I “Many Secrets Are Told Around Horses:” an Ethnographic Study Of

“Many Secrets Are Told Around Horses:” An Ethnographic Study of Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy Jennifer Van Tiem Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 i © 2014 Jennifer Van Tiem All rights reserved ii ABSTRACT “Many secrets are told around horses:” An ethnographic study of equine-assisted psychotherapy Jennifer Van Tiem This dissertation presents an ethnography of equine-assisted psychotherapy (EAP) based on nine months of fieldwork at “Equine Healers,” a non-profit organization in central Colorado that specialized in various therapeutic modalities associated with EAP. In bridging scholarly work around animals, a literature suffused with the notion of “companion species,” as well as scholarly work around psychotherapy, and most especially the idea of “psychotherapy as conversation,” the connective conflict these two interests share, and from which this dissertation emerges, is over questions of language and communication. Specifically, the overarching problem that this dissertation addresses is: what counts as talking, in the context of “the talking cure,” when beings that do not share human language are necessarily implicated in human conversations. Beginning with Das’ (1997) encouragement to understand “pain as the beginning of a language game,” most of this dissertation will therefore be about dropping the reader into the silences between the humans and the horses, and between the words the humans use to talk about their experiences with the horses, thereby raising fundamental questions about the communicational dialectics that can transform human experiences. I argue that anthropologists must re-arrange our analytical frames around humans and animals, beginning with how we understand language, in the context of communication, to be organized. Rather than privileging subjects and objects, I suggest returning to Bateson (1972) and attempting to privilege relationships. To explore these ideas, this dissertation will attend to a particular therapeutic modality employed at Equine Healers, a set of practices called a “group sculpture.” To set up and make it possible to appreciate the complexity of this modality, this dissertation will first consider framing conversations among humans and horses as rhythmically ordered interactions. To do this, I generate a model of conversation based less on grammatical rules derived from the use of words, or the possibilities offered by subject-object “thing” relationships, and instead lean on musical relationships of rhythm. Initially emerging through conversation, I then trace out rhythms carried between horses and humans by particular physical, material pieces of their world. These brushes, clickers, and bridles ultimately bridge vocal and pneumatic rhythms; and it is movement along this connection, an ebb and flow of voice and breath that, in aligning, generate opportunities for iconic relationships with one’s self. iii Table of Contents List of Figures iv Acknowledgements vii Dedication viii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Animals and humans 4 Horses and therapy 7 A map of this dissertation 8 Chapter 2: “So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish:” Animal Messages and Talking Cures 11 Communicative habits have consequences 13 Being successfully human 15 Order, or Finding ways to do right by each other 16 The truthfulness of Me 18 Talk me into shape 20 Problems of meaning and rendering an expectation 22 An emic frame 24 Tides of iconicity 26 The envelope of the soul 28 “Triggering acts of self reflection” 30 Our horses, ourselves 33 i Chapter 3: Setting and Methods 33 Overview 34 Map of Equine Healers 40 Activities 45 Horses & Humans 47 Methods 51 Data Analysis 54 Chapter 4: Ponyo River Road, just east of the Rocky Mountains 64 A person out of habit 66 The Program Barn 68 The Hope Foal Barn 71 Moving dirt around 74 Walking through walls 77 Trying to teach myself to remember 81 The place between the words 85 Chapter 5: Embracing Poetic Sensations 88 What does it mean to be a survey? 90 “I can’t go tell them a story about trauma” 92 A moment of accord | a chord 97 To be known as being able to lie 104 The phantom limb 108 ii Chapter 6: The Wild Embodied | The Embodied Wild 111 I can, therefore I am 112 Artificialization 114 The sound of “good” 116 The fragile utility of words 121 Increasingly complex forms of familiarity 125 Chapter 7: Phrasing the Self is a Visceral Project 130 “Dwelling” and “The nature of belonging” 131 Dancing with Horses on October 7, 2012 134 Opening circle 135 First sculpture 138 Second sculpture 144 Closing circle 148 Re-arranging habits 152 Chapter 8: Conclusion 154 Talk that falls together 156 Managing the possibility of intimacy 159 A vanishing scaffold 161 Bibliography 165 Appendix 1: A-COPE Survey 172 Appendix 2: Byers Analysis with Spreadsheets 175 Appendix 3: Transcript: Group Sculpture 202 iii List of Figures Figure 1: Map of Equine Healers 40 Figure 2: Edit Mode: Headings 60 Figure 3: Preview Mode: Headings 60 Figure 4: Edit Mode: Horse Training October 31 61 Figure 5: Preview Mode: Horse Training October 31 61 Figure 6: Navigator: Horse Training October 31 62 Figure 7: Navigator: Horse Training October 31, with some expansion 63 Figure 8: Summary for the category, “response” 63 Figure 9: Base and anchor post for the gate to a horse’s stall 63 Figure 10: View down the length of the Program Barn 64 Figure 11: View of the big arena (left), as well as the rear of the Program Barn (right). 67 The Hope Foal Barn is the building at the back of the photograph. The hay barn stands in front of the Hope Foal Barn. Figure 12: Horses eating inside the Program Barn 69 Figure 13: View of the concrete wall bracketing the manure pile. The Rocky Mountains 71 appear in the distance. Figure 14: Baling twine holding fence panels in place 72 Figure 15: A horse’s hay bin 74 Figure 16: Horse hair caught in steel rope 76 Figure 17: Picnic table in front of the parking lot 81 Figure 18: Frankie 87 iv Figure 19: Clip 1, 0 sec 98 Figure 20: Clip 1, 2.202 sec 98 Figure 21: Clip 1, 4.204 sec 98 Figure 22: Clip 2, 0 sec 99 Figure 23: Clip 2, 3.203 sec 99 Figure 24: Clip 2, 6.206 sec 99 Figure 25: Spreadsheet Analysis Screenshot 100 Figure 26: Clip 1 Breakdown 103 Figure 27: Clip 2 Breakdown 105 Figure 28: Opening circle, 37 min 58 sec 137 Figure 29: Opening circle, 38 min 08 sec 137 Figure 30: First sculpture, 39 min 02 sec 138 Figure 31: First sculpture, 39 min 24 sec 138 Figure 32: First sculpture, 39 min 57 sec 139 Figure 33: First sculpture, 40 min 19 sec 139 Figure 34: First sculpture, 40 min 27 sec 139 Figure 35: First sculpture, 40 min 47 sec 140 Figure 36: First sculpture, 41 min 28 sec 140 Figure 37: First sculpture, 41 min 57 sec 140 Figure 38: First sculpture, 42 min 17 sec 141 Figure 39: First sculpture, 42 min 26 sec 141 Figure 40: First sculpture, 42 min 50 sec 141 Figure 41: Transition to second sculpture, 44 min 18 sec 143 v Figure 42: Second sculpture, 45 min 17 sec 144 Figure 43: Second sculpture, 45 min 32 sec 144 Figure 44: Second sculpture, 46 min 38 sec 145 Figure 45: Second sculpture, 46 min 54 sec 145 Figure 46: Second sculpture, 47 min 10 sec 146 Figure 47: Second sculpture, 47 min 21 sec 146 Figure 48: Second sculpture, 47 min 29 sec 146 Figure 49: Second sculpture, 47 min 37 sec 147 Figure 50: Second sculpture, 47 min 48 sec 147 Figure 51: Second sculpture, 48 min 10 sec 147 Figure 52: Closing circle, 48 min 38 sec 148 Figure 53: Rhythmic Cipher 179 Figure 54: Rhythmic Cipher at Frankie’s step 179 vi Acknowledgements To my family, To my friends, Stephanie Phillips, Gabrielle Oliveira, Scott Freeman, Amina Tawasil, Sarah Wessler, and Michael Scroggins, To my teachers, Hervé Varenne, Wende Marshall, Richard Handler, and, Lesley Sharp, To Steph, Tristan, and Marcelle, Thank you. I very much appreciate my dissertation committee, including Hervé Varenne, Lesley Sharp, Brian Boyd, JoAnne Kleifgen, and Lesley Bartlett. A particular note to my grandpa: I remember that you used to become exasperated with me, when I would crawl around on the floor as a young person, pretending to be any number of wild things. You would always tell me, emphatically, "Jennifer, you are not an animal." I was a child, so I smiled and ignored you. I have since come to realize that I was only practicing how I would find you when I couldn't see you anymore. I will do better to let you go. It's just that there are so many cool things to see, to share, and I don't understand where you are. Please wait with me a little longer, and I will try to show you what I found, when I went looking for you where the wild things are. vii To those friends for whom these words mean very little, I will try to deserve you. “We are indebted to one another, and the debt is a kind of faith -- a beautiful, difficult, strange faith. We believe each other into being.” --Jennifer Michael Hecht, Stay viii Chapter 1: Introduction I would very much like to speak with you about horses that cannot lie, or perhaps are not allowed to be known as being able to lie. Ages ago, Scroggins suggested that I pay attention to shamanic chickens who are only able to respond to yes or no questions.

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