One reason therapy of any kind is so reparative is because it give our nervous system a different response than it was expecting. Let’s say that you come in to chat about a trauma you’ve experienced in the past and the therapist provides the opposite experience for you as you retell it by being nurturing, believing, and not swept up in their own story about it. This allows your nervous system to process the attachment trauma of not being heard, believed, or attuned to the first time during the trauma in the past. This works even better when your partnered in session with a horse because of their great ability to attune to us!
Experts like Dr. Purvis and Dr. Cross state that parents of kids who have attachment wounds are supposed to be like therapist in their home to make those brain pathways needed. You can use this therapy tool of providing a different experience in your home to heal attachment trauma! When you see your child in stress, ask yourself “When my child was a baby what was the response to this experience for them?” If you know they were neglected, respond with attention and care. If you know they were abused, have an extra calm and nurturing response. This is also why TBRI prioritizes connection, giving voice, choices and other amazing tools. However… this does take special X-Ray vision to see beneath the sass of a 14 year old who feels their needs are not being met because you won’t give them their phone. This doesn’t mean give in, it means respond with meeting their regulation need. Empathize with how hard it is for them and sit with them while they calm (you are actually empathetic and calm because you can see this is a “baby” need not met). And just like that.. boom! You created a pathway to override the old neglect and dysregulated one! Hard stuff though right?? I hear ya… What if I told you that you don’t need to be a therapist or perfect to do this though! Research from Dr. Susan Woodhouse in 2019 states that parents of infants need to “get it right” about 50% of the time when responding to their child. We are parenting kids with brains like infants in many ways. This means we don’t have to be perfect, but we do have less leeway than children not impacted by attachment trauma, which research states is about 33% of the time of parents needing to be “good enough.” However if you do find you are swept up in your own “stuff” more than half of the time, that is a good barometer to you knowing when you need your own therapeutic support. Though maybe not as severe, we are all impacted by our own attachment wounds too! If you want to learn all the awesome TBRI tools that also heal attachment wounds, consider attending the simulcast I am hosting! Details are on this page. If you need any support with applying this in your home feel free to send me an email! [email protected]
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 Reunification is a word every foster family knows. It is the goal of foster care to bring biological families back together, or reunify, if possible. This happened at our ranch last week. My sister recently moved to the country and worked to put up fences this year to take her horse, Peppy, home. We had been “fostering” Peppy and planned to for as long as she needed. In my mind I thought of the wonderful therapeutic work that could be done with the families I choose to serve, foster and adoptive families, when Peppy returned home. It could help my future clients to work through their issues with grief, loss, and attachment when separated. Well I was wrong and it turns out maybe I was the one who needs the lesson? I am a foster parent on this journey as well trying to balance loving someone fully yet knowing they will leave. This foster care experience really throws this lesson at you but really all parents (and people) have to balance this very same thing eventually. We don’t know how many days we have to love a child, parent, friend... or horse. We have to fully and wholeheartedly love who we have in front of us knowing that we will lose them someday.  This is actually a skill of healthy attachment. Attachment isn’t just being right with someone all the time. You aren’t fully attached if you can’t feel safe being apart. In my training through Natural Lifemanship, the model of therapy we use at Wholehearted Herd Counseling, this is called connection through detachment. If you think about it this makes sense that you don’t have a healthy and secure attachment if you can’t be apart and trust that the other person won’t do something to hurt you or never return. We develop this as young children as we venture farther from them and return to their loving embrace. We learn to feel safe doing both. Our kiddos from hard places can have issues with this and it can show up like fear at bedtime, going to school, or even being in a room without you. They did not get a chance to develop that attachment dance that wires our brain for connection and mental health. This is part of the restorative work we can do as foster parents! This is why we need to have earned secure attachment for ourselves because we can't give what we don't have. In my experience as a therapist the way that a parent has come to terms with their own attachment and history can have the biggest impact on their children.  How can this principal of being attached when apart apply to reunification in foster care? In ideal situations birth parents could allow phone calls, visits, and letters from former foster parents. We also help the children in our care learn the skills of connection through detachment by encouraging visits, conversations, and having pictures of their birth family in the home while we have them. When they return home they will have been connected to them and will have learned the skills of connection when apart from people they love. We can feel connected when apart by thinking about the next visit or writing them what is happening at home. I definitely will plan to visit Peppy at my sister’s home. Our foster daughter also had the idea of video chatting him which we did this past weekend. When Peppy heard our voices he went to look for us! It brought up sad and happy emotions for me. Peppy was also maintaining the connection in his heart too! Unfortunately for Peppy’s long-term friend Jack (pictured at the gate) he is not able to see him again and said his “goodbyes” to the trailer as it pulled away. That was equally sad to see. As nice as phone calls and visits are, we aren’t always promised the ability to have contact with our former foster kiddos who return, like Jack and Peppy. That doesn’t mean we can’t have connection. Connection is very much a internal sense. That is why this model of therapy working with the horses is so powerful. You and your child can develop a felt sense for what connection is in your own body. Thoughts, memories, and prayers connect us as well. I won’t pretend that detachment is easy for me either. I struggle to stay connected when I am apart. I can tell you that my own personal work with the horses has helped me since learning and doing this therapy work. When working with the horses you get to practice the attachment dance and work on where it may have went wrong for you to learn a new way. This leads to happier relationships, deeper connections, and more wholehearted families. Email for more information or to try it out for yourself! [email protected]
Wholehearted Herd Counseling, LLC provides trauma therapy for children and teens and family therapy focused on attachment for adoptive and foster families with the help of horses. Wholehearted Herd Counseling, LLC is an equine-assisted therapy service in the central Wisconsin, Wausau, and Antigo areas.  To the adoptive or foster mother on Mother’s Day,
Loving a child that was born to another mom daily challenges us to hold differing emotions. I’m convinced no other experience lets a person feel what “bittersweet” really means. We feel the joys of each sweet smile and laugh, yet know the hurt that also comes with the brokenness of adoption. Mother’s Day is no different. However, just because something comes from brokenness doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth noting the powerful way that you have the privilege of being in relationship with your child. Caring for boo boos, sitting outside the room of a crying teenager, watching them open the door for an elderly woman at the store, making their sister laugh, and just those genuine moments that no one other than a “real” mom can have the privilege of enjoying. You are a real mom. So is their biological mom. Mother’s day is for all. I have some ideas about how to make mother’s day special (or at the very least lessen the stress) as an adoptive or foster mom.
Wholehearted Herd Counseling is also here for you and your family. I get this on a personal and professional level and I am here. You may ask how can working with a horse in therapy help me with parenting my child? The Natural Lifemanship model of therapy we utilize helps you to work on your own attachment and ways of being with the horse in real time. This is also helpful for your children to learn relationship skills and feel what works and doesn’t in their own bodies. The focus on neurobiology and integrating your brain also will expand your ability to hold the bittersweet emotions and not be triggered. Don’t hesitate to send me email for more information or to try it out for yourself. [email protected] Wholehearted Herd Counseling, LLC provides trauma therapy for children and teens and family therapy focused on attachment for adoptive and foster families with the help of horses. Wholehearted Herd Counseling, LLC is an equine-assisted therapy service in the central Wisconsin, Wausau, and Antigo areas. |
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