EQUINE-ASSISTED PSYCHOTHERAPY
Equine-assisted psychotherapy is a specific way of working with horses as guides in a methodology of psychotherapy that allows for greater insight and healing, on mental and emotional levels. At Sovereign Mountain Sanctuary, we work with clients who have or have had high performance careers with a resulting wear and tear to the nervous system. Our approach with the horses is to provide a space where you begin to re-balance your nervous system, and touch on the subconscious areas that need your attention and care, to move forwards in your life with more ease, grace and understanding. In our sessions, the powerful presence of horses is held intentionally as a potent guide to deeper transformation. Surrounded by wild nature in a remote and very private location, you also immerse in the beauty and awe that nature provides our being on many levels. During your horse sessions with us, you’ll relax and renew on a deeper level and gain insight into a more intuitive way of healing, that is supported increasing by evidence-based peer-re viewed science.
“You see a horse with your eyes, but you feel a horse with your soul. “ - Unknown
IS THIS FOR ME ?
This is for you if you are an individual who has worked, or is currently working, in a high performance profession committed to making the world a better place. You may be struggling with burnout or the early signs of burnout, sleep issues, anxiety, vicarious trauma and/or compassion fatigue, or post-traumatic stress from exposure to humanitarian distress or ecosystem distress. You may wish to restore your sense of purpose, meaning and hope.
This is for you if you are seeking a boutique, private, neuroscience-based therapeutic approach with a team influenced by intellectual and specific approaches, and you are looking for a deeper understanding of who you truly are, and are curious about how contacting and increasing your awareness of who you truly are, can be an Inner Source of Renewal and Healing.
This is for you if you are stable with respect to your home, your relationships, your finances, your mental health and your physical health. This is for you if you are ready to invest in your healing, in a highly curated and customized setting, with travel to a remote and rural location for immersion in nature.
This is for you if you are psychologically minded, meaning that you are curious about how you exist in the world, what you are aware of, and how your subconscious and unconscious patterns influence your day to day decisions and can tolerate being faced with the truth about your current approach to healing and developing yourself.
This is for you if you are a physician or executive professional currently working but feeling on the edge of burnout and feeling like you might need time off work, but do not have any necessary and urgent requirements for psychiatric treatment and untreated medical or psychiatric issues, that would instead warrant a treatment plan that is not complimentary and alternative, but rather mainstream.
This is for you if you are a firefighter who has received treatment from psychiatry and/or psychology, and medical physicians, but you wish to explore further what more complimentary and alternative treatments have to offer. Having worked for many years with firefighters, you will find that there is an understanding in our approach of your work and the challenges you have faced, or are facing.
This is for you if you are a medical professional such as a physician, nurse, or related health professional with an academic background, who needs a place to rest and restore, replete and re-orient, to create a work-life balance moving forwards that is based in your own values and scientific principles, and helps you develop the insight that has been escaping you.
This is for you if you are a financial executive worn down by the pressures of your workplace and the societal anxiety around the economic future, and need a place to come back to the rejuvenating and rebalancing powers of nature that the horses help us access.
This is for you if you are a veteran who has received treatment from psychiatry and/or psychology, and medical physicians, but you wish to explore further what more complimentary and alternative treatments have to offer.
WELCOME
Welcome, I am a board certified psychiatrist, holistic horse therapist, horse medicine guide and internationally certified executive and leadership coach. I offer suited professionals working in, or having worked in, high performance settings, a powerful path to healing from burnout and other stresses with the “medicine” that horses bring when we enter into the space with them in a specific way. In our sessions, you may also become aware of the “inner medicine” that you bring - the inner resource that is inherent in you that is a well spring for your whole person well being. Influenced strongly by research in the power of horses to bring insight to humans, otherwise known as equine-assisted interventions - and the logic of the related nervous system and physics - my services and studies create a unique program for you to grow your true inner vitality, brilliance and ability to adapt to challenges.
I am deeply passionate about personal transformation. With extensive training in coaching and therapy with horses, I am thrilled to launch my equine-assisted therapy practice as a further development of my horse guided sessions that I have been offering over the years. Although equine-assisted psychotherapy is not yet covered by MSP in British Columbia, the growing understanding of the power of equine-facilitated interventions to bring insight to your areas of struggle and challenge, is quite majestic.
HORSE SESSIONS
We provide horse sessions as equine-assisted psychotherapy sessions, where you begin with a virtual session, and follow up depending on the service you book, with an in person session. Note that the horse-guided services are for complimentary and alternative support, and do not replace medically necessary treatment that is supported through publicly funded medical services plans. There are three tiers of services, as listed below, accessed after suitability is determined with an online application form.
The Neuro-Equine Single Deep Dive
To begin your process, we provide all of our new clients with a one hour live-streamed somatic session. To prepare for the session, we offer you self-guided resources before the session, that both prepare you for the session and deepen your practice after the session. The Neuro-Equine Single Deep Dive allows you to sample a single herd-guided breakthrough session.
The Somatic Reset Package
To deepen your process, and if we decide that this is suited to you after your Deep Dive, we offer a Somatic Reset Neuro-Equine Package. The Somatic Package offers 6 live-streamed 1:1 Neuro-Equine sessions with a hard cover copy of the accompanying book, a full professional guided meditation suite, and a custom nervous system integration workbook. The Somatic Package is an intensive triage for a physician or health care provider or executive on the brink of leave from work due to vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue or severe burnout. The Somatic Package may also be suited to other high performers who wish to commit to a deeper and more intensive transformation process.
The SOVEREIGN Mountain Sanctuary Pinnacle Experience
Our signature approach, offered to select clients, is our Sovereign Mountain Sanctuary Pinnacle Experience. The Pinnacle Experience includes 4 online preparatory Neuro-Equine Sessions followed by an exclusive In Person Intensive with the herd at our private location, later followed by 2 online integration / post-care sessions.
CUSTOMIZED OFFERINGS
We also have customized offerings available that can be discussed in a 1:1 session online. Simply add your interest in this to your inquiry, and when you fill out your application form.
Inquire here
SOVEREIGN MOUNTAIN SANCTUARY
Situated on the unceded traditional territory of the Líl̓wat Nation, we honour the language, culture, and history of the Lil̓wat7ul
The story of the establishment of Sovereign Mountain Sanctuary began with a dream for a sanctuary for hard working high performance professionals to find rest, renewal and healing in a remote location away from the hustle and bustle of busy career lives. Talking to numerous physicians, and hearing a desire for a place where a person can go for several hours, and restore, further fueled the steps that led to our majestic mountain ranch. The longing was the perfect “medicine” to galvanize this long held dream to hold a private sanctuary for burnout prevention and recovery, into existence.
Sovereign Mountain Sanctuary holds a space for healing, renewal and deep intuitive insight. With the horses as accompanying guides, and the land as a quiet remote location laden with glacier-topped mountain ranges, the sanctuary is a beautiful place to rest and deepen into a sense of your true self, that guides you better through your days. The journey with Sovereign Mountain Sanctuary is steeped in the enriched language of neuroscience, helping you to understand your process and support burnout recovery with relevant neuroscience.
The story of Sovereign Mountain Sanctuary holds a more mystical presence, beginning with my first ever owned horse, Sterling Galaxy. Sterling Galaxy is the powerful horse who began the journey, after he ran across a field to choose me as his guardian and keeper. He grew from a skinny bedraggled sad horse into a resplendent glowing mainly white horse who commands a magnetic presence, drawing people into his aura of healing and inspiration. He gathered our next horse, Chance Apache, into our fold, and together we moved to be with the gelding King of Hearts in his mountain home. As we claimed and developed our own land, and King of Hearts left us to become a spirit, Eclipse Athus was called in to provide companionship. The universe worked in mysterious ways, to make it much more easeful for another horse to come with Eclipse to our mountain home, and Apollo Paulo, who was a horse that I had visited for over a year with my visits to Eclipse, joined us to create a very stable, four horse herd.
Sovereign Mountain Sanctuary is over five acres of forest, fields, horse shelters and an arena that supports a space in nature next to the wilds of Crown Land and away from the bustle of busy urban centres. Here, you meet the horses in a manner where the horses and yourself and all beings are held in respect and honour, to deepen into the access of the truth of the healing that you require.
Dr. Love’s Credentials
Board Certified Psychiatrist | Horse Medicine Leadership Certification | Neuroscience Faculty for the Academy of Horse Medicine Leadership | Holistic Horse Therapy Certification | Mindfulness Certification with advanced training in MiCBT | Medical Degree at the University of British Columbia | Psychiatry Degree at the University of British Columbia | Awards for BCMJ Authour and BrainTalks at UBC Founder and Director | Physics & Biology Degree at the University of British Columbia | Dance Degree at Simon Fraser Contemporary Arts School | Bachelor of General Studies at Simon Fraser University | Honours English First Year at the University of Western Ontario | Yoga Alliance Certified Instructor with Mike Nichols 200 hour YTT, Meghan Currie 200 hour YTT and Hilary Keegan YHot 90 hour YTT