Experiential Social Emotional Learning EASEL®

an experiential method for GreenCare, education and coaching, counseling and therapy

 

Research over the past two decades have shown a strong link between physical and mental health, and  emotion regulation and social connectivity. Continuously stressful levels of emotions  e.g. affect us all the way to the level of gene expression in the immune cells vital for healing wounds and fighting infections. Even a relative social isolation is as great a health risk as is cigarette-smoking or high blood-pressure. Social rejection shows as increased activity in the same brain areas as physical pain.

 

The influence of thoughts and beliefs on health is equally well established.  In a study spanning over twenty years and involving over 650 research subjects, the scientists found that those who viewed ageing more positively lived, on average, seven and a half years longer than those who held negative thoughts and beliefs. Lowering blood pressure and cholesterol are calculated to improve life span by four years, and exercise and not smoking one to three years.

 

Large changes in emotional reactions and behavior require large-scale changes in thinking, and challenging the underlying irrational beliefs and attitudes. Our attitudes and beliefs color our thinking and perception of situations, and influence how we feel about things. Emotions are chemical cocktails in our body and we have individual refractor periods, the time it takes our bodies to return to baseline. During a  peak the brain doesn't take in new information or it is taken as supporting the emotional state. An angry person is likely to just be irritated by attempts to "talk reason". It is even possible to become accustomed to an emotion to the extent of an addiction where we try to arrange social situations to result in that feeling. To change thinking with training or therapy, we need some kind of event or experience that allows us to change our attitudes and expectations more quickly and dramatically than we normally would. The most effective learning and growth happens when people find their own solutions through experiential learning, even if only in the mind, and active processing.

 

EASEL®

Experiential Social Emotional Learning, EASEL®, is Cavesson’s experiential facilitation method developed since the mid 90’s to enhance education, therapy and coaching processes. The general process description can be tailored for different client groups and facilitated from each facilitator’s own theoretical framework. While working towards own individual developmental or therapeutic goals, EASEL® allows clients to simultaneously strengthen and fine-tune own social emotional skills to better match the demands oftheir daily lives.

 

In addition to the individual goals of each client, the method enhances

  • self-awareness
  • self-regulation
  • social awareness and empathy
  • social skills
  • responsible decision making, effective parenting, earned leadership
  • play, joy, and happiness caused by aesthetic experiences

 

Each facilitator combines with own professional background the general theoretical framework of EASEL® : modern facilitation tools and principles from solution focused coaching and therapy, DBT, DDP, SEL, Adventure Education, and Montessori pedagogy to build a uniquely effective experiential coaching method.

 

EASEL® offers structured and theoretically supported process descriptions, psycho-education tools, facilitation principles, and a progressive set of experiential activities. EASEL® model  is used in therapy,  psychosocial rehabilitation, personal and professional development, corporate and leadership coaching,  special education programs, Green Care and Social Farming.

 

EASEL® combines psychoeducation with experiential activities. Depending on facilitators' own interests and possibilities, EASEL® can include adventure, building relationships with animals trained in the relational work, nature walks, creative  arts  and coaching exercises etc. It is also highly efficient in leadership training and coaching in normal office setting. The greatest adventure always happens in the mind!

The facilitation method and experiential activities make it possible to have individual facilitation even in a group program, and to tailor the facilitation according to each client’s personal needs and goals, temperament, developmental stage, personal history and culture etc. Nature and the EASEL®- animal co-facilitators reduce stress and support the building of a milieu that feels both safe and challenging. The animals are always members of the groups and equally free to join in or not.

Having to make room also for someone of another species just allows us to quit talking with words and start challenging ourselves and some of our beliefs about communication and relationships.

The facilitation style, tools, and experiential exercises activate clients’ thinking and challenge their beliefs and attitudes. But there are also feelings of happiness caused by the aesthetic and powerful experiences.  EASEL® is particularly suitable experiential facilitation method with clients who feel that they don’t want to‘‘just talk’’. It also smoothly combines individual facilitation and a group process.

 

The activities with EASEL® horses place people in a state of active problem-solving. The activities are designed to produce a natural process that can be investigated, rather than to complete any particular task with a horse. The objective of EASEL® is not to teach equestrian skills. As in life and relationships in general, the activities are open and shaped by the horse and the client in that moment. The facilitators’ job is to individually guide each client’s exercise so that he or she can safely and productively investigate alternative ways of being, thinking, and doing. The learning arising from this is profound and revealing.

 

PROCESS WITH ANIMALS

In an EASEL® process, the facilitator guides the building of a relationship between a client and trained animal co-facilitator. Clients learn in the process about themselves, play, boundaries, dynamics in relationships etc.

Friendship and care

Building a bond and communication

Play and fun

Mutual trust

Agility courses

Leadership - and parenting -  a strong enough relationship based on mutual respect, trust and genuine care so that a command, safety related limits or constructive criticism don't damage the bond

FACILITATOR TRAINING

In Finland Cavesson arranges the facilitator training  in collaboration with University of Jyväskylä Center for Continuing Professional Development, EduCluster Finland.  Training programs are also arranged abroad with various organisers.

Therapy, learning and leadership are largely a relationship thing. EASEL® facilitator is trained in coaching techniques that help client clarify the question he or she wants to investigate in that session, and in how to effectively use the horse/dog-human relationship to enhance clients’ self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and empathy, communication skills, and responsible decision making and leadership / parenting skills. Based on the conversation and the client's emotional state, the EASEL® facilitator knows how to design and facilitate an experiential activity to that question individually even in a group session.  EASEL® facilitators may specialize in working with horses (EASEL®, equine assisted sel) and/or dogs and other animals (AASEL®)

 

The facilitator’s relationship with the animal co-facilitator  a) models to client what a loving relationship based on mutual trust and respect looks like (earned leadership, not taken) b) lets the client evaluate if the facilitator can be trustworthy for him/her, too c) helps create  a space that feels both safe and challenging enough to activate thinking and change d) models what we teach and ask clients to practice.

 

To learn more about the friendship-based horsemanship of EASEL® please watch YouTube

 

Experiential learning challenges attitudes and beliefs, and offers new ways of seeing oneself  in relation to others. Horses make experiential learning all the more powerful. So, unless we want a client to dominate people in his or her own life, we should not teach the client to dominate the horse. But mutually respectful boundaries and taking turns in making suggestions and following the other one's led are part of any healthy relationship.

 

The objective in all styles of horsemanship is to build a mutually safe and stress-free relationships. There are two technically rather opposite ways to get there.

 

One way builds leadership first and works with the horse in a small arena at liberty (round pen) or keeps him in a bridle and halter.  They later progress to more and more advanced work , that can also include working at liberty on a larger arena. This model copies the natural  behavior of a stallion, who needs to get new mares to quickly obey him, so they stay with him and he can keep them safe from predators and other stallions.

 

Imitated by a skilled horseperson, the stallion model does result very quickly in the horse following freely. Client’s, however, are rarely skilled horse people, and our goal in equine assisted learning and therapy is rarely to teach horse skills.

 

The other model, the EASEL® model of friendship-based horsemanship, or leadership, builds first on friendship, care and free play. We work with the horse at liberty on a large arena or pasture. We move into smaller arenas or  to wearing bridles and halters, to more leadership based agility and riding or driving, as the relationship develops. All our EASEL® horses at Savikko are trained in dressage and driving and several even compete or have competed at national advanced level. To learn more about the horses, please, visit  www.savikontila.fi 

 

This model follows the example of the lead mare and how the foals grow up. The lead mare’s job in the herd is to raise socially healthy and physically and mentally recilient young horses, and to protect and lead the herd to food and water. - To take care, and to teach how to lead and be led. The foals are kept safe and respectful, but they grow up free to investigate and play within boundaries. The boundaries change step by step, as the young develop, giving more room for own choices and the responsibility that comes with freedom.

 

In horses’ friendships, even leadership is situational.  In EASEL®, horses and people follow each other’s suggestions, respect each other’s boundaries, take turns in “leading” or making decisions, play, protect and groom each other.

 

Friendship-based leadership is the kind that can keep people and horses safe regardless of age, speed and challenge. And it builds a true co-facilitator team.