Bit of Hope Ranch now offering a new type of therapy
Bit of Hope Ranch has been offering nature and equine therapy in Gaston County since 2009.
Last year, Bit of Hope’s founder, Meg Vanderbilt, became the first person in North Carolina to be certified in a new type of therapy known as the Mace Energy Method, which she is now practicing with clients.
The Mace Energy Method of therapy was started by Australian ship captain John Mace.
“He was brilliant at a lot of things, but was not a mental health professional so a lot of his findings were shunned, even in Australia, by medical professionals because his ideas were threatening the mainstream,” Vanderbilt said.
On a search to find alternative therapy options for herself, Vanderbilt found out about the Mace method in a podcast last year.
“I was dealing with some of my own health stuff, emotional health stuff. The therapy I had been doing and the counseling wasn’t working so I was really seeking some more holistic treatments,” Vanderbilt said. “I heard a podcast from a gentleman in the USA who was using this method to actually help schizophrenics and you know, his stories were just so inspiring about how something so simple could help so many people that were in a hopeless position.
“It got me curious because at Bit of Hope, not that we see a lot of schizophrenia, but we see a lot of people dealing with trauma and other issues and we’re their last hope a lot of times.”
After learning about the Mace method, Vanderbilt decided to get certified and became the sixth United States mental health professional to gain a certification.
She now offers therapy to both horses and humans at Bit of Hope.
“It is a different way of looking at upsetting events that have happened to you,” Vanderbilt said. “Everybody’s been through some type of trauma or what we call in the Mace Energy Method is an upset. So, when you experience an upset, it’s not pleasant in the moment. What happens is your subconscious pushes back against that. It tries to help protect you and help you survive. So you wind up resisting an unwanted feeling because it doesn;t feel good, you bury it in your psyche.
“The problem is, it takes a lot of energy to keep these things buried, and so the energy comes from the energy we would normally use to be creative, to have healthy relationships, to have a healthy body. Very often these people are using resources to keep these things in check that they could be using for good things.”
The Mace method says that these life upsets cause an individual to assume traits about themselves that may not be a genuine reflection of who they are, but rather, a reflection of how the trauma impacted them.
The Mace method requires a client to reflect on how the traumatic experience made them feel.
Rather than recounting the experience or focusing on the memory itself, the client is asked to remember the feelings so they will be able to release them and refocus that energy on their life, according to Vanderbilt.
The therapy is available for children, adults and pets.
“What we’re doing is we’re actually tapping into the energy universe, not necessarily the physical universe. So, it’s a quantum physics thing,” Vanderbilt said.
Those interested in scheduling a session at Bit of Hope can visit bitofhoperanch.org or find Vanderbilt through the Mace Energy Method provider website causisminstitute.com.
“It’s only gonna keep increasing, you know, Bit of Hope kind of prides itself that we are ahead. What we offer is unique and outside the box," she said. "This is just another way that we can offer people help that aren’t getting help under typical circumstances.”
This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Bit of Hope Ranch now offering a new type of therapy
