The Equine Psychotherapy Institute

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Working with Anxiety & Depression

 

Understanding and Working with Anxiety & Depression IN EAP / EAL practice

This four-day workshop (2 days on anxiety and 2 days on depression) will provide an overview of working with depression and anxiety in the context of the EPI model of equine assisted psychotherapy and equine assisted personal development (learning).

animal assisted therapy dog

Who is this training for?

This training is for you if you have already completed our EAL or EAP training, and you personally or professionally wish to deepen your understanding and practice in working with clients with anxiety and depression.

ecotherapy plant

How is the training delivered?

The program is delivered LIVE Online, via Zoom from our EPI HQ near Daylesford in Victoria.

This 4-day intensive will use a mixture of didactic teaching, discussion, demonstrations, equine experiential exercises to make the concepts and methods more intimate.

ecotherapy gumnut

What are the Learning Objectives?

  • Learn relevant Trauma, Neuroscience, Cognitive Behavioural, Internal Family Systems and Experiential theory and practice in working with clients with anxiety and depression, in the context of equine assisted practice.

  • Understanding the five main anxiety diagnoses – PTSD, Panic, generalized anxiety, Social Phobia and OCD.

  • Understand the common underlying aetiology and drivers of anxiety and depression that often live in the ground behind the figure of anxiety and depression. This may include identifying the shame dynamics, trauma, fixed meaning making and identities, and unresolved attachment issues that can fuel the development of anxiety and depression.

  • Utilise polyvagal theory to understand, treat and identify a client’s nervous system/ state and how this often underpins clients’ symptoms of depression and anxiety.

  • Use ‘parts of self’ language as a map and treatment tool to effectively work with and heal protective and disowned parts of self.

  • Understand how to help clients re-frame and de-pathologize their relationship to anxiety and depression in a way that reduces its perpetuation.

  • Learn a helpful 5-step process to help clients learn to regulate, resource, accept and deepen their understanding of their symptoms in a way that supports change.

  • Understand how horses and the horse-human bond can support and transform stuck and dysregulated moods and nervous system states that drive depression and anxiety.

  • Learn Equine Assisted experiments and practices that support these therapeutic goals.

What is the Investment?

3 Days Training $900 plus GST

Why Train with Us?

We are an established training organisation and have been successfully training hundreds of practitioners since 2011. Our standard of training is high and we are celebrating our 10th year of training in equine / animal assisted practice!

We have a unique approach. Our EPI Model is a psychotherapy model, that is fundamentally founded on ethical practice. Our faculty is highly qualified and experienced in Psychotherapy and EAP / EAL and AAP/ AAL, and live and breathe this work.

This training program is designed to support you as a practitioner to be personally and professionally competent in working with horses and humans for the purpose of human growth, development and healing, where the horses are honoured as teacher, assistant and co-facilitator.

We will support and challenge you to grow and feel ‘held’ as you grow into grounded and authentic practitioners.

As a graduate of our foundation and advanced training, you can choose to join our EPI community of practitioners and get access to ongoing support, supervision and advanced, high quality specialist psychotherapy training.

Who is our trainer?

This advanced training is facilitated by one of our senior trainers, Noel Harburger.

Noel Haarburger
Noel Haarburger, BBSc, BEd(Counselling), Adv Dip Gestalt Therapy, ClinMGANZ, MAPS is a faculty member and trainer at GTA (Gestalt Therapy Australia), and works in full time private practice as a Psychologist (20 yrs registration), and Psychotherapist working with individuals and couples, as well as offering supervision and running workshops to allied health professionals and organizations.

Since 1995, Noel has worked extensively in a wide variety of counselling and psychological services including youth justice, family counselling, drug and alcohol, sexual assault, problematic gambling, men’s behavioural change programs, and the mental health fields.

Noel has a special interest in Trauma and Body Work, as well as integrating developmental/attachment perspectives, Buddhist psychology and non-dual spiritual approaches into his work. He is a certified ‘Somatic Experiencing’ practitioner, which utilises highly effective and safe body awareness methods for negotiating and releasing trauma, developed by Peter Levine. Noel is also an ongoing student of the ‘Diamond Heart approach’, a western psycho-spiritual school that integrates mindfulness, western depth psychology, Sufism and Buddhist approaches to personal and spiritual development.

Noel is excited about the human-animal connection and the power of animal assisted psychotherapy in his practice.