A sanctuary for deep attachment recovery, trauma processing, and honest connection.
Equine assisted psychotherapy and trauma recovery in Tillsonburg and Mount Elgin, Ontario.
The Meeting Place is a non riding, equine assisted psychotherapy program hosted at Sprucehaven Farm on Ebenezer Road in Mount Elgin, serving Tillsonburg, Oxford County, Elgin County, and surrounding areas in Southwestern Ontario.
Ready to begin? Book now. Still exploring? Call for a brief consultation or send an inquiry.
Note. Potential workplace benefit reimbursement. See details.
A place to be safely met.
True healing sometimes requires a space beyond the four walls of a traditional office.
The Meeting Place is a specialized equine assisted psychotherapy program located at Sprucehaven Farm in Mount Elgin, where a herd of more than twenty horses lives within a natural farm environment.
This program is a sanctuary for parents supporting teenagers, families navigating deep trauma, people processing profound loss, and individuals longing for a deeper sense of connection.
The heart of this program was shaped by a personal journey with grief. Following the loss of a beloved horse, and only months later the loss of that horse’s connected caregiver, we were reminded how sacred and profound an attachment bond can be. That experience strengthened the call to create a gentle, secure environment where people moving through attachment injuries, relational struggles, grief, trauma, and systemic mental health challenges can find a meaningful way forward.
Ground based, relational, and non riding.
The Meeting Place is strictly non mounted and non riding. Neither the horse nor the client is asked to perform.
Experiences unfold naturally and may include quiet observation, gentle grooming, relational reflection, noticing herd dynamics, grounding in the environment, or simply being alongside a horse.
The work is experiential, body aware, and paced with care.
Two facilitator model
Each session uses a two facilitator approach. A clinical professional and horse handling specialist are present together to support physical safety, horse welfare, and the relational process unfolding in the space. This approach allows the team to track subtle somatic cues, emotional shifts, boundaries, safety, and the needs of both horse and client.
Horses as sentient partners
Horses are not tools, props, or treatment devices. They are sentient partners with their own needs, social relationships, preferences, boundaries, and wellbeing. Their physical, emotional, and social welfare is central to every session. The work values mutual respect, attunement, choice, and the quiet ways horses communicate through movement, presence, distance, curiosity, and connection.
Our farm partnership
The Meeting Place is made possible through a partnership between Somatic Tones and Sprucehaven Farm in Mount Elgin. Sprucehaven is home to a herd of more than twenty horses living within a natural farm environment, and the partnership brings together clinical care, seasoned horse handling, and a working farm community that has shaped this program from the ground up. You can meet the people behind this partnership further down the page.
Clinical and equine influences
The therapeutic approach draws from trauma resolution models associated with Geraldine Crisci, Polyvagal Theory, somatic trauma approaches informed by Abi Blakeslee, Trust Based Relational Intervention principles, and Attachment Based Family Therapy Level One. The equine work is informed by Pro EFW, Ontario Equestrian, Healing Hooves Explorations, and a relational attachment lens influenced by Warwick Schiller’s work.
Privacy and farm setting
Sprucehaven Farm is an active farm environment. Before services begin, clients receive clear information about consent, privacy, the role of farm staff, horse handling support, and the limits of confidentiality within an active farm setting where staff, boarders, or other people may occasionally be present.
A closer look at Sprucehaven Farm.
Sprucehaven Farm is the working equestrian farm in Mount Elgin, Ontario that hosts The Meeting Place. The property is home to a herd of more than twenty horses, a riding school, and a quiet natural setting that shapes every session offered through this program.
Learn more about the farm directly from Sprucehaven, or find directions and visitor reviews on Google.
Glimpses of Sprucehaven.
A few quiet corners of the farm in Mount Elgin, Ontario, where The Meeting Place unfolds season by season.
Linda Plank, founder of Sprucehaven Farm.
Sprucehaven Farm founder Linda Plank is an accomplished Equestrian Canada Level Three Technical Delegate for Eventing and a Technical Delegate for Working Equitation. She has spent her life in the equestrian community, competing to the Preliminary level and placing tenth at the Kentucky Horse Park CCI Event.
Alongside her officiating and farm stewardship, Linda is a horse handling specialist for The Meeting Place. Her decades with horses have given her a quiet, seasoned eye for herd dynamics, for the subtle language of movement and breath, and for the small moments of arrival that matter most in equine assisted work.
Linda meets every person and every horse with a person centred approach, drawn naturally to the kindness and the good in what is unfolding in front of her. Years of leadership in the equestrian community have shaped a rare ability to open a space so that people feel safe, welcomed, and free to show up honestly in ways they have not always felt they could.
Sprucehaven is a home for those who simply want to arrive as they are and connect from wherever they happen to be that day. It is a place where people meet themselves, the herd, and one another, and where the sense of belonging that Linda offers becomes the ground the therapeutic work rests on.
Barb Waterfield, equine coach and quiet listener.
Barb is a licensed and insured Equestrian Canada Coach and a member of Ontario Equestrian. She manages the Sprucehaven Farm riding school and is the horse handling specialist for The Meeting Place, holding the standards of safety, horse welfare, and calm confidence that every session depends on.
What sets Barb apart is her capacity for deep, unhurried connection with horses. Her work is relational rather than mechanical. She reads posture, breath, eye, and movement, and she waits for the horse to arrive rather than asking the horse to perform. Years of coaching riders of every age and stage have given her a steady eye for the small shifts that matter, a softened jaw, a lowered head, a curious step forward, the same shifts that make an equine assisted session meaningful for a person.
Her approach is informed by attachment based, welfare first horsemanship in the spirit of practitioners such as Warwick Schiller, and it sits alongside the equine assisted wellness standards of Pro EFW that guide the program. In session, Barb keeps the herd, the environment, and the relational field safe so the clinical work can unfold at its own pace.
Natalie Daniel, RSSW, Psychotherapist.
Natalie is a Registered Social Service Worker and Psychotherapist, and a member of Ontario Equestrian and Pro EFW. Her love for horses grew slowly and honestly through years of attending shows, events, and clinics, where she found herself naturally reading the somatic cues that horses so quietly offer. When she met the herd at Sprucehaven, something therapeutic began to take shape.
With more than two decades of trauma work and deep experience supporting families through relational attachment, Natalie began to explore frameworks such as Healing Hooves to better understand how equines could be gently and ethically woven into the clinical work she was already known for.
Her presence is quiet, steady, and calm. Offering equine assisted psychotherapy in a way that is deeply somatic, attachment focused, and profoundly moving.
In session, Natalie holds the role of clinical facilitator within the triad of horse, horse handler, and client. If you are looking for a place to move through trauma and attachment wounds, at a pace your nervous system can trust, and in the company of horses who ask nothing of you but your honest presence, this is that place.
From isolation, grief, and rigid protection to greater connection, safety, and emotional steadiness.
The Meeting Place supports people in moving from overwhelming grief, relational pain, and protective patterns toward a more connected relationship with themselves, others, the natural environment, and the horses beside them.
Some extended health benefit plans may reimburse eligible services provided by a Registered Social Service Worker. Coverage varies by plan and provider. Before booking, please confirm whether your plan covers services provided by an RSSW and whether the service you are seeking is eligible for reimbursement.
Provided by a Registered Social Service Worker in Tillsonburg, Ontario.
Clinical Services at Somatic Tones are provided by Natalie Daniel, a Registered Social Service Worker (RSSW) practicing in Tillsonburg and serving families across Oxford County, Elgin County, and Southwestern Ontario. Registered Social Service Workers in Ontario are regulated by the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers, which sets the professional and ethical standards for practice.
Clinical work is trauma informed, attachment focused, and grounded in ongoing professional development. Sessions are offered in person at 72 Vienna Road, Tillsonburg, and at Sprucehaven Farm in Mount Elgin for equine assisted psychotherapy.
The Meeting Place is not crisis, emergency, medical, or psychiatric care.
No specific outcome, healing result, or therapeutic change is guaranteed.
Ready when you are.
If you have read enough and you are ready to begin, book a session directly. If you would like a brief conversation first, call for a consultation or send an inquiry.
Booking opens the online scheduling page. 226 557 9949