Military Services

The Eagala Military Services approach utilized at A Stable Connection is based on experience and doing. Sessions re-create life experiences, including those involving frustrations, high stress and relationship problems. This provides opportunities for service members and their families to re-discover their resources and strengths to overcome obstacles in a new context of civilian life after deployment and/or military service. They can apply this experience and gain in-the-moment feedback from the horses.

When treatment is about doing it’s more engaging, and engagement increases impact. Clients experience activities with horses that remove much of the perceived stigma some associate with traditional talk therapy. Military clients repeatedly report how quickly and deeply they get to the root of their issues and experience meaningful changes when including horses as members of the treatment team.

Observing the dynamics of a herd of horses can help clients better understand the dynamics of their own family, military unit and community and provide another positive model for fostering collaboration, support and trust. The horses provide an emotionally safe way to work through and strengthen relationships in life - whether it be with others, the environment, beliefs, or themselves.

Horses offer safe reflection and compelling feedback for fears and anxieties military clients may be facing. In the hands of a skilled treatment team, the horses’ unique sensitivity can help clients understand their own internal processes more readily than hours of talk therapy.

A Stable Connection can partner with your current counselor and provide a safe environment in which to practice skills talked about in therapy.  Horses intuitively feel what you feel and can often bring to light areas in which you may be stuck. 

A Stable Connection understands the difficulty of reentry into "normal" life with family and friends. Truth is, life just no longer feels normal.  Including horses who (as prey animals) are always alert, always live in the here and now, and are always honest with their feedback can provide an engaging and solution-focused alternative for service members who value doing, action and experience.