Telling Stories From, and Beyond, the Round Yard: Horse Work and the Development of Preferred Narratives Through Equine-Assisted Narrative Therapy

This article, based on an innovation project submitted for a Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, explores the intersection of equine therapy practices and narrative therapy as part of the therapeutic practices of Horses for Hope, a former not-for-profit organisation that developed equine-assisted narrative therapy. I describe how horse work shaped and was shaped by preferred stories of life—both inside and beyond the round yard—and I critique my own access to power relations. The article includes a rapid scoping review and details a series of conversations with a program participant. Starting with the premises of folk psychology, I reflect on how the project used horse work to story a different territory of life, enable the contribution of insider knowledge, provide an entry point into intentional states, thicken unique outcomes sensitive to affect, scaffold conversations and develop personal agency, enable special relationship practices that counter disempowerment, and re-author preferred stories for the purpose of becoming more “narratively resourced” (White, 2004a, p. 90). I also describe how outsider witness practices were incorporated towards this same purpose.