KNOWINGHORSE NC

Horses Helping Helpers

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The EAGALA Model for the Health Professions:              Horses Helping Helpers

We get health care professionals out of the clinical setting and give them learning experiences around core professional,  interprofessional and interpersonal skills  essential  in today's health care.  No horse experience required.  Non-riding. 

The EAGALA Model at KnowingHorse gives health professionals:
Session objectives address critical competencies for working professionals and/or graduate students in the health professions and can be tailored to a group's specific needs
  • Subtleties of verbal and non-verbal communication 
  • Awareness of interpretation and nonjudgmental thinking
  • Subjective vs objective data
  • The self-in-interaction with others 
  • Boundaries and setting limits
  • Safety and quality in health care
  • Teamwork 
  • Leadership skills
  • Exploring ethics, values and moral dilemmas.

Noreen Esposito is an FNP, WHNP and a PMHNP, has worked in both in-patient, ambulatory and outpatient settings, in critical care,  primary and specialty outpatient care and has a strong understanding of the challenges in health care services and administration. 

Program Structure:

For groups our program options are 1/2 day (4 hours);  full day (7 hours with lunch break); or three day.  Any of those programs can be designed to have return sessions  of 1-4 hours that build on previous learning activities.  Group sizes are limited.  Please call for information about group structure, size and fees. 

We adapt our EAGALA Model programs for individual or group objectives and for professionals in acute or primary care, the mental health professions or for health care leaders and administrators.     Whether a group of psychotherapists,  nurse practitioners,  physicians, a practice team, graduate students, health care administrators or faculty, we will develop sessions that target your unique goals. 

1. The EAGALA Model for Health Professionals   
  • This program provides experiential learning opportunities for practitioners and students in the health professions including nursing, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, physical therapy, social work and other professions.

2. The EAGALA Model for Health Professionals in Counseling, Psychotherapy & Psychiatry  
  • For practitioners and students in the mental health field, the program allows for a greater focus on the therapeutic relationship, the self and other and communication through multiple modalities. 

3. The EAGALA Model for Health Care Leaders  
  • This program provides experiential learning for leaders in the health professions, the program allows for a greater focus on leadership or teamwork, interpersonal skills  and issues of quality and safety.


effective communication, team work andThe EAGALA Model can be adapted to the unique needs of health professional individuals or groups.  This is not to be confused with therapeutic riding.  All programs are on-the-ground, non-riding activities that are based on experiential theory and with a growing body of evidence that the person's response is deep, lasting and continues to evolve long after the sessions end. 


As with all human beings, we in the health professions communicate through a  combination of words and actions. Sometimes our words say one thing and our actions something else.  Sometimes we aren't even aware of what messages we are sending to those around us. Because actions speak louder than words, knowing what messages we may be sending, whether or not intentional is very useful. 

In contrast to people, a horse's  survival depends on an exceptional ability to pick up non-verbal messages. They have hightened sensitivity to positive and negative behavioral cues and reflect back what they are sensing in others. In doing so they tell us about ourselves and how others may be experiencing us. We get immediate, hard-to-ignore feedback from the horses.  In an EAGALA Model session the arena can become a health care setting, the horses may be our patients, co-workers or metaphors for whatever obstacles are in our path.  KnowingHorse sessions are collaborative, horses and humans together in experiential learning that illuminates our strenghts and lets us try out new ways of interacting with others.





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  • KnowingHorse Home
  • Herd Meditations
  • Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy
  • Equine-Assisted Professional Development
  • Equine-Assisted Corporate Program
  • Our Team
  • Getting ready for a session
  • Where: Folly Farm
  • Videos and Research
  • Contact us