Giving Hope to High Risk Central Iowa Children

Using equine assisted psychotherapy to help children who have experienced psychological damage, mental illness, abuse, and neglect including:

• Attachment problems, learning difficulties, ADD or ADHD

• Those diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and/or effects (FAS/E) and Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)

• Youth diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, Sensory Integration Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Dissociate Disorder

• Those having difficulty trusting adults/caretakers, resulting in trouble at school and with the law

Here are some of the symptoms children with attachment problems may have:   
• Superficially engaging and charming (phoniness)
• Lack of eye contact (except when lying)
• Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers
• Not affectionate on parental terms
• Destructive to self, others, and material things
• Cruelty to animals (thus the need for intervention)
• Primary process lying (lying in the face of the obvious)
• Low impulse control
• Learning Lags
• Lack of cause/effect thinking
• Lack of conscience (Ted Bundy and Son of Sam)
• Abnormal Eating Patterns
• Poor peer relationships
• Preoccupation with fire, blood and/or gore
• Persistent nonsense questions and chatter
• Inappropriately demanding and/or clingy
• Abnormal speech patterns
• Sexually inappropriate