ESCT interrupts the fear cycle in the horse's brain -- simple as that. ESCT works on the brain from the beginning and changes behavior. Other treatments and trainings start with the behavior and move back toward the brain, counter-intuitively, and require endless repetition and reinforcement (up to 500 times per incident with behavior modification). This makes people give up on their horses because they run out of patience! This makes the horse give up on his people because he still holds the old spooky memory inside of him, ready to explode, even if he "modifies" his behavior during treatment. He is an accident in the making!
In a state of fear, all mammals pretty much experience the same biochemical brain reactions and emotional body responses. Good body chemicals are replaced by bad ones that store the fear memory at the cellular level.
We humans are largely frontal cortex animals -- we think in our forebrain with the right and left frontal lobes and spend most of our waking lives there. Horses are largely lower brain stem animals because that part of the brain regulates basic survival instincts -- the more cautious the horse, the more likely he will survive in the wild. Five thousand years of domestication has not erased this from the horse's brain. However, they are great pattern recognizers, some say the best in the animal kingdom, and have the ability to turn and face their stressors and evaluate the threat potential. They know how to engage their volitional brain, the learning brain. ESCT taps into this part of their brain by sending an interrupt response into the fear cycle and in that second, reevaluation takes place.
When fear takes over in humans, the lower brain stem functions kick in and begin sending powerful chemicals into the frontal cortex which, over time, literally erase logical and reasoned response by shutting down the left side of the brain, the reasoning side. This means the right side of the brain, the intuitive and reactionary side, takes over. THE SAME RESPONSE IS EXPERIENCED BY HORSES ONLY MORE INSTANTANEOUSLY. In a horse, this response is called the Automatic Startle Response (ASR) and it has allowed the horse to survive in a world of predators for over 60 million years. You know that some humans are more "jumpy" than others. Horses are made to be so.
In both humans and horses, in all mammals, the body keeps the score about fear at the cellular level. Fear can create psychosomatic symptoms and physical illnesses because under stress, the immune system is compromised. Cortisols are released into the bloodstream in larger than desired quantities and the endogenous opiates which calm the organism -- endorphins, enkephalins and catecholamines, are suppressed. A raised head, wide eyes, fidgety behavior, inability to concentrate and a highly activated startle response are manifestations of fear in humans and in horses. Often, the cycle becomes locked as in human Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) victims. Horses suffer from the same syndrome.
By sending interrupt signals through the optic nerve into the brain, bilateral eye movement therapy and bilateral body tapping therapy reintegrates the lower brain stem functions with the higher brain functions, reconnects the left and right frontal lobes, and allows a new response to be formed, replacing the old reaction. At first, the new chemical pathways between the left and right lobes are tenuous but quickly become embedded with repetition. The horse, facing its stressor, is given bilateral eye movement therapy and bilateral body tapping therapy and survives his fear and relaxes. This healing happens in 3 to 5 one hour sessions and spills over into all aspects of his spooky behavior.
The same interrupt signals to the brain are sent with bilateral body tapping, called Emotional Field Therapy (EFT). If a horse is head shy, the body tapping is essential to start ESCT. Once the horse accepts the tapping on its body, one can move to his head and continue. Tapping is always done on the bony structures -- temporal fossae, facial ridges, scapula top and bottom, spinous processes, mandible, and on bony protrusions on the legs including the hocks. The piezoelectric current flows through the brain, left and then right sidedly, through the conductance in the bones.
You won't believe this is true until you try it on yourself. Think of the scariest scene in a movie, close your eyes and really make that scene come alive inside of you. Then have a friend tap your collar bones lightly, alternating left and right, and see what happens. Now imagine this happening instantly in a huge horse and the relief it must experience!
By creating a choreography of tension (introducing the stressor) and release (removing the stressor) interspersed with sets of ESCT, the horse faces his fear and is allowed to withdraw, engage his mind and body, and integrate. He is kept calm and learning at all times and soon his brain's old memory is literally removed and replaced with a new one. He has a new baseline from which to work experientially and situationally and will behave accordingly.
