• 1:39:33
  Rupert Isaacson: L U N D E H A G E N, Lundehagen dot N O,
• 1:39:40
  Norunn Kogstad: yes, and the mail is POST, P O S T, at
• 1:39:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Lundehagen.
• 1:39:50
  Norunn Kogstad: Lundiehagen.
• 1:39:50
  no.
• 1:39:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:39:51
  Post that.
• 1:39:52
  So
• 1:39:52
  Norunn Kogstad: contact me anytime.
• 1:39:53
  Yeah.
• 1:39:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:39:54
  Norunn Kogstad: And
• 1:39:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Go ahead.
• 1:39:55
  So, so, so this conference and coming for courses and learning?
• 1:40:00
  Norunn Kogstad: Yes, we do offer courses.
• 1:40:02
  We have a fundamentals for including horses into services, and then we have
• 1:40:06
  the horse in therapy certification for the horse expert or the people, a person
• 1:40:11
  on the horse, which is dealing with the horses, which is a three level model
• 1:40:15
  together with ethologist Emily Kielsen.
• 1:40:18
  And then we also offer the, the heel, both the workshop, three
• 1:40:22
  day workshop and education.
• 1:40:24
  And next year we'll be coming up with the Lundahagen protocol for interventions
• 1:40:29
  with, with the horses in psychotherapy.
• 1:40:32
  And we, in last year, 2023, we did the seminar on psychotherapy with
• 1:40:38
  horses and a knowledge of the horse.
• 1:40:40
  And in 2026, we will do the next seminar where we're doing the attachment and
• 1:40:48
  personality structure from the horse perspective and from human perspective.
• 1:40:53
  So, welcome!
• 1:40:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Lots to come and learn.
• 1:40:57
  And for listeners don't be worried that it's in a foreign country.
• 1:41:00
  For some reason, Scandinavian people all learn to be bilingual really,
• 1:41:06
  really early, putting us to shame.
• 1:41:09
  We are lazy English speakers.
• 1:41:11
  But what it means is if you're an English speaker and you go up there, everyone
• 1:41:14
  teaching you will be fully bilingual.
• 1:41:16
  It's
• 1:41:16
  Norunn Kogstad: going to be really hard to learn Norwegian because everybody
• 1:41:19
  is going to want to talk English.
• 1:41:22
  Rupert Isaacson: And they speak English better than we do.
• 1:41:23
  So actually I can go to Norway and learn English, which is great.
• 1:41:28
  It's worth going up there.
• 1:41:29
  The approach I think is somewhat revolutionary.
• 1:41:34
  I think a lot of us.
• 1:41:35
  Down here have a lot to learn.
• 1:41:37
  So I'm encouraging you listeners to look into flights to Oslo because Lundehagen
• 1:41:43
  is not only just a beautiful place to hang out and find love and belonging,
• 1:41:48
  but it's also a place to learn everything from classical stuff to natural
• 1:41:54
  horsemanship, to psychotherapy, to.
• 1:41:59
  And
• 1:42:01
  Norunn Kogstad: we hope to have you here soon as well, Rupert.
• 1:42:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, you know, I'll, I'll use any excuse to come back.
• 1:42:07
  It's magical there.
• 1:42:09
  But thank you for creating magic for people with horses.
• 1:42:12
  Thank you for explaining to us.
• 1:42:15
  Psychotherapy and equine psychotherapy.
• 1:42:17
  Thank you for giving us insights into what creates joy.
• 1:42:21
  Thank you for sharing your story and you know, I hope to have you on again.
• 1:42:25
  Maybe we could go into some more depth about some of the issues that
• 1:42:28
  we could only touch on this time.
• 1:42:30
  Thank you.
• 1:42:30
  I'd
• 1:42:31
  Norunn Kogstad: love to.
• 1:42:31
  I'd love to.
• 1:42:32
  Thank you so very much, Rupert.
• 1:42:34
  So very much for creating this.
• 1:42:36
  Rupert Isaacson: So run off and do your research and
• 1:42:38
  Norunn Kogstad: I will.
• 1:42:39
  And give my love to your family.
• 1:42:41
  Rupert Isaacson: I will.
• 1:42:41
  And tell your research, uh, supervisor Charlotte.
• 1:42:45
  Greetings from me 'cause she's also another genius.
• 1:42:47
  Norunn Kogstad: Okay.
• 1:42:48
  Thank you so much.
• 1:42:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Bye-bye.
• 1:42:49
  Take care.
• 1:42:50
  Norunn Kogstad: Bye-bye.
• 1:42:51
  Rupert Isaacson: thank you for joining us.
• 1:42:52
  We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
• 1:42:54
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• 1:42:59
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