Wired to Adapt

Adaptive: to make fit (as for a new use) often by modification Maladaptive: marked by poor or inadequate ability to modify to fit Humans are the most successful mammals on the planet BECAUSE we are the best at adaptation. We can adapt to fit nearly any climate, circumstance, or challenge. This is largely due to our massive neocortex, and specifically … Read More

Congruence

“We cannot change, we cannot move away from what we are, until we thoroughly accept what we are. Then change seems to come about almost unnoticed” (Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person). Carl Rogers referred to congruence as a compatible match between an individual’s ideal sense of self and their actual experience of their sense of self. Incongruence, on … Read More

Care for the Caregivers

American healthcare providers are facing an unprecedented level of stress and trauma as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. In some areas of the country, their exposure to traumatic events is equivalent to a war zone hospital (TIME, 2020). When overwhelming stress is paired with inadequate follow-up care, the result is often Post Traumatic Stress. That is the aftermath we … Read More

Tension

Anxiety treatment

Tension. It is a state of being that requires almost no explanation to be understood. Most animals are capable of recognizing tension even across species. It can be a temporary state, or it can be one’s modus operandi. We feel it every day to variable degrees. Usually, a mammal will return to a state of non-tension (maybe even relaxation) after … Read More

Abusing Ourselves

Recently, I crafted a metaphor that helped me understand how maltreatment cycles through us as we go about the business of living. It is my hope that this way of looking at the legacy of abuse and trauma is helpful to others as it has been for me. When we experience abuse, or trauma of any kind, we begin to … Read More

Letter From Our Founder

In 2008, I formulated a mission: to bring together abused and neglected animals with abusedand neglected people. Through my own experience with rescued animals, I realized theirtherapeutic impact on our mental health. In 2009, Ranch Hands Rescue became a 501(c)(3) public charity. Today, our fully licensedprofessional counselors specialize in trauma-focused therapy, Equine and Animal AssistedCounseling (EAAC), and other therapeutic modalities … Read More

Roo’s New Years Resolution

Emotional Support Dog Needs Three Prosthetics to Walk (Argyle, TX, December 26, 2018) – Roo, a one-year-old Basenji mix, has one goal for 2019  – to run and play like other dogs. Born with congenital deformities in three of her legs, Roo cannot walk normally. The once-abandoned puppy was rescued from the Lewisville Animal Shelter and is now an emotional … Read More

Focusing on Gender Equality in Sex Trafficking

With years of experience helping sex trafficking victims process their emotional trauma, RHR is developing a plan to change the severe lack of aid for young boys trapped in the sex trafficking industry. Half of sex trafficking victims are male, but to add to boys’ nearly invisible victimhood, “only four out of 25 shelters for commercially sexually exploited children serve … Read More

What is EAAC Therapy?

EAAC stands for Equine and Animal Assisted Counseling, a therapeutic modality that helps traumatized individuals build a relationship with a horse or other animal to bring about transformation and healing. There are many hardships in life that can cause intense emotional trauma such as abuse, neglect, domestic violence, divorce, mental illness, substance abuse, death or imprisonment of a caregiver, or … Read More

What is EMDR Therapy?

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years take effect. Although most people think that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal, EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body … Read More