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TTouch for Parkinson's Case Study

Dear Linda,

You may use my case study with our blessing. I hope that our experiences with TTouch for Parkinson's can make a difference in someone else's life as well. Below are some detailed notes on what we tried, what worked and what didn't.

D's symptoms include involuntary movement of the head and upper body / shoulders. These attacks last about 30 minutes and come on approximately an hour after he takes dopamine. In consciously trying to control these exaggerated movements, the neck muscles are strained and this in turn causes terribly painful spasms in the neck and shoulders. He regularly had to go for physio treatments.

Initially I tried the TTouch "sensei" body wrap for a few days for about 20 minutes every morning when the jerking movements were really bad. I decided to use this wrap because his posture is very "head forward". However, I could not see any reduction in the movements, and he also did not report any significant improvement.

We then tried a 2" turtleneck wrap simultaneously with 3" shrug wrap. The movements stopped virtually immediately and we kept the wraps on for about 30 minutes. D said that there was a warm, glowing feeling in the neck where the spasms usually are and an incredible lightness in his shoulders. So this is now the regular treatment, the jerking still stops as soon as I put the wraps on, and he hasn't needed to see a physio for neck spasms since.

We went to Norway for three weeks in November and forgot to take the wraps along. The muscle spasms started up on the second day without wraps. I tried several pharmacies, but none had suitable bandages. I did TTouches on the neck and shoulders, about 3 pressure and with various positions with the back of my hands. It helped sufficiently that D could live without pain medication for most of the trip, but not as spectacularly as the wraps.

D also has sciatica due to his irregular gait (almost stumbling movements). I tried the wrap described on page 29 of "All Wrapped Up for You" and it brought IMMEDIATE and TOTAL relief. It was the most amazing thing!! I also tried the sumo wrap and the diagonal wrap, but they did not work as well as the page 29 wrap. This wrap brought relief as long as it was on, but the pain returned soon after and he is now receiving physio treatment for his hips. As soon as the current inflammation has cleared, we will use the page 29 wrap regularly to improve balance and gait and hopefully prevent this from happening again.

And then, the absolutely astounding results on the swollen legs and feet! The blood pressure medication caused his feet to swell to such an extent that he could not get his shoes on. The diuretics the doctor prescribed interacted negatively with the Parkinson's medication, so he had to stop taking it. Well, I don't really know what I'm doing or why I'm doing it, so I just tried various things and got feedback from D. I was also quite intrigued by the idea of just treating one side of the body and the other side will be affected as well (something Robyn mentioned in the course). So I only worked on his right leg as an experiment. The program we settled on was Noah's March, Raccoon TTouches on the lower leg and foot, a few Abalones, then some Python lifts, Coiled Pythons, Octopus and Noah's March again.

I then put a simple criss-cross wrap on his lower leg – starting at the back of the knee, cross front, cross back, cross front on the ankle, under the foot and back - and left it on for about 20 minutes. D said that this caused a intense "buzzing" feeling in his leg, the leg felt a lot lighter than the other one and when he got up and walked, he actually walked a lot better – not shuffling anymore.

After a week of this treatment once a day in the evenings, I could see the difference – the swelling in both legs were down significantly, even though I only worked on the one leg. We kept this up for three weeks until his legs and feet looked normal again. His legs have not swollen again. (It is now four months later.)

I have to admit that I am very left-brained, logical, analytical and scientific and it is very strange for me to get such spectacular results with something I neither understand nor know enough about it to really know what I'm doing. But I work mindfully and with a positive attitude, I visually good outcomes, and it seems to work.

Thank you for making your experiences, insights and research available to us. On a personal level, it has already made a huge difference in our lives, the lives of my beloved rescue doggies and the shelter animals I work with. I really want to learn more!

Best regards,

Erica

The Polyvagal Theory & The Completion of the Orienting Response

Another extract from Robin Bernhard.

I feel that this is quite relevant to the work that we do in TTouch. How often are animals prevented from displaying any reaction or feeling?  All the time!  They are inhibited from barking in case it disturbs the neighbours.  They can't jump because someone's clothes will get dirty.  When something frightening happens they can't run away because they are on lead and so on. Just finding a mechanism that will allow them to complete the orienting response, even during things as simple as daily walks, could contribute to make life less stressful for them on many levels. These mechanism could include ear work, Noah's March including our maxim of "Calm the tail, calm the dog".

"Light touching of the skin stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and provides a natural way for us to calm down. The vagus nerve makes up most of the parasympathetic nervous system and connects the heart, lungs, organs and intestines to the brain.  Light touch of the skin over the heart, lungs and gut triggers both the release of oxytocin and simultaneously engages the vagus nerve. (...) 

The initial quietude and appearance of the soft eye seen in our group members when they were first wrapped may be a subtle sign of what is called the natural orienting response. When something changes in an animal's environment, certain innate behaviours, such as turning the head in the direction of the change and becoming erect and alert, are all part of this response. Trauma theory describes PSTD as the orienting response stuck in the freeze mode of the fight/flight/freeze/faint trauma response. Animals in the wild either run away or fight unless death is imminent at which point they will freeze and faint before they are killed. This part of the polyvagal system is the most ancient, the dorsal motor portion of the vagal system.

Humans and domesticated animals in modern society are often unable to release fear using this mechanism because fighting or fleeing is discouraged or prevented.  Instead, frozen states of fear and rage are held in body memory, in the cells and tissues. Without alternative ways to care for these reactions we develop the symptoms associated with chronic stress.  When Tellington TTouch Body Wraps stimulate and warm the skin they offer another pathway to care for our stress reactions which can be partially explained by the healthy engagement of the vagus nerve and the ventral portion of that system.

The polyvagal system is actually two systems which can function independently, the dorsal motor pathway and the ventral vagus pathway. The ventral vagus pathway offers the second pathway for handling a stress response. Stephen Porges labelled this pathway "the social nervous system" because it represents a solution to stress or fear that involves social engagement. Infants activate this system when they seek and obtain support and nurturance from parents who create safety through protective and loving actions towards them. The social engagement system includes the face and facial expressions, the neck for turning the head in the direction of seeking help, the chest, the back and the arms for reaching out. When this social nervous system is activated, the ancient fight/flight/freeze/faint reactions are inhibited.

(...)

It is believed that keeping the eyes open stimulates the ventral vagus complex and allows the orienting response to be completed in safety. As we mentioned earlier, the application of the wraps seems to trigger the orienting response in group members. Simply allowing the orienting response to complete rather than be disrupted, as it was at the time of the trauma, is one way of helping to release trauma holding patterns."

 

Light Touch Releases Oxytocin & Soothes the Polyvagal System

Here is another short extract from Robin Bernhard's article "Using Tellington TTouch Body Wraps with Traumatic Brain Injury"

"... A study designed to explore the benefits of massage was expected to demonstrate that massage supports the immune system by boosting the body's levels of oxytocin, "the trust hormone", and thereby indirectly reducing the body's secretion of cortisol, "the stress hormone". Both groups in the study, funded by the U.S.  National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, showed an increase of oxytocin, but the people in the control group who received "light touch" actually produced more oxytocin, and therefore less cortisol, than the people in the deep touch group. This news was interesting, since all Tellington TTouch falls into the category of light touch.

Since oxytocin is the neuropeptide of trust and safety, it would be the perfect antidote to the fight/flight/freeze response. (...) Just touching another person in a kind way or hugging a pet can release oxytocin. (...) Also of great interest, it has been shown in laboratory studies that oxytocin can completely erase old memory and is being studied as a new therapy for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Studies show that oxytocin produces the right attitude for learning. It reduces anxiety and improves social learning in autistic children by activating the right hemisphere of the brain associated with bonding and emotional recognition. It is believed to create an inner atmosphere of safety that promotes flexibility and openness to change. Maybe oxytocin plays a role in erasing or altering the old memory and providing a neuropeptide source for positive feeling. This neuropeptide could be released in an instant and the positive feeling would truly contradict a memory that was formed during fight/flight/freeze or faint. It would satisfy both conditions of the brain's rules for change."

 

The Brain's Rules for Instantaneous Change  

An excerpt from an article by Robin Bernhard, Charlottesville, Virginia.

"It is now known that the mind can alter the structure of the brain and memories are not permanent ...

The latest in neuroscience shows that old memories, especialy body memories, are flexible and can be changed; and sometimes they can be changed in an instant.

Every time an old memory is reactivated there is a brief critical period when synapses between the cells firing together temporarily unlock, a process called de-consolidation. If new information enters during the critical window when the old memory is dissolving, instantaneous change in that memory can occur. According to (Bruce) Ecker two things must happen in order for new information to enter an old memory:

1. The memory must be reactivated in order for it to be briefly dissolvable.

2. New information that sharply contradicts and disconfirms the old expectations must be available when the old memory is reactivated and momentarily unlocked.

The first rule of instantaneous change requires that some aspect of a memory is re-activated. The Body Wraps provide both sensory input to the coetaneous and proprioceptive pathways believed to activate the body's memory, even memory held at cellular level. The beauty of the Tellington TTouch method is how cellular memory flies beneath the radar of the thinking mind so that this gentle activation of the body memory can be addressed without catharsis or even conscious awareness. (...)

The second rule for instantaneous change requires that the building blocks for the new information are available at the right moment and sharply contradict the old expectations. Often the issues being addressed through Telington TTouch are issues of trust, pain and/or fear that developed when the person or animal experienced overwhelming circumstances and helplessness. Tellington TTouch is always conducted within the context of a safe and empowering relationship without pain, fear, force or pressure of any kind."

I hope the short extract will help us realise just how important it is to provide new messages to the brain when we are trying to modify behaviours which are causing our companion animals stress.  We may not know what the source of the fear was, but by observing closely and being aware of that critical moment, that "window of opportunity", we can help them overcome traumas from the past which are influencing their lives in the present and are being detrimental to them.

What is Reactivity

I am posting this quote from Leslie McDevitt's book because I feel that this is something that many people have to deal with and many are ill-advised and oriented in the wrong direction.

"Reactivity comes from anxiety, which comes from feeling uncertain about something. Reactivity is an information-seeking strategy.  A reactive dog will rush towards something or someone that he is uncertain about, barking, lunging, growling, and making a big display. People sometimes perceive reactive behaviour as aggression, but a reactive dog is not rushing in to do damage; he is attempting to assess the threat level of a given situation. His assessment strategy is intensified because he is panicking as the adrenaline flows through his body. If a reactive dog learns to feel confident about something, he is less worried about that thing and therefore reacts less to it. People also sometimes perceive reactive behaviour as "dominance" because they view a dog that flies at his triggers as a dog that wants to take charge. This is absolutely not the cases. Reactive dogs are anxious, and their response is intense because they are freaking out.

That is why clear structures are necessary for anxious dogs. They need to know what is happening next, and they need to know they are safe. If left untreated (or if treated inappropriately with physical punishment), reactivity can escalate into aggression. Much, but not all, aggression is anxiety-related. Reactivity and anxiety-related aggression are simply different levels of response to a stressful situation. Anxiety-related aggression will occur when the dog is put in a situation that pushes him beyond what he can manage with a measured response. In these cases the dog's anxiety takes him to the next level of response."

Leslie McDevitt  "Control Unleashed" p. 25

 

Wraps enhance Proprioception and Calm Nociception

 Another extract from Robin Bernhard's article.  There are other translations of articles by Kathy Cascade in earlier blog posts.

"Kathy Cascade, a physical therapist and Tellington TTouch instructor, has described how the wraps stimulate the skin and proprioceptive system in such a way that the enhanced information can be used by the brain to make improvements in balance, coordination and movement.  Kathy was talking about the ability to know where our bodies are located in space based upon the feedback system coming from the skin, joints, ligaments and tendons. This feedback system allows the person wearing wraps to instlantly know where the wrapped part of the body is located in space and brings awareness to the relationship between this part of the body and the rest of the body during movement.

Some of the proprioceptive receptors in the skin adapt to sensation quickly and others adapt slowly. Rapidly adapting receptors allow for minute distinctions in the experience of pressure and vibration on the skin. The hair follicles, Meissner's and Pacinian corpuscles all respond to light brushing, light touch and gentle vibration, respectively, by sending immediate brief signals to the brain at the start and stop of each stimulation. This fast on-off information switch allows the body to respond quickly and freshly to each stimulus to the skin so that differentiation of slight changes in skin pressure and vibration can be detected. These fast adapting receptors happen to be associated with the release of oxytocin when stimulated by light touch.

The thermorepcetors in the skin detect warm and cold sensations. (...) There are no  receptors for very hot temperatures in the skin. In fact, the receptors that detect cold temperatures actually fire along with warm receptors when something is hot to create the sensation of extreme heat. This combination of warm and cold receptors firing at the same time is what causes the paradoxical hot/cold "Vick's Vapor Rub" feeling that Jessica described in her legs.

Pain reception also involves both quick acting and slow acting neurons. The quick acting neurons tend to detect sharp, shooting pain and the slow acting neurons tend to detect deep, throbbing or aching pain. (...)

It may be that soothing skin stimulation competes with the pain pathway or the memory of pain. It is reported in the TENS literature that gentle electrical stimulation actually blocks chronic pain receptors. Chronic pain perception is activated by the slow acting neurons. Because the fast adapting neurons bring the gentle stimulation of the TENS to the brain through a different route, it blocks the awareness of chronic pain. The wraps may be generating a similar type of gentle input that competes with and distracts someone from chronic pain.

As mentioned in the brain's rules for change, perhaps the gentle stimulation is new information that contradicts the circumstances under which the pain memory was created and instantly changes the memory. Could the gentle stimulation of the wraps cause a release of a chemical messenger, like oxytocin, that signals safety and suggests to the body that the pain is over? Maybe it is the interest generated from a different kind of stimulation that triggers an orienting response and then permits the completion of the orienting  response and the engagement of the calming ventral vagal system.

There is scientific evidence to support the hypothesis that the engagement of the polyvagal system is part of reducing the perception of pain. In fact, where the vagus nerve meets the heart is one place where pain is modulated. When the heart is pumping in a calm and rhythmic cycle it causes the vagus nerve to suppress pain perception in the spinothalamic tract which brings information about pain to the brain. With the spinothalamic tract suppressed the experience of pain coming from both the spine and from the skin will be reduced."

Laying Horses Down

This topic has been gaining increasing publicity since Robert Redford dropped 'Pilgrim' at the end of The Horse Whisperer.

I have been biting my tongue regarding this subject for a very long time, as I was not sure how to express my feelings on the topic. Finally, I have found an explanation that truly resonates...but first, my firm, personal opinions on this topic:

1. This tactic should be an absolute last resort before dogging/putting down a horse
2. Under no circumstances should amateurs have the how-to explained to them as this arms less experienced riders/trainers with powerful tools they may not fully understand
3. It should be used only by highly experienced professionals, and not in the public arena - there will always be an idiot or several who watched and ignore the "don't try this at home" warning


The following is an excerpt from Linda Kohanov's book, The Tao of Equus. I highly recommend this book to all horselovers, but this particular extract deals with the practice of laying a horse down in great detail. It is long, but I urge you to read through.


Laying horses down

"There's a difference between aligning with nature for the mutual benefit of horse and rider, and manipulating nature for selfish ends. The former leads to greater balance for everyone involved. The latter results in the trainer quickly gaining control at the long-term expense of the horse. Somtimes, even the most well-meaning and experienced trainers have trouble distinguishing between the two. People who lack integrity and self-awareness repeatedly cross this line without a second thought.

The practice known as "laying the horse down" is a classic example. The fact that this technique was portrayed during a pivotal scene in both the novel and film versions of The Horse Whisperer sets a dangerous precedent for many amateur equestrians. Shortly after the movie came out, I had to talk several people out of duplicating this method with their own horses, and actually had trouble convincing them to take the time to work through their problems with less intrusive techniques. To the casual observer, it appears an unruly horse can be "fixed" in record time by this impressive trick. However, the act of forcing a prey animal to lie down by tying up one of his front legs, dragging him to the ground, and sitting on him in this vulnerable position until he submits causes such an intense fear reaction that the animal's entire nervous system short-circuits. The result is a sudden change in personality. The horse acts like a zombie, which to people who prefer a machine-like mount, appears to be a miraculous cure for disobedience.

Though I know of no formal studies explaining the psychological and physiological effects of this tactic on horses, it appears to take advantage of a biological process that shields all mammals from feeling the impact of an attack. After all, when a large predator succeeds in pulling a horse down and immobilizing him, it usually marks the end of the battle. This reaction differs from common shock because an animal can freeze before any physical damage occurs, and, under certain circumstances, can remain in a lesser form of this dissociative state after the danger has past. Some tribal hunting cultures believe that nature has shown the utmost compassion in providing a mechanism that allows a prey animal's soul to leave his body before the heart stops beating, thereby sparing him the pain and horror of being eaten. Tradition equestrian-based cultures in Siberia have been known to perform similar moves on horses about to be sacrificed with the expressed intent of releasing their spirits before striking the fatal blow. To look into the vacant eyes of a horse that has been subjected to this technique is to know there's some truth to these notions.

Dana Light saw the method used many times during her years working at ranches, training stables, and trail riding operations. Horses receiving this treatment immediately lost status in their herds and were sometimes completely ostracized. She believes that by laying the horse down and holding him down until he submits, the animal is frightened within an inch of his life. "He loses the will to live," she says, "and he simply doesn't care what you do to him anymore. The herd immediately sense this and adjusts to it, in some cases acting as if he doesn't even exist. I would never do this to a horse unless he was so dangerous the only alternative would be sending him to the killer's."
Some commercial trail riding stables have been known to perform the procedure on horses most riders would perceive as only mildly difficult. Owners of these operations can't afford to have a member of the string react to unbalanced, sometimes fearful beginner riders by bucking or running off with them. Their horses are obliged to walk the same trails day after day. They're expected to endure people who pull their mouths and kick their sides unmercifully. Some stables also require their mounts to stand around saddled for long stretches of time, waiting for prospective riders. Animals too spirited or willful to submit to these demands can be "corrected" in a single afternoon.

Long before I really understood what this method entailed, I had the opportunity to rehabilitate a horse who showed all the symptoms associated with this extreme technique. "Spike", a handsome palomino who worked on a dude string, managed to find a new owner when thirteen-year-old "Bonnie" fell in love with him during a trail ride. Her parents bought this older, more reliable gelding on the spot, thinking he would be a safe beginner's mount for their horse-crazy daughter. He seemed the perfect choice, at least at first. Problems arose, however, when Bonnie tried to bond with him and ride him around the arena at a local boarding stable. Spike, who had spent years following the horse in front of him down a well-weathered path, was dull and listless. He had the same glassy, distant look in his eyes that Noche adopted around strangers. While the horse seemed physically capable of doing what Bonnie asked, it took so much effort to direct his every move that she was becoming discouraged. She was also disappointed that Spike didn't seem to care about her one way or the other, no matter how often she rode him.

Over two months, I helped the young lady gain Spike's trust through a series of exercises on the ground and in the saddle. I also used some simple massage techniques and T-Touches (those gentle, circular touches Linda Tellington-Jones developed to enhance cellular intelligence and mind-body awareness). The goal was to lure Spike out of his perpetual state of dissociation and back into contact with his body through pleasant, supportive, confidence-building activities. I also suggested Bonnie set aside time to hang out with Spike, petting and playing with him without any particular agenda.

The horse slowly came back to life. His eyes began to twinkle. Soon he was whinnying and running up to Bonnie when she approached his stall. Much to my own surprise, however, the formerly quiet, complacent gelding became difficult to manage for several weeks as a result of these efforts. Once he woke up from his dissociative trance, he wasn't automatically willing to defer to Bonnie's authority, and he didn't seem to remember some of the things he had learned in his previous mindset. Spike, in fact, acted like a completely different horse. He would run off with Bonnie in situations that never fazed him before. Since this slim, teenage girl didn'ta have the strength or experience to deal with her now-unpredictable companion, I decided to treat Spike like a three-year-old. I taught Bonnie how to train him from the ground up as if he had never been exposed to the bit and bridle. He was, of course, more stable and trustworthy than a young colt. We were simply revisiting activities he had learned in a disempowered state, retraining him from this newly awakened perspective. He progressed quickly, becoming more enthusiastic and co-operative along the way.

As I watched this process, I began to understand how severe a personality change his former occupation - and the training techniques designed to make him more compliant - had induced in him. If laying Spike down had separated his mind and spirit from his body, then correcting this injustice was akin to soul retrieval. Any skill he learned in his previous state of dissociation seemed to be a vague, dream-like memory at best.

It wasn't until I began working with human trauma survivors in the late 1990s that I found a clinical explanation for this phenomenon. Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., has made significant breakthroughs in treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by studying the predator-prey relationship in nature. The first chapter in his book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma opens with a description of what happens to an impala attacked by a hungry cheetah:

"At the moment of contact (or just before), the young impala falls to the ground, surrendering to its impending death. Yet it may not be injured. The stone-still animal is not pretending to be dead. It has instinctively entered an altered state of consciousness shared by all mammals when death appears imminent....Physiologists call this altered state the 'immobility' or 'freezing' response. It is one of the three primary responses available to reptiles and mammals when faced with an overwhelming threat. The other two, flight and fight, are much more familiar to most of us. Less is known about the immobility response. However, my work over the last twenty-five yeras has led me to believe that is is the single most important factor in uncovering the mystery of human trauma....The physiological evidence clearly shows that the ability to go into and come out of this natural response is the key to avoiding the debilitating effects of trauma. It is a gift to us from the wild."

Levine discovered that parts of the brain activated in life-threatening situations are the same parts of the nervous system people share with other mammals. Over time, he also noticed that the human ability for rational thought would sometimes interfere with instinctual impulses to flee or fight in an emergency, leading to an even more dramatic freeze response he calls the Medusa Complex.

"As in the Greek myth of Medusa, the human confusion that may ensue when we stare death in the face can turn us to stone. We may literally freeze in fear, which will result in the creation of traumatic symptoms....Traumatic symptoms are not caused by the 'triggering' event itself. They stem from the frozen residue of energy that has not been resolved and discharged."

Levine describes the energetic profile of the freeze response as being similar to what happens to a car when the driver floors the accelerator and stomps on the brake simultaneously. "The difference between the inner racing of the nervous system (engine) and the outer immobility (brake) of the body creates a forceful turbulence inside the body similar to a tornado."
Levine observed videos of wild animals released after the trauma of being captured and vaccinated or fitted with radio collars, an ordeal experienced as a predatory attack. Most interestingly, even predatory bears coming out of the freeze response would shake violently and then run off their excess energy the same way prey animals do. When Levine slowed down video of the initial tremors, he realized that these strange movements were also related to running. Based on these findings, he believed that "the key to healing traumatic symptoms in humans lies in our being able to mirror the fluid adaptation of wild animals as they shake out and pass through the immobility response and become full mobile and functional again."

The subtleties invovled in various ways of laying down a horse coincide with Levine's theories. A horse methodically trained to lie down by a trusted trainer, for instance, is not the least bit traumatized. The geldings Buck Light laid down at the ranch in Wyoming also remained spirited and alert, despite the fact that they were forced to the ground and no doubt frightened by a group of cowboys who were complete strangers at the time. However, this rough and tumble training technique was designed to immobilize the horse long enough for the rider to jump into the saddle. The fact that the animal was immediately allowed to jump up and take off running essentially gave him the opportunity to "pass through the immobility response and become fully mobile and functional again."
Pulling a frightened horse to the ground and sitting on him until he stops struggling, however, is a way of inducing and solidifying the freeze response, creating a perpetually dazed mount who thereafter wanders around in a trance originally designed to spare him the pain of being eaten.

Years after Spike was forced into the worker drone mindset of an obedient trail horse, he exhibited the same tendency to shake and run when he began to come out of this dissociative state. In reflecting on this response years later, I suspected the horse had been laid down at some point in his training. The only problem was Bonnie happened to be in the saddle when Spike "woke up." Had I understood this, I never would have let my inexperienced student ride the horse during this transition. Luckily, Bonnie fell off only once, suffering little more than a few bruises and getting the air knocked out of her. My subsequent impulse to start Spike from the ground up allowed himto work off theeffects of this internalized tornado of repressed energy as he galloped and bucked around on the longe line for the first few days.

Comedian Woody Allen once remarked that he wasn't afraid of dying. He just didn't want to be there when it happened. "In this characteristic one-liner," Levine observes, "Woody Allen quips a fairly accurate description of the role played by dissociation - it protects us from the impact of escalating arousal. If a life-threatening event continues, dissociation protects us from the pain of death."

To give readers an idea of what this protective response feels like, he offers a quote from David Livingstone's diary. While traveling through Africa, the famous explorer, who was almost eaten by a lion, found himself in a strange and comforting altered state after the predator pulled him down by the shoulder and shook him violently. "The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat," Livingstone reported. "It caused a sort of dreaminess in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though [I was] quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivore; and if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent creator for lessening the pain of death."

"The best way to define dissociation is through the experience of it," Levine emphasizes. "In its mildest forms, it manifests as a kind of spaciness. At the other end of the spectrum, it can develop into so-called multiple personality disorder. Because dissociation is a breakdown in the continuity of a person's felt sense, it almost always includes distortions of time and perception....[T]he woman being raped, the soldier facing enemy fire, or the victim of an accident may experience a fundamental disconnection from his or her body. From a corner of the ceiling, a child may watch him/herself being molested, and feel sorry for or neutral toward the defenseless child below....In trauma, dissociation seems to be a favored means of enabling a person to endure experiences that are at the moment beyond endurance - like being attacked by a lion, a rapist, an oncoming car, or a surgeon's knife." Or, in the case of a horse, pulled to the ground and forced to lie there until he submits, by a trainer who has absolutely no regard for the animal's emotional and spiritual well-being.


Related to this issue, however, is an intriguing interpretation of the climax to Nicholas Evans's The Horse Whisperer:

After all the progress the hero makes with the collaborative techniques depicted earlier in the book and film, the main character resorts to the ultimate quick-fix, force-oriented tactic of laying the horse down at the moment he himself becomes emotionally overloaded by the unexpected arrival of his love-interest's husband. This "kinder, gentler" trainer loses all sense of judgment when his male rival apperas. He dramatically illustrates his physical dominance over a thousand-pound animal whose trust he had been gaining with subtle, humane approaches. The horse whisperer's use of this old trick signals weakness in dealing with his conflicting emotions; it's certainly not a strategy to emulate. (Monty Roberts, in fact, publicly objected to the inclusion of this scene when he heard Robert Redford was making a film of The Horse Whisperer.) In the book, the main character continues to work himself into such a state of confusion and remorse that he finally commits suicide by steppin ginto the striking hooves of an angry stallion who, as it turns out, is simply trying to defend his mares from a perceived threat.

Ultimately, the sensitive cowboy who helps horses with people problems is incapable of dealing with his own people problems, a downfall I've witnessed in the savviest of trainers. It is perhaps the most potent paradox of the equestrian arts that people can learn to remain calm and collected in the presence of a rearing horse, yet crumble in the face of feelings to strong to be suppressed or ignored, feelings that quite naturally surface in horse-human interactions. Managing authentic emotions, it seems, is one of the last great frontiers in the riding arena, and in life."

~ Linda Kohanov, The Tao of Equus