The heads of the Centre of Psychosocial Rehabilitation of the Feldman Ecopark Inna Vashkite and Tetiana Aliieva for the first time gave field lecture in the Ecopark for the students of the medical department of the V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.
The purpose of the lecture is to show the students the unconventional methods of psychotherapeutic work: the medical psychologist and the psychotherapist-psychiatrist demonstrated how they are able to work together outside the hospital. The topic of the lecture is the work with children with various diseases and behavioral and emotional disorders (autism, hyperactivity, delay in speech development, developmental delay). The students obtained information about the structure of disease, the troubleshooting criteria, and the influence methods: both standard and the additional ones helping to increase the efficiency of rehabilitation, like animal-assisted therapy.
In addition to theoretical information and learning of animal-assisted therapy and equine-assisted therapy, the students were able to look at the Horse Complex and the Centre of Psychosocial Rehabilitation of the Feldman Ecopark, and to communicate with animal therapists. “The students were able to contact with this area, to try it themselves, to feel the interaction with horses, and to undergo the first stages of equine-assisted therapy prepared for children,” Tetiana Aliieva told.
According to her words, this caused the great emotional response of the students. “These are the students of the 4th year of education, who are currently selecting their medical profession. Many of them told after the lecture that they want to become psychotherapists or pediatricians and work in this field,” Inna Vashkite noted.
The next stage is the lessons in the Ecopark given to the formed group of students wishing to learn the animal-assisted therapy techniques used in work with children.
It should be reminded that earlier, the Centre has already given the field lessons in the Feldman Ecopark for the specialists together with the psychotherapy department of the Kharkiv Medical Academy of Post-graduate Education.
