Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah Clay.
Hi Hannah, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
When I was young I was diagnosed with ADHD. My firecracker energy levels quickly exhausted my parents to the point where they were willing to do just about anything to get a break. This lead to horseback riding lesson and eventually buying me a pony, which we still use in our program today. My parents would drop me off at the barn almost daily. There I was able to connect with the horses and unknowingly learn some amazing therapeutic skills such as emotional regulation, empathy, and some life skills such as problem solving and how to interact with other horse crazy kids my age. My parents who had felt like they had tried everything were amazed at the impact that horses were having on not only my emotional health but also the ability to manage my ADHD.
When I went through college I got stuck in my life. I was in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship and didn’t know what I wanted to do in my life. I felt like I had to put on a façade that everything was perfect while inside I felt trapped. Because of the high stress and emotional rollercoaster that I was on in this relationship much of my support system had left or been pushed away but I had my horses and leaned heavily on them for emotional support during this process. With the help of dear friends and therapy, I was able to leave the toxic relationship and start my own healing process. It was during this time where I started realizing what a truly life saving tool therapy could be. I started doing research and learned about the Equine Assisted Mental Health field and quickly felt like I had found my passion. I got my undergrad in Behavioral Science at Utah Valley University and quickly realized that if I was going to make a difference in people’s life I needed to get more education. I went through the substance use disorder counseling program at the University of Utah and went on to work with my counseling license at a top rated inpatient drug and alcohol rehab center, Cirque Lodge, for six years while I worked up the courage to apply for grad schools. While I worked at Cirque Lodge I was able to recognize how impactful experiential therapy and animal assisted therapies was on the individual and wanted to pursue it further.
I went on to get my masters in social work at the University of Denver where I also got a certificate in animal assisted social work as well as equine assisted mental health. I met my husband at my first year internship doing equine assisted mental health with at risk youth and he offered up all his support for me to create my own Equine assisted mental health program. While I had gone through school I quickly recognized that many times the individuals and families who needed the most support with their mental health weren’t getting the help due to how expensive mental health therapy had become. I also realized that although most of the general population was able to recognize the therapeutic value that horses had for people most people weren’t able to afford to work with horses. My husband and I created our mental health therapy program which provides not only therapy opportunities, but also an opportunity to interact with animals to individuals and families who wouldn’t otherwise be able to by providing therapy on a sliding scale.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My husband and I started our therapy practice just months before the pandemic happened; we had to change how our whole program ran to adjust to online teletherapy. Because of the pandemic, it has impacted the amount of new clients we have gotten, it’s hard to be a new therapist and start a new practice but to start a new practice at the beginning of the pandemic has defiantly forced us to be creative both with how we market and how we include animals into the session.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Happy Appy Animal Assisted Therapies LLC?
Happy Appy is a mental health counseling organization that specializes in affordable animal assisted mental health therapies as well as adaptive riding. Our master’s level therapists utilize various mental health modalities and each specializes in working with different populations such as children, teenagers and adults. Happy Appy provides individual, couples, family therapy as well as ongoing group therapy. We serve the greater Fort Lupton community and the surrounding areas of Colorado. We believe that many times the mental health needs of people aren’t being met, not because the individual or the family doesn’t recognize and want to go to therapy, but rather because of how expensive private mental health therapy has become. Along with this having the opportunity to work with horses has typically been something that is reserved for the “privileged population” not because of lack of want, but rather horses is pretty expensive and their location isn’t always the easiest to get to. Animal assisted interventions are an effective supplementation for traditional therapy to help incorporate and learn different aspect and skills that typically might be difficult. But sadly, many times the average person has a hard time affording just traditional therapy, let alone animal assisted mental health.
By providing animal assisted mental health services on a sliding fee scale, we are able to provide opportunities for more individuals to have the opportunity to experience this type of work more easily if they are willing to put forth the effort. As you know we do mental health therapy and our experience is that typically the idea of going to therapy isn’t a very popular one. In fact growing up I vividly remember my parents using therapy as a threat – “if you don’t get your act together you’ll have to go to therapy” But it doesn’t have to be that way. We believe that everyone is going to need some kind of therapy at some point in their life so why make it painful. Therapy is just a way to get a little extra help, clarity and boost for your life it’s not just something to do if you are “crazy”. So we wanted to make going to therapy a little less intimidating and named our company Happy Appy after our little POA Elf. We also believe that incorporating animals such as horses, goats, cats and bunnies can help tremendously with that feeling of intimidation and “impending doom” of being in therapy. Because let’s face it, it’s a little hard to stay overwhelmed when you are petting one of our horses. We also believes that our therapists are pretty cool as well , we all have gone to therapy so we know what’s it like to be on the other side of therapy.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
The biggest thing I have learned from the Covid-19 Crisis is that self-care and family are the number one things in life. I gave birth to my son literally the first week of the pandemic, I was overwhelmed and struggled to manage the ongoing stress of being a new mom, helping clients manage their fear and uncertainty as well as managing my own emotional reaction to the pandemic. At first I tried to do it all by trying to be the super therapist and perfect mom but as the pandemic continued on I quickly felt my own anxieties and burnout coming out more frequently. I realized something needed to change if I was going to be helpful for not only for my clients but also for my family and myself. I decided to incorporate the empathy and kindness that I had been teaching my clients to do in their own life into mine. I realized I needed to set boundaries around giving myself a break.
Pricing:
- Individual therapy $90-$120 for 50 minutes
- Family therapy $100-$120 for 50 minutes
Contact Info:
- Email: happyappyllc@gmail.com
- Website: https://happyappytherapy.weebly.com/
- Instagram: @happy.appy.eamh
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happy.appy.eamh
- Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/hannah-evensen-fort-lupton-co/807334?preview=1&return_to=https%3A%2F%2Fmember.psychologytoday.com%2Fus%2Fprofile%2Foptions%3Fopt%3Dphot&_ga=2.172676899.1299368849.1616537457-285103231.1583342487
Image Credits
White Fence Equine Photography-Kristin Rashid Impulsion Images- Rebecca Tolman Stephanie Shay
