"Since I started equine therapy, my recovery has accelerated": like other victims of sexual violence, Yannaïck Tregaro-Van Damme is following a therapeutic path centered on horses, which helps him heal his traumas.
This 60-year-old former athlete, now retired from the French Canoe-Kayak Federation, suffered her first sexual assault at the age of 18. "I've been fighting to get over it for 42 years," she says.
Equine therapy, an unconventional therapeutic approach that complements medical care, finally seems to be helping him treat his ailments.
Anne Kurz-Van der Hoeven, therapist, and Pascale Bouthillon, psychiatrist, are behind this course offered to a group of women and a group of men.
The Stop Sexual Violence 75-78 association, which launched it nine years ago, is privatizing an equestrian center in the heart of nature in Achères, in the Yvelines department, for the occasion.
On this Friday morning in April, amidst bales of hay, the seven women participants discuss their feelings about the previous session and their current emotional state. Then they join the horses and ponies in the lunging ring to brush them and begin the exercises, renamed "experiments."
"You can't cheat a horse," says Anne Kurz-Van der Hoeven, who specializes in equine therapy. "The horse is a warm and gentle animal, always in the present moment. It's an emotional sponge, and that gives it the empathic ability to sense a person's inner state," she explains.
Although this method receives subsidies from the Ministry of Sports, participants pay 140 euros per session. Depending on their income, some receive free admission.
"Being with horses brings out things I wasn't aware of in traditional therapy, sitting in a chair. Parts of my body tense up when I'm in contact with them," confides Laëtitia, 39, a participant.
At any time, women can also request the intervention of a physiotherapist.
– Amnesia lifts –
Horseback riding can help patients overcome amnesia about forgotten trauma, according to the two founders. This is the case for Laurène, 38: "The horse helped me reconnect with the seven-year-old girl who suffered several sexual abuses that I had forgotten."
Following their attacks, "some women cannot ride a horse in the classic position, but we find solutions: they can ride sidesaddle," emphasizes Anne Kurz-Van der Hoeven.
Each session offers a specific theme: setting limits with the horse, trust, balance, commitment... The sequence of themes is designed as a logical continuation towards reconstruction after this type of trauma.
The program involves a multitude of therapists. Sessions are led by Jennifer, a clinical psychologist; Wilfried, a physiotherapist and osteopath; and Cécile, a peer support worker who was herself a victim of sexual violence.
Last supervisor: Taksy, the therapy dog. "You're not allowed to play with him because he's at work!" says Anne Kurz-Van der Hoeven.
To follow this collective path, each patient must be followed in parallel by a therapist in order to "bounce back on the theme of each session and approach the next one", explains Dr Pascale Bouthillon.
Equine therapy inspires a lot of hope among these caregivers: "The change in these women is colossal during therapy because the setting allows us to get to the root of the trauma," according to the doctor.
This course was notably the subject of a medical thesis from the University of Caen in 2022 which showed the "promising results" on people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders, the founders highlight.
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