INSTEP EQUINE
Release, Connect, Grow
HOLISTIC PSYCHOLOGY SERVICES
Johanna Marie Kalkreuth
Registered Psychologist
Johanna Marie Kalkreuth is a Registered Psychologist and founder of InStep Equine. With over 15 years of experience in Equine Facilitated Counselling, Johanna was one of the first practitioners in Canada. Her extensive horse experience prior to becoming a psychologist as well as her depth of experience and training in clinical psychology provide a combination that is client centred, effective and uniquely holistic.
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Johanna's approach is warm and inviting for all walks of life, and the setting offers an alternative to four office walls. Offering expertise in trauma treatment, somatic based approaches and working with issues of anxiety, depression, relational issues and more, Johanna sees individual adults, families, couples and children.
Combining mindful movement work with equine work to supplement her strong clinical skills as a psychologist, Johanna’s approach fosters each client’s capacity to grow and heal.
Ciara Neave
Registered Provisional Psychologist​
Ciara is compassionate and dedicated, with a deep passion for helping people navigate life's challenges.
With extensive experience assisting individuals with anxiety, depression, attachment issues, self-esteem, learning boundaries, and more, Ciara is committed to supporting her clients in building healthier, more balanced lives.
With a strong focus on the mind-body connection, she explores how stress manifests both mentally and physically, guiding her clients toward understanding and growth.
Kate Masters
Registered Provisional Psychologist
Kate works from an integrative approach, incorporating play, nature, equine-assisted and evidence-based interventions to support children and their families. With substantial therapeutic experience working with both horses and children of diverse abilities, she is thrilled to combine the two. Kate holds a neurodiversity-affirming and attachment-informed perspective.
Kate whole-heartedly believes in the therapeutic impact of truly connecting with a horse, and guides sessions with compassion and playfulness, offering insights to families along the way.
COUNSELLING
General
Equine Facilitated Counselling (EFC) sessions are unique to the individual(s) present and the particular issues at hand. Sessions generally involve a combination of horse observation, mindfulness and connection work, movement, natural horsemanship, and riding. Experiential work is combined with verbal check-ins and conversations/discussion to facilitate application of equine experiences to everyday life, relationships and the counselling goals that have been identified. No two EFC sessions are alike, as the fundamental goal of the Instep Equine approach is to meet what arises in each moment with the horses, and bring what is needed to facilitate healing.
Children and Adolescents
Equine Facilitated Counselling for young people is particularly effective in that it offers alternative approaches to therapy that are often more suitable for the still developing mind. Through the facilitation of relationship and experiential work with the horses, youth are invited into the kind of connection and awareness that helps them know themselves better. The therapeutic work with horses cultivates the important capacities of connection, empathy, attentiveness, self-awareness, impulse-control, boundaries, and how to both follow and lead, and find what is needed in different situations. Youth often report experiencing safety and connection at the ranch that allows them to access and talk about the more difficult experiences in their lives. And, even if talking is not possible for any reason, being with the horses and hearing about the horses’ stories and relationships often reaches youth in a way that office-based work often does not.
Adults
Equine Facilitated Counselling (EFC) provides clients with a unique opportunity for awareness and presence, connection with self and other, and the safe and honest space that the horses hold for important personal insights and profound shifts in habitual ways of being. Working with the horses offers clients not only the important and authentic experience of connecting with the whole self, it facilitates experientially the actualizing of changes that are being sought.
Groups​
Working with the horses in a group setting provides not only the individual experiences with the horses, but also brings these experiences into a social context. Group work can be facilitated with a variety of different populations and goals, including working with addictions, self-esteem/empowerment, boundaries, relationship, team-building (including corporate team-building), body-image, adolescent issues, etc. The approach to group counselling often involves bringing together various themes and goals to provide an overall therapeutic and personal-growth experience.