"You Can Fool Me, You Can't Fool Her!": Autoethnographic Insights from Equine-Assisted Interventions to Inform Therapeutic Robot Design

Equine-Assisted Interventions (EAIs) aim to improve participant health and well-being through the development of a therapeutic relationship with a trained horse. These interventions leverage the horse’s ability to provide emotional feedback, as it responds to negative non-verbal cues with reciprocal negativity, thereby encouraging participants to regulate their emotions and achieve attunement with the horse. Despite their benefits, EAIs face significant challenges, including logistical, financial, and resource constraints, which hinder their widespread adoption and accessibility. To address these issues, we conducted an autoethnographic study of the lead researcher’s engagement in an EAI to investigate the underlying mechanisms and explore potential technological alternatives. Our findings suggest that the reciprocal and responsive non-verbal communication, combined with the horse’s considerable physical presence, supports the potential of an embodied robotic system as a viable alternative. Such a system could offer a scalable and sustainable solution to the current limitations of EAIs.