The Man Who Mistook His Horse for a Therapist

Ride ‘em cowboy! That’s a nice slogan for yet another type of therapy. It feels like a joke. It feels like satire, but it comes to us from Fox News through the New York Post, so maybe it’s true. In fact, it’s not the first time we have heard of equine therapy.

Now, we discover a new horse therapy program, run by someone named Sabine Niederberghaus. Whatever a good horse therapist does, at the least the proprietress has gotten the therapy talking points down:

Sabine Niederberghaus started La Esperanza Ranch in Topanga Canyon, California, 27 years ago, but it wasn’t until COVID-19 hit when she decided to start the Equine Leadership Program. 

“I had time during the pandemic to think about what I was doing and to feel where my mission was going to be,” Niederberghaus told Fox News. 

She added: “When this all opened back up and I was foreseeing that people were going to get stressed and they’re going to get you know, existence problems, communication problems in the family…. I thought, you know what? I’m going to be helping some people and I hope I will help a lot of people to find to themselves their true inside, their emotions, their awareness, their energy levels.”

Existence problems; communications problems; yes, indeed. Learn how better to communicate with your friends and family, your manager and your staff, by getting in touch with what you have deep inside, your genuinely authentic emotions.

If there was a reward for how much psychobabble you can put in one sentence Niedergerghaus would be a shoo-in.

One is, however, suitably outraged to remark that the article does not say whether the horse is a licensed, credentialed professional therapist. One suspects that said horse is not licensed or credentialed.

In truth, if you want to communicate more effectively, you would do better to learn correct English grammar. One imagines that Niederberghaus is not a native English speaker, so we are not going to declare her to be illiterate, but clearly, exchanging a few meaningful neighs with a horse will not likely improve your communication skills.

The Equine Leadership Program is said to help people with depression, anxiety, trauma or other needs.

“There is CEOs that have a problem getting across to their team members, composers that have a problem concentrating on their music, or actors and actresses that’s lost the confidence in front of camera,” 

Niederberghaus said. “And it’s all because they have lost touch to themselves. And the horses are the ones that bring them back there.”

Think of that. They have lost touch “to” themselves. Well, as I have at times pointed out, if you want to get in touch with your feelings, where do you put your hands? 

Happily, we now know-- go pet a horse.

As the pandemic continues, Niederberghaus said she has seen a growing interest in her program.

“It’s beautiful to see the reactions of people,” she said. “I think that the touch to nature is another symbol that this horse reflects that brings them to me.”

The English is obviously broken. You would think that she attended some classes with that notably mentally challenged doctor of education-- Dr. Jill Biden. 

For instance, and just to brighten your day, here are a couple of lines from Dr. Jill's dissertation:

Three quarters of the class will be Caucasian; one quarter of the class will be African American…the remaining seats will be filled with students of Asian descent or non-resident aliens.

The needs of the student population are often undeserved, resulting in a student drop-out rate of almost one third."

Of the 159 students surveyed, 55 receive financial aid; 41 pay their own tuition bills; 45 students' parents pay; 3 spouses pay; 9 receive scholarships; and 9 others receive funds through the GI Bill, vocational rehabilitation programs, or grants. Thus, only one-quarter of the students are able to finance their education themselves.