Psychologist Kali Eddy hired some unconventional staff when she started her own practice in rural Saskatchewan. There’s Jimmy Cookie Dough, a mini donkey, a handful of horses with deep soulful eyes, and a collection of pigs, sheep, and cows.
Eddy spent the last eight years working as a youth psychologist in the Prairie Valley School Division. Now, she’s embracing her agricultural roots with a new business called Wild Blue Psychology where she practices a new breed of therapy.
“The session could start off in the office. It could be anything from going for a walk in nature to working with the animals,” Eddy told CTV Regina.
All of the animals play a different role. The horses, she says, have a knack for tapping into people’s emotions, their pen -- a microcosm for the broader world.
“We use the horse’s behaviour as a metaphor for the client’s life,” said Eddy.
Animal assisted therapy is not about teaching people to be farmers. It’s about confronting behaviours and attitudes in a non-conventional environment.
“Each species has their own way of being in the world, and so being in the presence of other species, non-human, creates so many opportunities for learning about them and about ourselves,” said University of Regina social work assistant professor Darlene Chalmers.
There are other programs in the province offering so-called equine therapy -- grooming and riding horses while talking to a mental health professional -- but Eddy’s is the first in the area to use a variety of animals to create an engaging environment that builds confidence, and put anxieties out to pasture.
“That’s really what I wanted to do here at Wild Blue,” she said. “To just create a unique environment where people could come here and not have to worry about the stigma, and they can just feel comfortable and relaxed.”
With a report from CTV Regina’s Katherine Hill
