Healing with Horses on a small Murrells Inlet farm

On a small farm in Murrells Inlet, nearly a dozen horses – most of them with their younger days behind them – are changing young lives on a regular basis.

The farm serves as a sanctuary of sorts, a place where children in Georgetown and Horry Counties who have been through a traumatic experience, can come and begin to hope and heal.

Sue McKinney, who has worked with horses most of her life, started the Barnabas Horse Foundation several years ago.

“We are trauma focused, so we work with abused children whether it’s physical abuse or sexual abuse,” McKinney explains. “It could be trauma from having experienced domestic violence within the household whether it involved them directly or not. Some of them have witnessed things. It could be the trauma of losing a loved one, a family member to a violent act.”

Barnabas helps children, and some adults, work through some of what they’ve been through and learn to cope with the world around them, by developing a relationship with a horse. McKinney said horses are effective in helping someone who’s experienced trauma because they react to fear in the same way.

“A horse has three responses to fear – fight, flight or freeze,” McKinney said. “The same thing happens with somebody who has experienced trauma. They tend to stop thinking with their logical reasoning mind and get stuck in their brain stem where it’s pure survival mode. They think, ‘I’m going to do what I need to survive.’ That’s the way horses operate.”

Denise Brand, a licensed professional counselor, brings most of her young clients here.

“I work with a lot of teenagers, a lot of very tough teenagers who have been through more than we can imagine,” Brand said. “They have trouble with relationships, boundary and trust issues, and horses will often mirror what we feel.”

She says she’s watched many of these teenagers make surprising breakthroughs much earlier than they would otherwise.

“I can sit in my office with them or I can come here with them for an hour and get more from them (in terms of growth and insight) than I can in probably six sessions in my office. And I’m not exaggerating.”

Brand is one of three area counselors who work with Barnabas.

“It’s a team approach,” McKinney explains. “You have your horse, you have your Equine Specialist, and then you have your therapist. And we work hand-in-hand with the therapist to find out what they are looking to draw out of their client.”

On the first visit the child or “client” meets all of the horses, then picks the one he or she wants to work with on a regular basis. Horses, like people, have different personalities. McKinney says it’s interesting to see how often a person is drawn to a horse with similar issues.

Kelli Adams, an equine specialist and Barnabas board member, remembers a young boy who was severely beaten at an early age and came to the farm as an 11- or 12-year-old after getting in trouble at school for aggressiveness and anger issues.

“When it came time to choose a horse, this young man chose a horse that also came from an abused situation,” Adams said. “And he didn’t know that. He just said, ‘There’s something about Charlie that makes me feel like I want to show him that not all people are bad.’”

There are other examples, too, like that of a woman dealing with the loss of a husband who chose a horse who’d also just lost a pasture-mate, a young girl with a disfigurement who selected a horse with a scar, and another who picked a free-spirited horse that reminded her of her mother who had recently died.

Once a horse is chosen, the process of building a friendship begins.

“We do a program called relationship logic where we teach you to apply the right amount of pressure to be in a relationship,” says McKinney. “Different horses require a different amount of pressure. You learn to apply pressure, when you get the desired response, you back the pressure off.”

It’s similar to a “give and take” approach to see what works and what doesn’t.

While there are personal rewards in getting a horse to respond, it also offers clarity on some things that might be more difficult to come by during an office setting.

Regarding the young man with the anger issues who wanted to build a relationship with Charlie, Adams explains that when he first arrived to begin working with the horse he was so excited he grabbed the halter and ran, full force, to the pasture see him. But his high energy level was too much and scared the horse away.

“Charlie didn’t feel safe, he felt very threatened and went off into the back 40 and was not going to be caught that day. The young man looked at his therapist and asked ‘Why won’t Charlie play with me?’ It became a teaching moment for this therapist to explain how energy levels and aggressive behavior can change someone’s attitude toward you.”

The next time the young man came to the farm, he grabbed the halter and lead rope, went flying towards the pasture, caught himself, came back and asked his therapist to help him calm down.

They stood there for a few minutes, did a couple of “horse breathes” (where they simulate how a horse intakes air, then releases it), then he calmly walked out to Charlie, put the halter and lead rope on him, and brought him back to the barn.

“It’s that kind of stuff that allows them to see how their behavior and actions affect other people and gives them tools to better relate to what’s going on in their life.”

Jessica Hardee, another licensed professional counselor who uses Barnabas, describes how horses “mirror” people.

“If you’re feeling calm and grounded the horse responds to that. If you’re terrified and anxious the horse responds to that. If you’re aggressive and controlling the horse response to that.”

Hardee says that can be valuable for children who’ve experienced something traumatic and are responding to it in different ways.

”For one little boy that might mean he’s got to be really, really tough and cause problems at school. He can’t let people close, he becomes aggressive and fights a lot. For a little girl it might mean she’s extremely shy, doesn’t speak or draw attention to herself, won’t tell you what she likes because she doesn’t want to be assertive. So it can come out in different ways. Both ways are problematic. But when they try to work with the horses, neither way works.”

Hardee notes that she, like Brand, has been pleasantly surprised by how quickly her clients have been able to make positive changes they can carry into their regular lives as a result of what they’ve learned from horses.”

“Really, it’s all about the relationship and the changes that happen because of that relationship.”

McKinney says in addition to helping children, Barnabas also pairs with the Rape Crisis Center, and hopes, in the future, to begin working with military veterans who are struggling with post traumatic stress disorder.

Barnabas is a nonprofit organization that relies on volunteers to keep it running and does not charge for therapy services. Operating costs – which average $2,500 a month - are currently covered through grants, donations, and money raised from fundraisers like their upcoming 4th annual Hoedown March 12. in Surfside Beach.

This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Healing with Horses on a small Murrells Inlet farm."