Liberty Hill, Texas
By Rhonda Smith,
Executive Director
By Shirley Alaire
Continued >>
Spirit Reins was established in 2003 with the purpose of providing life changing mental health services to children and their families suffering from the devastating effects of abuse, neglect and other traumatic events. Our vision is a world where all children who have experienced trauma grow into healthy, productive adults and break the generational cycle of abuse. The primary population we serve is comprised of biological, foster and adopted children who range in age from 3-17 and represent a broad spectrum of socioeconomic levels. Many have been touched by the child welfare system and come to us through referrals from community partners that include The Center for Child Protection, Communities in Schools, Texas Baptist Children's Home, A World for Children, The Travis County Juvenile Probation Department and Travis County Integral Care.
What Spirit Reins offers is a completely different brand of therapy. We enlist an entire team of licensed mental health professionals, equine professionals and horses to work alongside the children and their families to help them achieve their goals and reach their full potential. The families we serve need what Spirit Reins has to offer… something different, something effective, something that engages the entire family in the healing process.
Spirit Reins uses the Natural Lifemanship model of trauma-focused therapy. Natural Lifemanship teaches science-based principles for building connected relationships. A key component in Natural Lifemanship used at Spirit Reins is Trauma-Focused Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (TF-EAP). TF-EAP was developed by Tim Jobe and Bettina Shultz-Jobe, the co-founders of Natural Lifemanship. TF-EAP is a comprehensive model of Equine Assisted Psychotherapy that employs both the physiology and the psychology of the horse to address specific therapeutic goals with children, adults, and families who suffer from trauma related mental health disorders. At its foundation are the beliefs that a good principle is a good principle regardless of where it is applied, and that all mental health issues result in dysfunction of intrapersonal and/or interpersonal relationships. Because TF-EAP is based on principles rather than techniques, clients are able to readily transfer their progress in therapy sessions to their daily lives. Likewise, family members of traumatized youth as well as other care giving professionals who work with them benefit by learning and applying the principles of TF-EAP, even if they never have the opportunity to work directly with a horse.
Building Up Families Torn Apart by Trauma