Idaho Horse Therapy Inc

Many in southern Idaho know the name "Johnny U"--it's practically synonymous with cowboy around here.  Some know the singing Magic Valley native as their high school math teacher, who left the school system to try his luck at the professional rodeo circuit; some know that he spent the next couple decades touring the country as a country-western musician, performing with acts like Garth Brooks, and Allen Jackson.  But few may know that about five years ago, Johnny U was sitting in a reception office reading a magazine and stumbled across a magazine from an international organization called EAGALA:  the Equine Assisted Growth And Learning Association.

This group had quantified, scientifically, what most rural southern Idahoans know well, intuitively:  that the outside of a horse can do a lot of good for the inside of a person.  It turned out, doctors and scientists had done all kinds of research and discovered that interacting with horses (when they are not in the flight mode) releases hormones in the human brain that can help to reprogram our emotional states and our cognitive habits.  An entire model of psychotherapy (Equine Assisted Psychotherapy, or “EAP”) had evolved out of this discovery, and teams consisting of an Equine Specialist (ES), a Mental Health Expert (MHE), and a horse were working together with clients to reverse the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Reactive Attachment Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, as well as improve the social functioning of those with Asperger’s and Autism.

In 2010, Johnny U founded the nonprofit Idaho Horse Therapy.  Since then, we have partnered with the juvenile justice system to bring EAP to kids who have mental health diagnoses that have gotten themselves onto the wrong side of the law.  Today, this program is self-sufficient and serves the eight counties of the Fifth Judicial District in close collaboration with parents, probation officers, and the Department of Health and Welfare.  We are constantly working to expand this program, and our eventual goal is that EVERY child in the state of Idaho has access to EAP to help them develop solution-based critical thinking and collaborative skills through their turbulent teen years.

For the last few years, Johnny has also been working individually with a number of veterans in the area who are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  This very serious condition manifests itself in a huge variety of ways, but common symptoms range from depression and withdrawal or hyper-arousal and aggression, to reliving the most traumatic experiences from their service (this can be a time when the soldier’s life was threatened, or when they witnessed another soldier killed, or even witnessing and/or participating in violence against the enemy), to visual and auditory hallucinations, to insomnia and worse.  Our current fundraising efforts are directed toward building an intensive program in the Magic Valley that would bring together EAP with a variety of other evidence-based, proven modalities to help bring peace to the men and women who are still fighting this war at home.  We encourage anyone who is suffering from PTSD to contact us directly through our website at www.idahohorsetherapy.com; and anyone who is willing and able to help these brave men and women—who are committing suicide at a rate of 22 per day according to the United States Veteran’s Administration—to contribute as much as your able.  At present, the vast majority of those diagnosed with PTSD are merely being medicated, and most feel they have no hope to ever recover from this debilitating disorder.  They can have their lives back.  You can help.  Blessings, and thanks for reading our story!