Take Heart Counseling & Equine Assisted Therapy

Take Heart Counseling & Equine Assisted Therapy Empowering individuals and families to find hope, healing and wholeness through therapeutic work with horses.

We provide Licensed Professional Counseling services in the Reading, Lancaster, and Lebanon areas of Pennsylvania. Equine Assisted Therapy is experiential and metaphorical in nature. Studies are proving it to be an effective alternative or addition to traditional therapy. Some sessions may be more learning-oriented, meaning you may practice skills which translate into other situations you may be f

acing. Some sessions will be more psychotherapeutic, in which deep healing through corrective experiences may occur. Working with horses provides an organic environment for experiencing, understanding, and discussing one's feelings and behaviors, in which individuals are challenged to grow and change. Session activities are tailored to fit a client's needs and will vary. Each session will end with a time of processing and discussing the activities. Non-therapeutic services and events offered at the Three Horse Ranch / Take Heart facility include: leadership-teamwork improvement, basic horsemanship and riding-lessons by highly qualified trainers, kids’ animal events (with mini-horses, a mini-donkey, and fainting goats), as well as fundraising events, such as public Open Barn Events, Worship at The Ranch events, and other special events as announced.

05/31/2026

Here is a quick look into what our Hay Day looks like. What an incredible Hay Day! 🌾🐴
Thank you to everyone who came out, participated, volunteered, and helped make the day such a success.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your...
05/31/2026

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!
~Lamentations 3:22-23

She used to love everything.Then something changed — and for a while, we couldn't figure out what to do about it. School...
05/30/2026

She used to love everything.

Then something changed — and for a while, we couldn't figure out what to do about it. School felt hard. Home felt tense. Every conversation turned into a battle or a shutdown.

We tried a few things. Some helped a little. Nothing really stuck.

A friend mentioned Take Heart. Honestly, I wasn't sure about the horses part. But I was out of ideas, and she had always loved animals, so we made the call.

The first session, she barely said a word. But she didn't shut down either. She just watched the horses. Let them come to her. One of them nudged her hand and she laughed — this real, surprised laugh — and I almost cried in the parking lot.
Nobody told her what to feel. Nobody pushed. The horse just showed up, and somehow that was enough to crack something open.

By week three she was talking about her sessions on the way home. Unprompted. That hadn't happened in a long time.
She sets her backpack down without slamming it now. That might sound small. It isn't.

She's not a different kid — she's more herself than she's been in a while. And we're not sure exactly what happens out there between her and the horses. But whatever it is, it's working.

If you have a kid who's struggling and nothing has stuck yet — this place might be worth a call. We're glad we made ours. 💛

📞 717-917-7137
🌐 takeheartcounseling.com

The summer between 8th and 9th grade. The summer after the divorce. The summer she stopped talking at the dinner table.T...
05/29/2026

The summer between 8th and 9th grade. The summer after the divorce. The summer she stopped talking at the dinner table.

There are summers that shape kids in ways we don't see until years later — for better or worse. The ones with too much screen time and not enough something-real tend to leave a mark.

Free Rein, Pathfinders, and Inside-Out Herd are summer groups for kids & teens that meet for 6-weeks here at the ranch.

There's a horse, a small group of peers, and a therapist who knows how to make space for whatever shows up — without making it weird.

It's not a camp. It's not a club. It's space to just be. It's a chance to try something different. It's something a lot of teens didn't know they needed until they were halfway through it.

Registration is open through June 18.

takeheartcounseling.com/seasonal-equine-groups

Hope. Healing. Horses.

Raphie hung out at Conrad Weiser Area School District High School yesterday to make friends with the FFA & 4th grade vis...
05/28/2026

Raphie hung out at Conrad Weiser Area School District High School yesterday to make friends with the FFA & 4th grade visitors!

Raphie: professional smile-maker 🐴🥰🤠

Summer on the ranch hits different. 🌿☀️The barn is busy, the schedule is packed, and somehow the horses still manage to ...
05/28/2026

Summer on the ranch hits different. 🌿☀️

The barn is busy, the schedule is packed, and somehow the horses still manage to look unbothered by all of it. At the end of the day they're just up on the hill looking like movie stars.

We're not jealous. (We're a little jealous.)

If your summer could use a little more of this — fresh air, good work, and something that actually fills you back up — you know where to find us. 🐴

💛 takeheartcounseling.com

05/27/2026

Take a moment to stop scrolling. Use this moment to ground yourself and become mindful of the present moment.

Sometimes the most powerful path to peace isn’t found in silence — it’s found in presence.

In this mindfulness practice, we invite you to step outside of the noise of everyday life and into something slower, more grounding. Surrounded by open skies, rolling pastures, and the quiet wisdom of horses.

Practice this post to guide you through a gentle exercise in awareness — noticing your breath, softening your body, and simply being where you are.

For our clinicians and referral partners:Some of your clients have plateaued.They've done the work. They understand thei...
05/27/2026

For our clinicians and referral partners:

Some of your clients have plateaued.

They've done the work. They understand their patterns, they can name their triggers, they've gotten genuinely insightful about their own history. And they're still not sleeping. Still snapping at their kids. Still carrying something in their body that talk therapy hasn't been able to reach.

This is the population equine-assisted, trauma-informed work tends to help the most — not as a replacement for what you're already doing with them, but as a complement to it. The body holds what the mind has already processed, and horses are uniquely effective at engaging the nervous system in a way that bypasses the narrative loop.

Take Heart is a trauma-informed counseling practice on a working ranch in Wernersville, PA. Our full clinical offering includes:

Group work this summer:
→ Unbridled — trauma-informed group for women
→ From Burnout to Balance & Rest and Rise — one-day retreats for the chronically depleted carrying too much
→ Equine Therapy 101 — four-week intro group for adults newer to this modality
→ Pathfinders, Inside-Out Herd, and Free Rein — for kids and teens who do better with horses, movement, and a small group of peers than in a traditional office

Year-round:
→ Individual equine-assisted therapy for adults, teens, and children
→ Traditional office-based individual counseling for clients who don't need or want the ranch component
→ Specialty work in trauma, neurodiversity (including ADHD, ASD, and nonverbal autism), anxiety, depression, and life transitions

Our clinicians are licensed, trained in trauma-informed care, and experienced working alongside outside providers.

We're set up to coordinate with referring therapists, psychiatrists, and primary care — not to take over a case, but to add a dimension to it.

If you have clients who've hit a wall, clients whose bodies are louder than their words, or clients whose kids you've been wanting to refer somewhere thoughtful — this is one to know about.

Summer group registration closes June 18. Individual therapy referrals are accepted year-round.

Happy to talk through fit with any clinician who wants to refer. Reach out directly or visit takeheartcounseling.com.

You're not lazy. You're not failing. You're not "just stressed."You're burned out.And the answer isn't another podcast a...
05/26/2026

You're not lazy. You're not failing. You're not "just stressed."

You're burned out.

And the answer isn't another podcast about boundaries or another planner. It's not waking up at 5am or cutting caffeine or trying harder.

It's stopping.

It's getting out of the loop you've been running in for so long you forgot it was a loop.

This summer we're running two retreats for adults who have hit that wall:

→ From Burnout to Balance — created for the chronically exhausted, the women who keep showing up for everyone else (July 10)

→ Rest and Rise — built for the guys who don't usually sign up for things like this, but know that running on fumes isn't working for them (August 7)

Both one-day retreats happen at the ranch. Both involve horses, which is a whole different kind of nervous system reset than anything you can do at a desk.

It's time to do something different.
reach out: [email protected]

Hope. Healing. Horses.

Happy Gotcha Day, Willow!Willow was donated to us in May of 2021 from Quest Therapeutic Riding Center where she had been...
05/25/2026

Happy Gotcha Day, Willow!

Willow was donated to us in May of 2021 from Quest Therapeutic Riding Center where she had been a wonderful therapeutic riding partner for 4 years. They donated her to us because even though therapeutic riding wasn't her thing, they knew she is a great therapy horse and wanted what was best for her. (She just wasn't very comfortable giving ba****ck rides that often).

And she most certainly is a wonderful therapy horse! She is a sweet and snugly Welsh Pony. She loves attention and will sometimes do "tricks" to sho off- like crossing her front feet. She loves to snuggle and will often rest her little head gently on your shoulder.

Here's to many more years of serving our clients together on their path towards hope and healing!

Share with us your Willow moments!

Hope. Healing. Horses.

Address

699 Wooltown Road
Wernersville, PA
19565

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 8pm
Tuesday 9am - 8pm
Wednesday 9am - 8pm
Thursday 9am - 8pm
Friday 9am - 4pm
Saturday 9am - 4pm

Telephone

+17179177137

Website

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