Mustang Medicine Works in Central uses horses as therapists

By Nicole Smith (Contact)
Saturday, July 11, 2009

Photo by Ken Ruinard

Darrell Yardley, Ph.D., licensed professional counselor, leads Apache ahead of business partner Carl Rathz, equine specialist, at Mustang Medicine Works in Central.

Mustang Sally

Photo by Ken Ruinard

A mare at Mustang Medicine Works in Central is one of a few horses used to help the clients of the business, which focuses on troubled teens, learn about themselves and dealing with others.

Horses helping people

Photo by Ken Ruinard

Carl Rathz, left, equine specialist, and Darrell Yardley, Ph.D., licensed professional counselor, work together at Mustang Medicine Works in Central. The men use horses to help individuals, sometimes in groups, find out about themselves as a form of therapy.

Darrell G. Yardley in office

Photo by Ken Ruinard

Darrell Yardley, Ph.D., licensed professional counselor, sits in his business office at Mustang Medicine Works in Central.

Darrell Yardley sold his Harley Davidson motorcycle a few years ago and switched to horsepower of a different kind: mustangs.

“I wanted to start working with horses,” he said. “I wanted to learn to ride.”

The retired Clemson University zoology professor emeritus began learning with Carl Rathz, a nearby friend who owns CBR Horses. CBR Horses trains horses and gives riding lessons in Six Mile, just north of Clemson.

Besides his background in zoology, Yardley also has years of experience as a licensed counselor. While working with the horses, he thought, why not combine the two?

The concept of equine-assisted therapy is gaining more popularity in the nation and the world. According to the Web site of the Equine Assisted Grow and Learning Association, there are five locations in the state and more than 100 in the United States.

Yardley and Rathz, a Clemson graduate, are both certified by the association and started Mustang Medicine Works, LLC in Central almost a year ago.

“Medicine work is a Native American term that covers a broad sense of healing— emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, even healing with the earth itself,” Yardley said. “It’s that greater healing that we try to do here.”

The counseling service is open to everyone but focuses on troubled teens. Their problems can be anything from depression to just being disrespectful to others, Yardley said.

The horses are kept on land just outside the Pickens County town of Central. Yardley walks with a client from his office along a short path to a pen, where two mustangs wait. The black mustang with a small, white patch on his forehead is named Apache, who is 8 years old and has a dominating attitude. The other, a light brown beauty, is Mustang Sally, 7 years old. The walk there is time Yardley uses to assess the clients by talking to them.

Though these two aren’t the only horses Yardley and Rathz use, they’re the ones used most often.

A typical therapy session begins with the person observing the horse, mainly the tranquility of the animal. The person walks into the pen and uses a rope to lead the horse to the other side of the pen. Then the person does it again, without the rope.

“You meet the horse where they are, then you make progress,” Yardley said.

What happens in the rest of the hour-long session depends on the person, he said, and can be modified easily.

“It’s definitely not therapy in riding,” he said. “The clients never get on a horse. It’s all groundwork. It’s a totally different psychology.”

Rathz agreed.

“If you just want to get on the back of a horse and do nothing, get a Harley motorcycle,” he said.

The sessions seem to go against what counselors are usually instructed to do, Yardley said, because he and Rathz don’t talk to the client much.

“The horses are the therapists,” he said. “All we’re trying to do is help the clients pull it together. …We let them work things through.”

The horses act as metaphors for life, he said.

“The problems in life are big,” he said. “It’s not the little stuff that bothers us. It’s the big stuff that stops us. It doesn’t matter what their issues are. (Being) experiential brings them very quickly face to face with issues.”

Rathz said, “It reflects life in the fact they are big, more powerful yet individually thinking beings. It refers to life so well, and it comes through with the clients.”

There are several reasons that using the horses works, Rathz said.

“Horses are experts on body language,” he said. “You can’t lie to a horse, because they will see right through it.”

Yardley said the equine-assisted therapy can be effective. Recently he had a female client who had dealt with depression her entire life. After two sessions, he said, she worked it out and was fine.

“For those different clients that can’t seem to get anywhere, sometimes they can blow through three sessions,” he said. “We’re short-term therapy. We get people unstuck.”

Having successes like the female client, he said, is an affirmation for him.

Though Mustang Medicine Works hasn’t served a large number of clients yet, Yardley and Rathz work with the Cherokee Creek Boys School in northern Oconee County once a week, and they said they understood the hesitancy on some people’s parts because it’s “not a regular counseling service.”

“I have some come out here and say, ‘Geez, where’s the office?’” Yardley said. “Those people I can’t work with. But there are some who say, ‘Wow, it’s so peaceful’…those I can.”

He said people have to be willing to step outside their comfort zones.

“People just want to feel safe,” he said. “A lot of the inefficient and destructive behaviors are because some people don’t feel safe.”

Rathz said people should simply try equine-assisted therapy to see how it works. He said it could be challenging, but he’s seen people who have been set in their ways change through the therapy in four or five sessions.

Mustang Medicine Works gives free demonstrations to people who are interested in becoming clients. Hour-long sessions cost $120 each, and the number of sessions scheduled is up to the client.

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