WORDS MATTER
This page is dedicated to explaining some key terms and concepts that I use in my work and my writing.
TRAUMA
“Trauma represents exposure to experiences or situations that are emotionally painful and distressing, that overwhelm the ability of the individual to adapt or cope” – Rousseau, 2019
Trauma is not limited to certain events that we deem ‘traumatic’ (e.g. a car crash) – trauma is determined by the experience of the individual, and whether they have the resources to deal with the event. If they do not have the necessary resources to cope with the situation and quickly come back to feeling emotionally and physically safe, the individual is likely to suffer some form of traumatic symptoms. Traumatic symptoms can hugely impact a horse’s overall wellbeing, from their memory and cognition, to their ability to interact with others and their capacity for a felt sense of safety and joy.
ATTUNEMENT
Attunement can be defined as the process of allowing our own internal and external state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another. It is often described as ‘being seen, being heard, feeling felt and getting gotten’. All mammals need attunement to feel secure and to develop well, and throughout our lives we need attunement to feel close and connected. When we attune to another being, we are recognising and responding empathetically to their emotional state.
ETHOLOGY
Ethology is the scientific study of the behaviour of non-human animals through observation of those living in their natural environment. This can help us understand what truly normal horse behaviour looks like, helping us to identify unnatural or pathological behaviour in the domestic horse. Ethology allows us to support our horses in getting closer to the way they have evolved to live, as well as understanding how our horse’s ‘problems’ became problems in the first place. A great example of this is weaving (a tense left/right movement horses confined in stables sometimes perform). In a species-appropriate environment, horses generally graze in a left/right movement - usually near the furthest-out front hoof. Weaving is often just a horse trying to fulfil an instinctual need for a specific movement. Knowing this, instead of trying to suppress the behaviour, we can create an environment for them to express those movements in a healthy, natural way.
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For more information on this subject, I highly recommend reading 'Horses in Company' by Lucy Rees.
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
Learned helplessness refers to a state where a horse feels that they have no agency or autonomy. On the surface, this can look like obedience, but they can really be in a depressive or anhedonic state. Horses who are in a state of learned helplessness become unresponsive, withdrawn, and often lose the more extroverted, playful and curious sides of their personality.
RE-EXPERIENCING
Re-experiencing is a traumatic symptom where the individual has what could be likened to a 'flashback' of their traumatic experience, usually due to a trigger of some sort. Even though flashbacks are often associated with mental images and strong memories, re-experiencing also includes somatic, emotional and cognitive experiences. For example, Willow's entire body used to tense up and freeze whenever a person raised their hand––this is a moment of somatic re-experiencing.
CO-REGULATION
Co-regulation refers to how mammals' nervous systems respond to and reflect the nervous system states of those around them. This is where the saying of fear or laughter being 'contagious' comes from because, in some ways, they are. Co-regulation is incredibly powerful and can be a wonderful tool for supporting our horses. If we embody safety, joy, care or calmness, our horse’s nervous system receives those signals. Equally, our tense, fearful or angry internal state can influence our horse. Rather than following the old saying of ‘leaving our emotions at the gate’ (aka suppressing our emotions), we can bring awareness to them and find tools to support ourselves in feeling more calm and grounded.
OPERANT CONDITIONING
Operant Conditioning is a learning theory created by B.F. Skinner that explains how the addition or subtraction of positive or negative stimuli can influence behaviour. These different stimuli are divided into four quadrants: R+, R-, P+ and P-. I go into this topic in detail on episode seven of the How To Speak Horse podcast, which you can listen to here.
RUPTURE AND REPAIR
Rupture and Repair is a concept coined by the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott. It is a way of understanding relationships that allows the natural flows and changes that occur, rather than trying to create a dynamic that is always perfect, happy and agreeable. Whilst it is important to minimise ruptures (breaks in connection), we can also focus on how we choose to respond when they inevitably do happen - by repairing with our horses. I speak about this in more detail on the Sovereign Horse Podcast if you want to dive deeper!
PTSD AND C-PTSD
PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) refer to different ways that the after-effect of trauma can influence an individual's symptoms, emotional experience and behaviour. PTSD tends to refer to the symptoms caused by a specific traumatic experience - for example, a horse who had a traumatic hoof care experience (trimming, shoeing etc), would only exhibit traumatic symptoms when faced with a specific trigger related to that event. The rest of the time, they would be able to function as a 'normal' horse. However, an individual suffering with C-PTSD would experience traumatic symptoms in many areas of their life, due to many different and complex traumatic experiences, or one specific prolonged experience, such as ongoing neglect.
SOMATIC
Somatic simply means 'in or of the body'.