Need to increase your self-awareness and improve your communication skills? Well, you could go to a therapist, but these days you could also seek help from a horse.

Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) is fast attracting admirers in Ireland, and is already well established in the UK and other parts of Europe and the USA.

It can, it seems, reach the parts that 'talk therapy' sometimes doesn't reach. For example, instead of talking about issues, such as establishing clear boundaries, participants practice establishing them right there and then with their equine partner. They learn through direct experience. Devotees say that horse sense can also lead to better team work, improved self- esteem, trust and more effective leadership.

"EAL works because horses are honest and they have the ability to mirror exactly what human body language tells them," explains Jill Carey, chief executive officer of the Bray-based Festina Lente Foundation, which provides a range of integrated training, occupational, learning and employment opportunities, including EAL, to people whose needs have not been met by mainstream services and who, often, are at risk from social and/or economic exclusion.

"EAL is experiential by nature, which allows people to learn abut themselves and others by participating in activities with the horses and then discussing feelings, behaviours and patterns," Jill adds.

"Horses have the ability to show us intimacy and teach us about relationships and the importance of creating and preserving personal boundaries."

"It was one of the best experiences of my life," says Martin Doran, who had 12 sessions at Festina Lente.

Martin, 30, is a home school community liaison teacher at St Laurence College in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin. He had already seen how just helping out in Festine Lente's stables had helped some vulnerable teenagers, so when he received sponsorship to plan an EAL project, he grabbed the opportunity to try EAL out for himself.

"I was in the professionals' group, to learn more about EAL," he explains, "but the experience soon became personal. I was feeling low and I was feeling lost. EAL helped me through a transition period in a time of change."

One of the first things Martin learned was that you have to know where you're heading when communicating with a horse, especially if it isn't wearing a halter or a bridle and you ask the horse to walk beside you, trot, or even jump over poles.

EAL involves an unusually equal collaboration between horses and humans, who communicate with their equine partners through a subtle mix of non-verbal cues, calm assertiveness and horse language. In a way, the participants become novice horse whisperers.

Martin learned that if he wanted to lead a horse without a halter, he had to position himself by its withers, the horse's 'relationship zone'.

In a herd, horses are used to having leaders and are happy to collaborate. Though Martin had no previous experience of horses, they were soon giving him honest and instant feedback about his behaviour, his level of assertiveness, and even his mood.

"They can read you and your energy," he explains. "For example, at the start or the end of a session, if you're upset, a horse might stand beside you and empathise.

"One day I was angry and didn't acknowledge it. The horse I was working with went to the other side of the arena and neighed. That was a difficult day. I had an inner conflict about something I wanted but was being unclear about."

This intimacy is possible because horses are highly instinctive creatures and will respond immediately if a person doesn't respect their boundaries, is angry, frightened or lacking in confidence.

Because of this, they become a mirror that feeds back what they sense about a person and what that person may need to know about themselves. But this information does not carry the sting of judgment.

As the EAL sessions continued, Martin found himself doing further exercises that involved seeing how effectively he could get a horse to respond.

For example, when practising how to establish clear boundaries, he was asked to make a horse move back four steps. "I put my hand gently on the horse's chest. He went back only two steps. I realised it symbolised real-life experience for me," he admits.

"Fear of reaction came into play and it was symbolic of my patterns of behaviour around other people." Having been given this feedback, he tried the exercise again two weeks later. This time he decided to "walk tall" and align his "body, mind and spirit" with the request. "The horse went back four steps," he smiles. "It taught me about passive leadership."

EAL also made him aware of other patterns of behaviour that were unhelpful.

"There were times when it was difficult to be in the arena. Self awareness can be challenging. I became aware of patterns of behaviour I believed were useful in achieving goals but were actually unhelpful."

Some of these insights became clearer during discussions. Two facilitators are on hand during an EAL session, which lasts for about two and a half hours.

"One of them deals with your personal safety around horses and the other person deals with the personal growth work," says Martin.

Before starting work in the arena, he and the other two EAL participants talked about the previous week's experience. There was another group reflection after the session.

"I gained a lot of self- knowledge. I made some amazing changes," he says. The sessions with horses raise questions about human relationships. For example, how do you communicate with people? How clear are you? How much do you acknowledge your own needs and the needs of others? Martin now aspires to be more honest and to live more in the moment.

"Horses are very beautiful," he says. "I didn't know how sensitive and accepting they are.."

The integrity of this relationship is one of the keys to the therapeutic benefit of EAL. "Horses are non-judgmental and they don't bear grudges. Even if they go off, they'll come back again and re-establish a connection. If you change your behaviour, the horse will mirror it back. There is no history. You can start again."

Further information about EAL is available on www.festinalente.ie

- Grace Wynne Jones