Empowering individuals and families
to overcome any challenge.
One hour individual counseling at the ranch for equine or traditional therapy, or from the comfort of your home virtually via telehealth.
Strengthen your marriage or relationship through experiential learning with equine activities. You may also choose traditional therapy or meet virtually via telehealth.
Learn and heal together through equine activities, traditional therapy, or virtually via telehealth (as needed; in-person preferred).
You're not alone. Specialty offerings designed around mental, emotional, and social wellbeing.
See our upcoming events calendar!
Great for those who travel long-distance, or those ready to dive deep. Longer counseling sessions available depending on your goals, from 2-6 hours, multiple days if needed.
Equine guided retreats and workshops for experiential learning and growth. Each event is tailored to your group's specific goals!
Our counselors specialize in a wide variety of both clinical and life concerns, for clients ages 3 and up. We know that you are more than a diagnosis. Our clients are all ages, demographics, and have a variety of mental health concerns they want to work on and grow through. We’ll walk with you and your family through real life challenges to rediscover hope, healing, and wholeness.
What if I’m not sure about horses?
That’s ok! You have full choice in your therapeutic journey. We will never push you to work with horses. If you are nervous about them, we can help you work through that if you want. We take things slow and help you feel more comfortable. We know they are big animals!
If you want to just enjoy the ranch environment, we can do sessions walking around our trail, or sitting outdoors or in one of our barn offices. Maybe you are interested in working with our therapists simply because of our specialties, and not because of the horses – that is ok! We are all qualified, credentialed mental health professionals first, and able to provide in-person or virtual telehealth traditional counseling sessions as well. We can still incorporate movement and our holistic approach, even if you prefer not to work with the horses.
What if I have tried therapy before, and had a negative experience?
Many of our equine clients have tried traditional therapy before, but have found the experience of equine therapy to be effective and have faster results than previous therapies. We encourage you to give this a try!
Since Take Heart is faith-based, do I have to be a Christian to come for therapy?
No, you do not have to be Christian. In fact, we regularly work with people of other faith backgrounds or those who don’t believe at all. Everyone is welcome at Take Heart. We are all on a spiritual journey, and don’t have to be at the same place to work together. Our background is Christian and our work is grounded in our faith, but we meet you where YOU are at. You get to decide how much or little to include spiritual topics at all in your therapy sessions!
Additionally, we personalize workshops and retreats for groups of leaders, pastors, teams, and co-workers. We enjoy empowering other helping professionals to serve at their best and overcome burnout and compassion fatigue. Teachers, medical professionals, therapists – we’re here for you, too!
We work with many clinical concerns & diagnoses including:
We often see people with normal life struggles, including:
In anxiety, our brain is constantly looking for solutions to real and perceived problems. We are constantly looking for felt safety.
In depression, our brain is constantly focusing on the negative or what is perceived as “unsafe.” We tend to collapse inward to prevent further wounds from the outside world.
At the ranch, the environment is peaceful and grounding. Fresh air, sunshine, and the ground beneath our feet cue our nervous system that we are safe, and helps us refocus so that we can work on ways to deal with anxious thoughts. Horses bring in movement as well as authentic relationship – which also cue safety in our brain and body.
Horses are honest with us about what is happening in the moment, and relate to us uniquely. Sometimes, horses will nudge, yawn, stretch, or exhale – all to cue you to do the same and release some of the tension you are feeling. Sometimes, they will wait to connect fully with you, until you are more regulated and able to connect fully with yourself.
This real-time feedback allows you practice skills for working through negative thoughts, and experience connection with your self, the horse, and the therapist. Connection literally begins producing chemicals and new neurons for re-wiring your brain – the literal process of physical healing that happens in mental and emotional healing. Instead of just talking about certain skills or changes to make, you can practice them in-the-moment with the horse and experience change immediately.
Trauma can occur in single situations, or long-term situations (chronic traumatic stress). The situations can be “big T” (life-threatening and usually meet the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for PTSD), or “little t” (may not be life-threatening and typically do not meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD). We define all trauma as “something that put you outside of your ability to cope.”
Either way, traumatic experiences literally change the makeup of your brain.
Connection is what creates healing in your brain: safe, repeated connection literally rebuilds and rewires your brain. And horses provide the authentic, safe connection needed for healing.
At the ranch, the environment is peaceful and grounding. Fresh air, sunshine, and the ground beneath our feet cue our nervous system that we are safe, and helps us refocus so that we can work on ways to overcome our past experiences. Horses bring in movement as well as authentic relationship – which also cue safety in our brain and body.
Horses are honest with us about what is happening in the moment, and relate to us uniquely. Sometimes, horses will nudge, yawn, stretch, or exhale – all to cue you to do the same and release some of the tension you are feeling. Sometimes, they will wait to connect fully with you, until you are more regulated and able to connect fully with yourself. This real-time feedback allows you practice skills for working through negative thoughts, and experience connection with your self, the horse, and the therapist. Connection literally begins producing chemicals and new neurons for re-wiring your brain – the literal process of physical healing that happens in mental and emotional healing.
Additionally, things like walking with a horse or riding a horse provide bilateral stimulation to your brain which also cues safety, making it easier to verbally process painful experiences.
Change is hard for anyone. Instead of just talking about certain skills or changes to make, you can practice them in-the-moment with the horse and experience the benefits immediately.
Children learn best through play – and parents, believe it or not, so do adults! Because we all learn best through play – active experiences bring healing and growth much faster to the therapeutic experience. Our clinicians design activities to facilitate discussions in the areas needed, which allows us to not just talk about change, but actually practice it in-the-moment.
How we interact with the horses brings up family dynamics organically – so there’s no need for the “he-said, she-said” kind of thing. We can just work through the things that come up in session and strategize ways to practice change at home, outside the ranch.
We encourage families to heal together so that each person learns new skill for facing challenges together. For clients 13 years or younger, the first session is with the parents to set up the family for success.
Working with horses engages the entire brain – which helps develop skills in areas needing growth. It can also be more motivating for you to practice new skills when working with an animal who responds honestly in the moment – horses don’t pretend, use metaphorical speech, or hide what they are thinking!
Equine activities naturally bring up topics of discussion and learning opportunities for developing social skills, communication skills, emotional regulation, body and self awareness, and empathetic understanding. The authentic connection involved provides the literal brain healing for whatever your goals – skill development or emotional or mental health goals.
Yes! Equine Assisted Therapy is just one of many therapeutic approaches we utilize at Take Heart. We offer a nontraditional environment that allows us to do client-centered therapy that is tailored to meet your unique therapeutic goals. While we believe in the numerous benefits of a natural environment, we are able to utilize the ranch setting to enjoy the outdoors with or without horses.
Equine assisted therapy is experiential and metaphorical in nature, meaning what clients experience with the horses has meaning for them outside the farm as well. Although a relatively new mode of psychotherapy, studies are proving it to be an effective and efficient alternative or addition to traditional counseling. Many of our clients have tried traditional methods of counseling and found equine assisted therapy to be a better fit for them.
It is highly effective – what you put in, you WILL get out of it! The horses provide unique insights that allow us to grow in self-awareness and practice change during sessions, which often speeds up the therapeutic process. Our clients feel a change in the first few sessions, and many start making changes that have powerful effects on their lives in as few as 4 or 6 sessions. This form of therapy is flexible – it can be a very fast way to resolve specific issues and learn empowering skills for your situation in the short-term and continue to help you find deeper healing in the long-term. We have some clients who “finish” therapy in 12-16 weeks, while others choose to stay longer. Either way, it is our privilege to be part of your journey.
Horses live “in the moment” and have distinct individual personalities. As herd animals, they are extremely relationship-oriented. Horses intuitively and honestly respond to the emotions of those around them, creating opportunity for self-awareness and practice building relationships. After all, we are hurt through relationships, but we also need relationships to heal. Horses become the safe relationship where we can heal before transferring our learning to life off the ranch
Bonding with horses facilitates a process in which clients can gain insight into their circumstances and how they currently interact in them through experience, as well as practice change in a forgiving environment. Along the way, clients develop confidence, patience, mutual respect, responsibility, problem-solving abilities, healthy coping techniques, and other life skills organically through interactions with the horses. Additionally, building safe relationships with horses provides practice with many important life skills that improve one’s mental health. We learn to set clear boundaries, develop appropriate expectations of ourself and others, listen to our intuition when discerning a situation, empathize with another, as well as validate and respectfully express our own thoughts, feelings, and needs.
Our Clinical Team is made up of Counselors first and foremost. Skilled in a variety of therapeutic modalities, our Clinicians are all licensed or pre-licensed in Pennsylvania, and have a minimum of a Master’s degree in their field. Each of our therapists are certified in trauma-focused equine assisted psychotherapy through the Natural Lifemanship Institute. Compassionate care, trauma-competent professionals, all whose lives have been changed by horses as well – our team is truly unique.
We are hurt in relationship, but we also heal in our relationship. And neuroscience tells us that our brains also develop new neuropathways through relationship. At Take Heart we integrate evidence-based therapeutic techniques with authentic relationship with horses (and other animals) to facilitate life-changing experiences for our clients.
Being outdoors and around animals empowers us to take a holistic approach to healing that addresses body, mind, soul, and spirit. We incorporate somatic movement, emotional regulation, cognitive and behavioral strategies, and faith-based, meaningful discussions. In doing so, we are able to face the root of any issue. This approach also aligns perfectly with the neurosequential and attachment-based model of development and healing: regulate, relate, then reason. Equine therapy is just one part of what we do; we also incorporate pieces of many common, evidence-based modalities:
Additionally, we focus on not just being trauma-informed, but trauma-competent. We work to help you understand and overcome your difficult experiences. No more feeling stuck.
We understand that spirituality is a core component of humanity. Studies show that faith is a crucial part of healing and long-term well-being. Faith and a relationship with Jesus is the foundation for our team and our work but we are not “religious.” Anyone is welcome at the ranch, no matter your spiritual background. It’s hard to deny – the peace you feel at the ranch is something truly special.
Each of our sessions are unique; we design them based on your therapeutic goals. Activities may include feeding, grooming, leading the horse, groundwork exercises, or horseback riding. Session activities are specially designed to fit your goals and will vary; however, all sessions use evidence-based and trauma-informed techniques. Some sessions may be more learning-oriented, and experiential, meaning you will practice skills which translate into other situations you may be facing. Some sessions will be more psychotherapeutic, in which deep healing through corrective experiences may occur. Each session ends with a time of processing and discussing the activities. We encourage you to process what you are learning and provide ideas for applying it in your life outside of the session.
We are each made up of body, mind, spirit, and soul – and each part of us is inseparable. Equine assisted therapy is a powerful model for addressing each part of our being. Working outdoors, in a safe and beautiful environment, moving naturally as you work with the animals… this is a place where you can just “be.”
Take Heart is not in-network with any commercial insurance companies. However, you may be covered if your primary physician writes you a prescription for equine assisted psychotherapy.
If your insurance plan offers out-of-network benefits, it means they will cover a portion of the cost. Unlike in-network providers, who bill your insurance company directly, with Take Heart having out-of-network therapists, you will pay for the session upfront and then submit a claim to your insurance for reimbursement. Insurance companies often reimburse a percentage of Take Heart’s fee, usually after you meet an out-of-network deductible. For example, after you meet a $1,000 deductible, your insurance may reimburse 50-80% of the session cost.
Out-of-network benefits give you the flexibility to choose a therapist based on your needs and preferences, not just those in-network!
We also accept HSA and FSA payments. We recommend you double checking with your insurance to verify eligibility, but, most of the time, we are an eligible service for HSA and FSA. Be sure to mention you are working with licensed professional therapists offering equine assisted therapy services.
We work with Thrizer, a platform that helps clients get money back on out-of-network therapy sessions. If you have out-of-network benefits, Thrizer will file claims and handle the insurance paperwork to make sure you get reimbursed.
Click HERE to learn more about Thrizer, or CONTACT us and we will check your out of network benefits for you!
The horse-human services field is growing exponentially around the world. Globally, people are finding hope and healing through therapeutic work with horses. Each of our staff members has personal stories of hope and healing through therapeutic work with horses. (You can read some of these stories on our blog!) Our clients share testimonies of changed relationships, healed trauma, emotional regulation, and life skills that impact every area of their lives. See for yourself some of the experiences our client share about their time at Take Heart:
Wherever you are at on your journey, we are here for you. Our human and equine team will walk alongside you so you can find hope, healing, and wholeness in your life. You are worth it. Reach out to us today.
