Trauma Recovery in Horses: Osteopathic Approach

Click to view

Trauma in horses is rarely straightforward. A fall, aggressive handling, early weaning, or repeated painful veterinary procedures can leave marks that are invisible on radiographs and undetectable by blood panels — yet profoundly present in the horse's tissues, movement patterns, and behaviour. When a horse weaves, cribs, refuses contact, or dissociates entirely, it is not misbehaving. It is responding to a nervous system shaped by experiences it has not been able to fully process. In this thesis, Catherine Slaney — drawing on Polyvagal Theory, craniosacral research, and the foundational writings of osteopathic pioneers including Still, Littlejohn, and Upledger — examines how osteopathic manual therapy can access these layers of stored trauma and begin the work of resolution. The hypothesis she advances is both specific and important: OMT facilitates biomechanical and neurological re-learning while the horse is in a parasympathetic state — not despite relaxation, but because of it. The ventral vagal system, responsible for safety and social engagement, must be active for genuine tissue release and neural reprogramming to occur. Slaney outlines the range of techniques available to the practitioner — soft tissue work, functional and fascial release, craniosacral therapy, somatic emotional release, and myofascial line treatment — and explains how each interacts with the autonomic nervous system to interrupt chronic stress cycles and address the energy cysts, facilitated spinal segments, and compensatory holding patterns that trauma leaves behind. This is one of the collection’s most clinically nuanced theses, and one of the most humane. It asks practitioners to look beyond the presenting behaviour, to read the nervous system beneath it — and to work with it, rather than against it.