Ara Equus Horse Guided Wellness & Psychotherapy

06/07/2026

WHAT IS DARVO and HOW HORSES CAN HELP!

DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is a response exhibited by perpetrators to deflect blame and responsibility. When using DARVO, perpetrators deny their involvement in wrongdoing, attack their victims’ credibility, and argue that they are the real victims in order to avoid punishment or repercussions. They may also gaslight the survivor to confuse and manipulate them into doubting their own reality and second-guessing what happened. The offender aims to make it seem as though they are the one who has been abused and that they are being targeted for reasons such as money, extortion, or whatever suits their denial. DARVO can affect how other people perceive the survivor, who they may view as less trustworthy, and the abuser who they may see as more believable. This becomes divisive and harmful.
A 2022 study looked into the experiences of 89 women who experienced sexual assault while at college. Researchers found that almost half of the participants experienced DARVO tactics from their abusers when they had confronted, reported or had further contact with them. We also witness this repeatedly in our justice system, especially during r**e trials.

How can DARVO affect mental health? Let’s examine it briefly from a nervous system perspective.

When people are abused, assaulted or experience traumatic events, their physiology is altered as their bodies go into survival states. They fight, flee, freeze, fawn, appease, shut down, become immobilized or go still as their nervous system takes over to keep them alive. When they report the assault, they are revictimized by police, the judicial system or the court of social opinion.
When there are no legal repercussions, they begin to question ‘Do I matter? What about me?’ And the answer they gets is that they matter less or not at all. That is a secondary trauma, overlapping the initial, loading more dysregulated stress hormones into their systems.

As for the perpetrator, when they commit a violent act and nothing happens to them afterwards, their nervous system learns that it was safe to do so because they faced no consequences, were acquitted, and got away with it while the victim was publicly shamed and went silent. Their bodies file it away as something they can do again.

The victim and perpetrator are learning completely opposite lessons about safety.

A 2021 Canadian study (Springer) investigated how female survivors of sexual assault felt when police did not believe them. Researchers found lost trust in the police and experienced the secondary trauma of being revictimized by the police who made them feel at fault. The negative effects on their overall mental health and well-being included a loss of self-worth, self-image, self-confidence, or self-esteem. Other studies reveal how chronic unresolved trauma stored in the body also contributes to many physical illnesses.

A 2017 study in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma found that Perpetrators of violence often use a strategy of Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO) to confuse and silence their victims. 138 undergraduate students were asked to report on a time they confronted an individual over a wrong-doing. Analyses revealed that DARVO was commonly used by individuals who were confronted, women were more likely to be exposed to DARVO than men during confrontations, and higher levels of exposure to DARVO during a confrontation were associated with increased perceptions of self-blame among the confronters. These results provide evidence for the existence of DARVO as a perpetrator strategy and establish a relationship between DARVO exposure and feelings of self-blame. Exploring DARVO aids in understanding how perpetrators are able to enforce victims’ silence through the mechanism of self-blame.

A study from 2023 with undergraduate students looked into the effect of DARVO on their perception of perpetrators and survivors of sexual assault. Researchers found that study participants rated perpetrators who used DARVO as less abusive, less responsible for the sexual assault, and more believable than perpetrators who did not use DARVO.

Additionally, participants rated survivors of perpetrators who used DARVO as less believable and more abusive. They were also willing to punish the survivor and less willing to punish the perpetrator. It is important for people who have survived abuse to understand that they are not to blame for what happened to them. The responsibility lies with the person who abused them.

DARVO is very common but not acceptable. You are not alone. Support is available.

Educate yourself and others on how to identify DARVO tactics when it is occurring. Studies have found that this makes perpetrators less believable and less abusive.
Record DARVO dates and times of DARVO actions, set boundaries and seek help or support from a professional trained specifically in trauma and abuse.

At Ara Equus, you have an incredible opportunity to heal in the company of horses alongside specialists in trauma, including a licensed psychotherapist. Horses do not judge. They do not lie, manipulate, blame or shame. Their brains are just not wired for such functions, yet they instinctively understand survival states like flight, freeze, etc. and can help you find a sense of safety. Because horses are prey animals, they are hyper-attuned to their environment and to human emotion. The presence of a calm horse can signal physical safety to your brain, lowering heart rate, reducing muscle tension, and boosting mood-enhancing neurotransmitters through a process called co-regulation. Learn to grow your window of tolerance, set healthy boundaries, expand your insight and understanding of yourself and how your physiology processes trauma from a different level with a different intervention or therapy than traditional methods you may know or are used to. The body has to thaw before the mind can heal.

In-person, on the farm, virtual, horse and non-horse guided psychotherapy sessions are available.
araequushorseasmedicine.com [email protected] 506-991-0700

05/24/2026

NEW TO CARLETON COUNTY, serving Western NB, the Maritimes & beyond:
Ara Equus is a pioneering mental health and wellness centre in Bedell, NB, specializing in trauma therapy and personal wellness programs to facilitate healing and personal growth. Our mission is to offer a safe space for individuals to feel seen, heard, felt and validated as they explore paths to self-discovery, inner healing and empowerment.
Experience the support of horses as well as certified trauma-informed professionals in a private equine therapy session. We are available for one-on-one sessions with clients starting in June 2026. Each session lasts approximately an hour but longer sessions can be arranged and can be scheduled weekly, biweekly or monthly as suited to your needs. No riding or horse experience is necessary because our sessions are non-riding. Our interests include the integration of evidence-based neuroscience and psychotherapy modalities into horse guided wellness and mental health programs with a special focus on chronic treatment resistant and trauma-related conditions. It has been proven that horses can take you to places that are unreachable in conventional therapy! Consent, choice, compassion and safety are pivotal in all interactions. In-person and virtual sessions are available.
We recommend a minimum of 4-8 sessions depending on your personal needs and insurance coverage. Our services are covered by many private or workplace benefits or extended health plans.

Find session details at: www.araequus.com or [email protected]
Share this info with anyone you feel might benefit from it!

05/10/2026

When Mother’s Day is not so Simple

Mother’s Day originated in the early 20th century and since has become a cultural institution. Initiated, with good intentions, to celebrate the ideal image of a warm, present, unconditionally loving matriarch, for many it is not that straightforward. Mother’s Day can be deeply triggering.

Complicating this holiday are the complexities of relational trauma. For anyone whose mother was emotionally unavailable, abusive, absent, chronically ill, mentally unstable, addicted, or simply not the mother the cultural holiday idealizes, Mother’s Day can be the most difficult day of the year.
Consider Meraki, the newest member of our herd. We know very little about her, but what we do know is that she born on an Indigenous farm in Northern BC. Narrowly escaping the Japanese meat truck, she mothered a foal at the age of 3. Like many horses, mother and foal were separated and sold separately. As we welcome her into the herd, we continue to monitor her needs. In the horse and human world, it can also be most difficult for children/adults who did not grow up with their original mothers. For children who were given up at birth, adopted, fostered, or whose mothers died young, developmental trauma is experienced on multiple levels. Ruptures in consistent care can surface throughout life presenting in the form or anxiety, insecure or ambivalent attachment, and a host of emotional aliments. When chronic in nature, unexplained illness manifest in the for of autoimmune conditions like diabetes, arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, Crohn’s and many others.

Relational trauma is the psychological injury that results from repeated experiences of feeling unsafe, unseen, unheard, or unvalued in significant relationships, especially during those formative years. It’s not about a single traumatic event but an accumulation of emotional neglect, inconsistency, or control in the relationships that were supposed to teach you what love looks like. Grief in the context of relational trauma is not just about death. It’s about mourning the relationship, the childhood, or the version of a parent you never had. It’s the ache of realizing that the love you deserved was never available, and that healing means grieving a loss no one else can see.
For many, navigating this holiday is like running a gauntlet of public celebration of a relationship you may have mourned your entire life. You have no safe container, no ritual, and no language for grieving the mother who was unable or unwilling to show up in the ways that you needed her most. The very mention of Mother’s Day can trigger sadness, dysregulation, numbness, or even dissociation. This is your nervous system acknowledging your truth, your biology. It is not ingratitude. It’s neurobiological and it’s honest.
Whether you’re carrying unresolved maternal wounds, fears about your own parenting, or both, trauma-informed therapy offers a space to untangle the layered emotions that surface when a holiday designed to celebrate mothers instead activates grief, rage, or shame.

At Ara Equus, we not only understand trauma but are trained specialists in attachment and trauma therapy. Alongside our herd, who also embody their own wounds of early maternal loss, caregiver loss, or abuse and are painfully honest, we provide a safe space to honour and process your mother wounds. We honour choice, consent, connection and empowerment in healing. If your feelings of love, longing, disappointment, anger, shame and guilt are causing you distress amid a cultural script that expects you to discard the truth and only honor the good, we hear you and we see you. You don’t have to take sides or appease anyone, on one Sunday in May or any other day of the year. Healing the mother wound starts with permission to feel what you authentically feel rather than what you think you’re expected to feel.

02/23/2026

Happy Birthday Thunder! You are 18 years young today and can still outpace the young ones. Thank you to Kimberly Ann Hale at New Start Standardbreds for entrusting this boy to our care. He has been a great teacher, an excellent partner in our therapy programs at Ara Equus and a solid herd mate to the boys. From the racetrack to a new career start as a guide for those seeking therapy or to improve their mental well-being, you are one amazing horse and we love you to pieces.

01/29/2026

Putting words to what you may be feeling. The body knows.

"You cannot breathe your way out of patriarchy. You cannot cold plunge your way out of structural oppression. You cannot meditate, journal, or yoga your way out of conditions that were designed to dysregulate you.

This is not to say that nervous system regulation tools aren't valuable. They are. I use them. I teach them. I believe in the body's capacity to settle, to find ground, to return to itself.

But when regulation tools are offered as the solution to chronic activation without naming the cause of that activation, they become a form of gaslighting. They locate the problem in your body rather than in the conditions your body is responding to.

The message becomes: if you're still anxious, you haven't tried hard enough. If you're still activated, you haven't found the right technique. If you're still struggling, the failure is yours.

But what if your nervous system isn't broken? What if it's accurate?

What if your chronic activation is a correct response to living in a world where your body has never been fully safe? Where your rights can be legislated away? Where your value has been tied to your appearance, your compliance, your ability to serve? Where violence against women is endemic and normalized. Where the mental load is invisible and unpaid and never ending?

You're not dysregulated because you're doing something wrong. You're dysregulated because your body is reading the environment correctly.

This is the problem with nervous system work that doesn't include political analysis. It pathologizes accurate perception. It tells you to calm down when calm would actually be a form of denial. It trains you to regulate your way into tolerating conditions that should not be tolerated.

What if regulation isn't always the goal?

What if sometimes the goal is testimony?

What if your body's activation is not a problem to be solved but a truth to be witnessed? What if the shaking, the racing heart, the inability to settle is your body saying: this is not okay. This was never okay.

And I refuse to pretend it is.

There's a reason oppressed peoples have always used the body as a site of protest. The body that refuses to be calm is a body that refuses to comply. The body that stays activated is a body that is telling the truth about what it has survived.

I'm not saying don't regulate. I'm saying regulate with your eyes open. Know what you're regulating for. Notice if your regulation practice is helping you show up more fully for your life, or if it's helping you tolerate conditions you'd be better off changing or leaving.

There's a difference between settling your nervous system so you can be present and settling your nervous system so you can continue to be extracted from.

One is healing. The other is sophisticated dissociation.

Your body knows things. It knows what's safe and what isn't. It knows what's sustainable and what's depleting. It knows when you're in the wrong relationship, the wrong job, the wrong room.

The question is not how do I make my body stop reacting. The question is what is my body trying to tell me that I haven't been willing to hear.

Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is not calm down. Sometimes the most radical thing is to let your body speak. To let it be a witness. To refuse to regulate yourself into compliance with conditions that are slowly killing you.

Although you cannot breathe your way out of patriarchy, you can listen to the body that has been registering its impact all along."
—Ailey Jolie

Artwork by instagram.com/haisoohaisoohaisoo

01/19/2026

BLUE MONDAY
“There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” AG

If you are feeling ‘down in the dumps’ today, know that you are not alone. With the holidays behind us, we are left in its wake with January’s dark, cold, endless days of never-ending snow removal that is getting hard to keep up with. It was fun at first but now exhausting. For some people, this time of year can put them in a real slump.
“Blue Monday,” the third Monday of January, has gained notoriety as the “most depressing day of the year” and it may be connected to rises in mental health referrals. It is thought to be related to variables like post-holiday debt, long days, failed resolutions, and general low motivation that bring on feelings of disappointment, stress, and seasonal sadness.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is more than the winter blues.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that occurs at certain times of the year, mostly in winter. Symptoms of SAD can include low energy, oversleeping, changes in appetite, difficulty concentrating, and feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, irritability, or sadness. For many, the lack of sunlight and shorter days disrupt circadian rhythms and reduce serotonin levels, leading to these feelings. Research from CAMH shows that around 60% of people in Canada experience “the winter blues,” with some developing more severe SAD.
It’s important to note that experiencing the winter blues doesn’t mean there’s something “wrong” with you or that you have clinical SAD. Feeling lower energy or less motivation during this season is a normal response to the changes in light and temperature. In fact, this experience aligns with the natural rhythm of winter, a time when nature slows down, rests, and prepares for renewal. Just as trees shed their leaves and animals hibernate, humans often feel a pull to conserve energy and turn inward during winter.

Distinguishing SAD from Winter Blues
Winter blues are typically mild and temporary, while SAD symptoms last for weeks or months and can significantly interfere with daily life.
While it’s common to feel a bit down or less motivated during the winter months, SAD can make it challenging to maintain regular tasks, healthy relationships, fun activities, or even get out of bed.
SAD often recurs seasonally, beginning in the fall and continuing through the winter, usually subsiding in the spring or summer. Winter blues are often linked to specific events or stressors and resolve within a relatively short period of time.
If you’re experiencing symptoms of SAD, it’s important to remember that you’re not alone, and there is support available. SAD can affect up to 2-3% of Canadians, with symptoms starting in the fall and continuing into winter.

Take care of yourself during this season
While Blue Monday is a symbolic day, it reminds us to prioritize mental health during the winter months. Here are some practical ways to care for yourself:
Let in the light: Spend some time outside in the sunlight or open your curtains and let it in.
Move your body: Even gentle movement or exercise reduces stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, while increasing feel-good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin.
Stay connected: Social connection is a powerful antidote to feelings of isolation.
Practice self-compassion: Allow yourself to feel your emotions without judgment.
Seek professional support: If feelings of sadness or hopelessness persist, reach out to a mental health professional for guidance and support.
It’s okay to take it at your own pace: The slower, quieter energy of winter can help you feel more aligned with the season. Use this time to reflect, rest, and nurture yourself as you prepare for brighter days ahead.

How Ara Equus Horse Guided Wellness & Psychotherapy® can help
We understand the challenges this time of year can bring and are here to provide compassionate, trauma-competent mental health support to individuals in distress. Whether it’s through in-person connections with the horses or virtual support, we help you navigate difficult moments by offering a safe space to explore your feelings, develop new insights and tackle mental health challenges.

If you or someone you know could benefit from our programs, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here to walk alongside you through the darker days and beyond.
You are not alone.

Blue Monday may highlight the challenges of winter, but it’s also an opportunity to shine a light on mental health and the importance of seeking help when needed. Whether you’re feeling weighed down by the season, struggling with SAD, or simply navigating the pressures of the new year, remember that professional support is available, and brighter days are ahead.

01/12/2026

Discover the power of connection and co-regulation. Experience unique ways to heal from trauma, or any mental health challenge, in relationship with horses.

People don't want to be rescued, they want to be witnessed, to be seen, heard, felt and understood. A horse does not heal you. A horse holds space for you to regulate your nervous system, safely process and move through trauma without retraumatization, and rebuild a meaningful sense of self.

When we’re in a ventral vagal state (the most regulated and socially connected state of our nervous system), our body and mind are in harmony and can communicate with each other more effectively. This is where healing begins.

We are currently accepting new clients. Our services may be covered by your health insurance plans. Please feel free to reach out.

12/18/2025

Not sure what to give that someone special? How about the gift of mental health? Gift certificates available.

12/11/2025

Did you know there are 3 types of Burnout?
1. Overload Burnout: Toxic productivity leads you to believe that there aren’t enough hours in the day to get to everything on your To Do List. It is a relentless push to overachieve.
2. Underchallenged Burnout: Feeling stuck? Disengaged? Unfulfilled? This is when nothing you do seems to fill your cup.
3. Neglect Burnout: This is when you feel unsupported or undervalued and no matter what you do, it doesn’t seem to be noticed.
Imagine what it would be like to reclaim your time and energy and lead a life that is more fulfilling. Learning to recognize negative emotional patterns, reflect on your perspective regarding achievement and create habits that are in alignment with your values can lead to reaching goals that are meaningful to you.

12/06/2025

Pop Psychology by unqualified practitioners is dangerous. "Let Them" is a myth that fuels the trauma cycle. At Ara Equus we help you find your voice in a way that honours the truth of your experience while preserving your integrity.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1357533189106110&extid=MSG-UNK-UNK-UNK-IOS_GK0T-GK1C&ref=sharing