Analyze Diet

Psychoanal Rev

Psycho-Spiritual Reflections on the Horse/Human Relationship.
Psychoanalytic review    June 4, 2026   Volume 113, Issue 2 175-187 doi: 10.1521/prev.2026.113.2.175
Hamm PJ.This essay offers a psycho-spiritual and psychoanalytic meditation on the horse-human relationship as a nonverbal site of attunement, regulation, and meaning-making. Drawing on autobiographical clinical narrative, it explores how horseback riding became a medium for experiencing and reflecting upon embodied connection, mutual responsiveness, and contemplative presence. Encounters with horses illuminate forms of reciprocity that preceded and exceed speech, while also opening reflection on maternal attachment, separation, loss, and the emergence of selfhood. In dialogue with Freud, Winnicott, Pi...