⭑Presenter Bio Sarah Schlote⭑
Sarah is a bilingual and neurodivergent Registered Psychotherapist, Canadian Certified Counsellor, and Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner. She offers individual trauma therapy drawing from multiple approaches, as well as case consultations (for human and equine clients), training, and speaking engagements internationally and online.
Sarah is passionate about helping equine professionals and people involved with equines in various capacities to understand the parallels between human trauma and equine trauma, and how improving equine welfare and equine physical and mental health involves supporting the same pieces in the humans involved.
Early in her career, she noticed that a number of the more recent cutting-edge trauma therapy approaches for humans focusing on the nervous system and attachment evolved out of applied animal ethology and research on the effects of adversity in mammals. However, these same approaches were not typically used in developing frameworks or approaches for the animals themselves where the information and inspiration originated from. Instead, the predominant approach to animals is behaviourism and operant conditioning. While it is essential to refine and increase one's competence in behavioural methods and to use these more skillfully and ethically, there are also many other layers to address that are not commonly considered in a strictly behavioural approach to horses.
Because Of The Horse...
I have a greater appreciation for our shared mammalian nature. Trauma can arise in any room or round pen, and it can also be transformed and transcended. It starts with us.
Sarah Schlote’s 2025 Presentations
DAY 1
★Your Horse's Nervous System: Attuning To The Activation Cycle - Video 1 Part 1
This presentation (in two parts) introduces a framework for understanding the equine nervous system that goes beyond simply thinking about things in terms of a gas pedal and a brake. You will learn about allostasis, allostatic load, and walk through a map for the nervous system's activation and deactivation cycle or defense cascade that provides a compelling visual for making sense of stimulus stacking (or trigger stacking) in equine and human nervous systems.
★The Ponyvagal™ Theory: Key Concepts For Horse Owners - Video 2 Part 1
This presentation (in 2 parts) provides a brief acknowledgment of some of the challenges associated with the Polyvagal Theory, and focuses more specifically on key concepts from this model that are useful for horse owners in terms of understanding equine and human nervous system states. In particular, the presentation will provide an introduction to the neuroception of safety, danger, and life threat; to how nervous system states affect the information we take in and how we make sense of the world; to the 3 (as opposed to 2) branches of the nervous system proposed by Dr. Stephen Porges and how to make sense of their influence on behaviour.
DAY 2
★Your Horse's Nervous System: Attuning To The Activation Cycle - Video 1 Part 2
This presentation (in two parts) introduces a framework for understanding the equine nervous system that goes beyond simply thinking about things in terms of a gas pedal and a brake. You will learn about allostasis, allostatic load, and walk through a map for the nervous system's activation and deactivation cycle or defense cascade that provides a compelling visual for making sense of stimulus stacking (or trigger stacking) in equine and human nervous systems
★The Ponyvagal™ Theory: Key Concepts For Horse Owners - Video 2 Part 2
This presentation (in 2 parts) provides a brief acknowledgment of some of the challenges associated with the Polyvagal Theory, and focuses more specifically on key concepts from this model that are useful for horse owners in terms of understanding equine and human nervous system states. In particular, the presentation will provide an introduction to the neuroception of safety, danger, and life threat; to how nervous system states affect the information we take in and how we make sense of the world; to the 3 (as opposed to 2) branches of the nervous system proposed by Dr. Stephen Porges and how to make sense of their influence on behaviour.
Where You Can Find Sarah Schlote
