BackgroundA good therapeutic relationship is a strong predictor of successful treatment in addiction and other psychological illness. Recent studies of horse-assisted therapy (HAT) have drawn attention to the importance of the client's relationship to the horse in psychotherapy. Few have reported on the patient's own perspective and none have reported specifically on the human–horse relationship in substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and its implications for health and well-being.AimThis article explores SUD patients’ own experience of their relationship with the horse and their perceptions of its contribution to their therapy.MethodsAs part of a large mixed-method study of HAT in SUD treatment, we used semi-structured interviews of eight patients to gather information about their experiences of HAT. From the data obtained, the relationship with the horse was found to be a significant part of participants’ HAT experience. It is therefore the subject of the current phenomenological study, in which thematic analysis was used to investigate how the participants constructed the reality of their relationship with the horse(s) and their perceptions of the consequences of that reality in SUD treatment.ResultsParticipants’ own descriptions suggest that the horses were facilitators of a positive self-construct and provided important emotional support during treatment. Analysis found relationship with the horse, emotional effect, and mastery to be important and interrelated themes. The findings were interpreted within an attachment theory context.ConclusionThe results appear to be consistent with key addiction treatment theories and with findings in HAT theoretical and empirical studies. They add to our understanding of the impact of HAT on SUD treatment. However, further research is needed into both the construct validity of the patient–horse therapeutic relationship and the possible variance within and between different populations.

BackgroundIn studies employing physiological measures such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), it is often hard to distinguish what constitutes risk-resilience factors to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following trauma exposure and what the effects of trauma exposure and PTSD are.ObjectiveWe aimed to investigate whether there were observable morphological differences in cortical and sub-cortical regions of the brain, 7–8 years after a single potentially traumatic event.MethodsTwenty-four participants, who all directly experienced the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and 25 controls, underwent structural MRI using a 3T scanner. We generated cortical thickness maps and parcellated sub-cortical volumes for analysis.ResultsWe observed greater cortical thickness for the trauma-exposed participants relative to controls, in a right lateralized temporal lobe region including anterior fusiform gyrus, and superior, middle, and inferior temporal gyrus.ConclusionsWe observed greater thickness in the right temporal lobe which might indicate that the region could be implicated in resilience to the long-term effects of a traumatic event. We hypothesize this is due to altered emotional semantic memory processing. However, several methodological and confounding issues warrant caution in interpretation of the results.Highlights of the articleFollowing a traumatic event, most people do not develop long-lasting trauma-related symptoms.In a group who experienced a traumatic event 8 years prior, but showed low levels of trauma-related symptoms, we observed increased cortical thickness in the right temporal lobe.The right temporal lobe is implicated in emotional semantic memory processing, and thus might be associated with resilience to the long-term effects of a traumatic event.