Touched By a Horse
Melisa Pearce is a lifelong horsewoman and the founder of Touched By a Horse. She is the creator of the Equine Gestalt Coaching Method. Over the last three decades, she has coached and helped others through her private psychotherapy practice and partnership with horses. She developed her unique method of combining Gestalt with her horses in Gestalt sessions beginning in the 1980s. This episode is filled with inspiring and heart-warming stories of how specifically horses can be our partners in healing. She speaks about horses who read us immediately – knowing whether we war in our head or our hearts, horses that will “act out” or pantomime what we are feeling, and horses that will help us realign our energy centers to be more balanced and whole. She gives exercises that you can try at home to experiment with the animals who share your life.
Listen to Episode #82 Now:
BIO:
Melisa Pearce is a teacher, author, psychotherapist and pioneer in the field of the human/horse healing. Over the last three decades, she has coached and helped others through her private psychotherapy practice and partnership with horses. This partnership with horses led her to create the certified by Melisa Pearce Equine Gestalt Coaching Method™
Expert in Gestalt
At the core of her approach lies her deep understanding of the transformative power of one of the most important contributions of humanistic psychology – Gestalt therapy. As a Gestaltist, Melisa has guided thousands of clients through their unfinished business to a level of self-awareness that allows room for personal responsibility and a life of self-compassion.
Melisa has received over 300 advanced Gestalt training hours with two of the biggest names in Gestalt therapy; Joseph Zinker Ph.D. the co-founder of the Gestalt Institute who trained with Fritz Perls, the creator of Gestalt Therapy; and Sonia Nevis Ph.D, the co-founder of the Gestalt International Study Center.
Melisa’s more recent book, “What the Heck Is Gestalt?”, makes the theory and practice of Gestalt accessible to anyone interested in Gestalt.
Equine Knowledge
Melisa has bred, shown and raised horses for over 30 years, giving her a deep understanding of their natures. She won two World Championship American Paint Horse Association awards, has bred over 200 foals, and owns multiple ranches. She continues to lecture nationally at major equine events such as the Midwest Horse Fair, Equine Affaire and Equine Extravaganza.
Horses have always been Melisa’s most trusted confidants and she believes that their true purpose on this planet is to be healers. Early in her training in Gestalt, she recognized what supreme, embodied Gestaltists horses are in their own right. They never ask why. They live in the present moment. They are not interested in what we think, and they are highly tuned in to how we feel. They have deep somatic understanding and can read the human body on several energy levels.
Melisa lives on her ranch in British Columbia, Canada, with her husband Dane Cheek, her herd of equine partners, and a veritable menagerie of animals.
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