Kristen is currently certified in EAGALA, a team-based approach for equine-assisted psychotherapy. EAGALA includes a mental health professional and an equine specialist, in addition to a horse or horses, with a client or a group of clients. This model incorporates horses into treatment in an observational, facilitative way. The client is responsible for developing their own conclusions based on their experience in each session. The sessions build on one another and allow the client to work through deeper issues experimentally.

Equine-assisted psychotherapy includes a mental health professional and one horse, selected based on the client’s treatment goals and presenting issues. The client, therapist and horse will be in a round pen or an arena, working through issues in 50/50 talk therapy and experimental. Clients may interact with one or more horses and may also utilize other tools or props to externalize what’s going on in their internal world. This type of therapy is good for those individuals who may have tried talk therapy in the past and felt it was not for them, for those who have been through trauma and may benefit from animal-assisted therapy and the co-regulation it provides, and for those who may want to try a different approach rather than the traditional in-office therapy.