Psychotherapy with Horses | Rosemary Baughman of Courageous Hearts

We have 15 horses in the program on two separate properties. What you will see if you come up to the property, you might see, like right now, if I look outside, there's probably a team, which again, involves a clinician and an equine professional and a client probably sitting on the ground in a field with loose horses and people that are equine people go, however, yes, there's risks involved. We know our horses very well. We don't put people in with horses that we think are going to come stomp on you or something like that. And we really learn from the horse behavior. So it sometimes just pulling up to the property because it's a farm, the anxiety, the stress just decreases just from the environment because it's not clinical. Your clinicians are going to be best dressed in jeans and a T shirt and you're kind of hanging out, which helps reduce that anxiety because it's hard to share our pain. And if we can reduce some of that just by the environment. So you might see them there and then you might look out in the back field because two or three sessions are often going on at the same time and you see horses and people and it kind of looks like nothing's happening.

Welcome to the Mental Health Entrepreneur podcast. We are here to inspire creative ideas and connections for entrepreneurs and advocates with working to address our mental health crisis. As you listen, I hope you will experience new ideas and motivation to innovate in your business, your community and in your life. Welcome back to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. I am your host, Rachel Harrison, and today we are going to be talking to Rosemary Bachman, who is the founder of Courageous Hearts, which is an equine therapy group in Delaware. Welcome, Rosemary.

Thanks so much, Rachel. I'm excited to be chatting with you today.

Yeah. So let's talk about your journey. I know you have founded this place that I hear is an amazing place, but how did this all get started for you? Where did the idea come from?

It's the question that we always get asked and a story I love to tell. As a matter awesome. My career in an equine assisted psychotherapy started later in life. I am not born and raised a horse person. Which people are always debate by. I do not ride. Which people are like, really? You're the horse lady? Well, I'm not the horse lady. I am that brought the horses and the people together. So how horses became part of my life. I actually have five children. There's two and then there's 20 years and there's three more. So the baby, the Very last one. Our only girl, like many little girls, wanted to ride a horse when she was 2. And we had just moved to Delaware and we're kind of in a rural section of Delaware. And I thought there's gotta be somebody who put this child on a horse. So that's how it started. And we found somebody who put this child on a horse and it became a gift and a passion for her. And we saw it within a year. We're not all born with that, and she's one that was. So we were able to nurture her passion through our own sacrifice. Because as many people know, a 1200 pound animal is kind of expensive and we didn't own one, but just to even get riding. So we would barter a lot to make it happen for her. Fast forward as her career grew, she was 7, 8, 9, 10. And she began doing lots of different things with horses, different trainers, because I was able to support that and I had the lifestyle that, the way my work schedule worked. I could be with her during all her trainings. And it was really clear to me that horses just have this natural healing power. Many of us know that about animals in general. And as I would watch and I worked with the people in the mental health field, I work with children and adults struggling with traumas and addictions in just day to day life. How could we find a way to connect those people with horses in a psychotherapy model? Most of us can't have horses. She was able to go and her girlfriends, when they would break up with their boyfriends or do whatever, they go to the bar and they'd cry with the horse and they'd brush the horse and they'd move on. We all don't have that, but how could we find a way to help that? And so that we could grow skills that are transferable to everyday life, we found a training that we really liked quite by accident in 2012. And I say we because I'm actually a co founder. I do own the business myself now. It evolved. But myself and Linda Muncie, who's an equine professional, who is one of my daughter's trainers, we co founded courageous hearts in 2012 when we went off to training in a co facilitated model, which means that there's a mental health clinician who is licensed or under direct licensure at the master's level. And with an equine professional, meaning someone who has been working with horses for well over five years and knows horse behavior. And we were able to bring it together in a way that made sense to all of us. And we've just kind of evolved over the next almost 13 years into this miraculous place. And all the people that work with us now, it's just amazing. So that's kind of how the story started.

And so what does it look like now? What? Like if we were on your property, what would we see?

What it looks like now is we have 20 people that work with us now. It started out as a two people endeavor. For now it's up to 20. We have 15 horses in the program on two separate properties. And so what you will see if you come up to the property, you might see, like right now, if I look outside, there's probably a team, which again involves a clinician and an equine professional and a client probably sitting on the ground in a field with loose horses. And people that are equine people go, however, yes, there's risks involved. We know our horses very well. We don't put people in with horses that we think are going to come stomp on you or something like that. And we really learn from the horse behavior. So what happens, Rachel? Sometimes just pulling up to the property because it's a farm, they just. The anxiety, the stress just decreases just from the environment because it's not clinical. Your clinicians are going to be best dressed in jeans and a T shirt, and you're kind of hanging out, which helps reduce that anxiety because it's hard to share our painting.

Oh, yeah.

And if we can reduce some of that just by the environment. So you might see them there and then you might look out in the. In the back field. Because two or three sessions are often going on at the same time. And you see horses and people and it kind of looks like nothing's happening. From the outside looking in, it's like, really, this is therapy. It's very organic. And we watch and then we ask questions, often like a gestalt model. So what did you notice? So it's super client led. A client might see, for example, two horses maybe with their mouths on each other's shoulders. And each client is going to perceive that differently. Do I know what it means in horse behavior? I do. That's not what's important. It's. That looks like my mom and dad, they're fighting. And so then the horses become mom and dad and it's a lot easier to talk about them out there. So mom and dad, when they're fighting, what else is happening? And then we start to tell our stories through the horses, which eventually comes back to bringing in internalized processing. That. And then we take that skillset outside. Okay. When I'm observing a situation, it may or may not be accurate because we might come to crap. Oh, you know what? Sometimes when they're yelling. Yeah. They are fighting. They never do hit each other, even though I'm always afraid they're going to. And we can process through, where am I safe? Where am I not safe? And again, that's just thought that's coming off the top of my head. That can help.

Sure. Yeah. That's interesting. And so not necessarily people riding horses. I think that's something I learned about equine therapy. Is it's not the same as riding horses. Yes, exactly.

We do not put riding in. And I am going to touch on your word. You're using the word therapy, which is really important for me to talk about.

Okay, pause.

Therapeutic riding has been around for a long time, which is not a psychotherapy model. And we're working really hard at professionalizing the field because it's so confused. We do instantly think of therapeutic writing. Is that therapeutic? It is. Is it psychotherapy? It is not unless there's a mental health professional with the treatment plan that's guiding that. Can it help adhd? Can it help other things? Probably. So that's where we want to really work really hard at differentiating. So we. We provide a class that's an intro to equine assisted psychotherapy to educate the community on. Know who you're going to. When you're asking for a service. If you just want to. If you want to ride horses, you're feeling stressed and we're not appropriate for. I'll refer you out. That's totally fine. Great people we partner with. But the psychotherapy with the horses and we're. That's the term we're trying to change. Instead of equine therapy or equine assisted psychotherapy, we're kind of put psychotherapy first with horses. Clearer for people to understand what we're doing.

I like that.

An even easier way is I'm taking the office into the arena, and your horses are now just part of your therapy team.

Right. I like that. I'm writing that down, actually, because, yeah, I do find that there are all different types of interpretation of. Yeah. Like you're saying therapeutic writing versus therapy versus what kind of therapy? I mean, sometimes I tell people I'm a therapist and they're like, physically physical therapy.

Exactly.

Right, Right. So, yeah, I think putting that psychotherapy in front makes a lot of sense.

It does. It's really important. And when we think of the word therapy, and we've done a lot of research on this, again, everything's good. Like equine assisted learning, therapeutic writing. It's good. Just know what you're talking about when it's therapy. Therapy can really only legally be provided by somebody who's some type of licensure, physical therapist, occupational. Occupational therapist, mental health therapist. Otherwise, it's really not therapy. Do we feel better? Probably. But that's okay. Let's just identify it appropriately.

Right, Right. And so that model of having a horse person and a mental health professional together, I'm going to talk about the nuts and bolts a little bit. That's a more expensive model for doing therapy, especially. Especially if you're trying to get reimbursement from any kind of insurance. So I'd love to hear how you've worked out those pieces.

Yeah, I'd love to share that with you. I will say that the. The success rate is not really good in general because of the finances, because we all know we value it. The reality of it is, is you can only charge insurance for the mental health person. And if you have to split that between a co facilitator and horses, who wants to do that? You can't afford to keep your own lights on. Mm. So we had to learn how to be creative, and we talked to many other people. This has been going on for well over 20 years across the globe. So we talked to people and asked them, how have they been successful, how we have ultimately been successful. Two things. One, I think we're at the right place at the right time. We're not the first in Delaware to provide this. I really think when we. Our first little contract with the state of Delaware, and that's exactly how we're successful. Other organizations have found value in this alternative, which now, again, we're opening our eyes to so many things. Adding horses to therapy, eco therapy, now acupuncture. We're starting to believe it's shifting, and I'm excited about that, me.

So.

So we do charge a fee to add that equine professional and the horses, we try to keep it really low, just enough to make sure that those costs are covered. But when that cannot be paid, we have been able to develop, and again, it's been years in development, develop relationships by bringing people out here and actually experiencing. What does it mean? You and I could talk about it. Oh, it sounds really good. I guarantee you if you come out to visit me and walk in the field, you're going to go Oh, I get it. Because it's an experience.

Yeah.

Talking about it is only so much. We are fortunate to have multiple contracts with the state of Delaware that do support both our kids and our adults. So it's. It's really just a gift. We have a nonprofit arm that also raises funds when necessary. So to help us. And if there's anybody else that's in the Delaware area, and if anybody's listening in the Delaware area, and they do provide on a small scale because I know we have a couple other therapists that they just utilize it for their own private practice, which is appropriate if you have trouble with funding. Our nonprofit arm is for anybody in the state of Delaware providing assistance. So it's just a small application. It's super easy to.

That's great. And is it just for psychotherapy with horses that if you provide assistance.

Currently we do have part of our arm. It just started two years ago. Unfortunately, we lost a colleague, didn't work with us here, but we lost a colleague. And his life work was canine assisted psychotherapy and canine assisted therapy. And his family has since partnered with Courageous Hearts. So we have a small little pocket for canine assisted therapy. So if there's any therapists also if they can apply to get their dogs trained, as long as we have the funding, it's minimal right now, but if it's there, we have funding for that as well.

So I'm curious about your journey. I mean, what has that been like as a founder, as an entrepreneur and some of the ups and downs? I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. So I did not come into this as a business person. Oh, no idea about business. So it's been learning as I go. It started out with, like I said myself, Linda, and then within the first two years I had another equine professional and then an intern, a master's level intern started with us and we were super part time. I was still working a full time job. My intent, Rachel, was to bring my private practice home. And that was kind of it. I didn't have in that way because again, we did have to find funding for the horses. So first $20,000 contract we got, something came out. There was a request for proposal. I'd never heard of an RFP before in my life. Didn't know what it was. Somebody said to me, you should apply for this. I'm like, okay. It was $20,000 for an after school program. I think they were asking for specific alternative. I can't remember because it was in 2013 and see if you can get the money. It was a pilot program to hopefully be expanded to a couple years. So I pulled up the document and I just answered every question. And that's all I did. I answered every question appropriately. And then what I did with the budget. This is one of my funnier stories. When you get a state budget, they have line items for lots of things. I thought I had to fill in every line item. I'm like, I don't need linens. Why do I like $5? You know, like, I mean, it was ridiculous. So back then too, we weren't emailing because it was pre Covid. So you had to bring your packet up to get timestamped into Wilmington, into the department, the children's department. So I walked in right before it was due. I took it to the very last minute. It was due by 2pm Whatever day it was, probably 1-4045. Somebody walked in ahead of me with a packet an inch and a half thick. Oh, got timestamped. And my heart sunk because I went in with about 20 pages now, mind you, and you had to have five copies. Like I said, it was all this drama. So I thought, okay, well, I'm going to turn it in anyway, Whatever, we're not going to get it. So we got a phone call and they were really interested. And you know what they did for me? They brought me into a room with 10 leaders from the yrs department, criminal justice, because it was part of their funding, Prevention and Behavioral Health, which was not called that, but the kids department at that time, some accounting people. And they said to me, we think what you have is really great. We are going to mentor you into how to create budgets, how to bill appropriately, how to price it appropriately. And they did.

Wow. Yeah.

Isn't that cool?

That's really cool.

Yeah. And so since then we have found that the people in all the different departments continue to mentor me. As I learned, I've gotten pretty good, but they're still, you know, life is. We're always learning. So we did get that $20,000 and they loved it so much. We're providing after school program in three days a week. And then they extended it into a three year, $100,000 contract a year for five after school program. So then with that, then I had to figure out, I did all of it myself. Like many entrepreneurs, I did all the billing, I did all the accounting, I did all the payroll. And again, we still had a really small. I didn't have a lot of people to pay. So it Wasn't terrible. So we took it really slow. Someone told us in the very beginning, go slow. The people that are successful learn, fine tune that and move on to the next thing. And that was the best advice I ever got. And I really think that attributes a lot to our success. I didn't buy five buildings or I didn't say, you know, oh quick, we got, we're getting this money and people are happy about us. Let's hire five clinicians. We didn't do it like that.

That's great. And it sounds like also people who helped you along the way.

So many people. And all you have to do is ask, you know, with authority. When we put authority title on people, we tend to pull back and we tend to get afraid. We're all just people. They're just titles, they're just jobs. It's just your expertise.

So true. So what's next for courageous hearts? What are you envisioning for the future?

So our biggest shift has started in the last. It's always been part of it, but such a minimal part. But we're really kind of shifting around. We're creating more trainings, incorporating horses in personal and professional growth. So we provide workshops for professional development, team development, women's workshops, self care for people. Because we all need help, but it doesn't mean we need to go to therapy once a week. But we need some kind of support. So there's this whole arm that we do that, our professional development. We've been fortunate enough because I'm on the board of NASW national association of Social Workers in Delaware, which is really helpful because I have kind of a direct connect if I need continuing educations for something and it kind of moves forward. So we can usually offer continuing educations for most of our workshops if needed. But that's the development. And I personally for me am looking to go out and really educate people more to solidify and to grow the professionalism of the field. Because in all honesty, Rachel, nobody governs this field. It's. That's again why I want to come out and educate people. Because we hear people saying, oh, I'm doing therapy with. And they're, they're riding a friend's horse and unfortunately we're calling it therapy and it just dangerous, especially when you have huge trauma. So again, so professionalizing the field is really important, empowering other women. Because I'll tell you What, I was 50 years old when I started this business. So here's the thing, friends, you know, it is never too late and I am starting new programs today. And I will be 65 years old this year and my co founder is 70 and we are, we're rocking and rolling. Just know that I love that.

I really do. Yeah, yeah. Never too late. And you can still go slow.

Absolutely. One thing at a time. And the, the beauty that we love. So courageous hearts. The other reason we got big, not big. As big as we are, we're still very, very small. But relatively speaking, we are the largest in the state of Delaware for sure. And even talking to other people in the country, they call us and say, how do you do what you do? I can't promise that it can be replicated elsewhere. Delaware is a small state and it's the networking and the communication. So if you can do that in counties and other places, that was definitely an advantage here because everybody knows everybody. If you keep going to the same networking things.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is helpful. It's super helpful. But what happens here? The people that all work here, I've never recruited, ever. People show up and they say, I feel the magic. I want to work here. And they stay and they put what they want to do. So I'll tell you about Molly a little bit as an example. I asked them, what do you really want to do? And they want to incorporate horses. Molly works a lot with body image, eating disorder, all that type of thing. And she's an equestrian as well. And she has created Beautiful Me, which is connecting with Beautiful Me is her image, Body image education. And I think it's Beautiful Strides, if I'm getting the names correctly, creating programming that incorporates the horses with our self image. You know how we are still in this society as women, we have this perfect image that is such an illusion. And she's starting young with our middle school kid and we have adults coming. So she's created her old program. She's working on that right now. And that's what I feel like my role is at this time in my career is to mentor other people that are younger, help them find their passions, get their connections. They can stay with us and create programming through creatious hearts or they can move on. Either way, so far they've all decided to stay and create programming through Courageous Heart Starts.

Yeah, I love that kind of growing the field and getting new ideas and letting people loose. I agree with that. We need everyone and we need all the creativity and all the different ways

of doing things we do because nothing's cookie cutter as humans. We're not. Some people do really well in a clinical environment. Sit, talk. I do. You know they do great and this is not the place for them. Other people out here and go, this is my space. I like to be chill. I like to be able to feel like I'm just chit chatting, but know that I'm truly being helped by professionals.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's a great way to reach people just differently. And like you're saying, incorporating the animals is just a different way of working on self.

It is. Exactly. Exactly. There's so many opportunities out there.

Yeah, definitely. What do you most want people to know about courageous hearts or about the entrepreneur journey? What would you say?

Trust your gut, take it slow and get mentors. And if you want to come out and see us, email me. We have complimentary events all the time.

Amazing. I love that. Well, Rosemary, thank you so much for chatting. It was great to hear from you. And if anyone wants to find out how to connect with Rosemary or courageous hearts, that's all in the show notes. Thank you so much.

Thank you.