Lucky, our baby stallion, is almost a year old! Time flies! In the past six months he has nearly doubled in size and we have successfully weaned him from his mother Trouble. Lucky has a very sweet disposition and we all love giving him hugs. It has been fun teaching him to walk with us [...]

Horses Helping People: What is the therapeutic purpose of interacting with horses? Equine or horse assisted therapy is used to expand on emotional growth and learning. Horses, along with a therapist and a horse specialist, are used as tools toward increased self awareness. Here at Smoky Mountain Lodge we use a model of equine assisted [...]

Pasadena Villa uses experiential therapy as a means of helping residents develop coping, life, and social skills. This therapy introduces residents to a guided activity and then encourages examination of the experience’s process, transfer of lessons learned to other appropriate areas of life, and encourages and supports continued change and improvement. By providing action-oriented activities, [...]

Residents at Pasadena Villa’s Smoky Mountain Lodge have the opportunity each week to participate in equine therapy. By interacting with and caring for horses, residents experience increased self-esteem and a sense of purpose and of being needed. In a 2009 study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Jennifer P. Wisdom, Ph.D.*, and her colleagues [...]

Caring for a family member with serious mental illness can be draining and consuming. Often, in the search for answers, solutions, and care, the well being of other family members becomes inadvertently secondary. However, the impact of attention focused on a sibling, the strain on parents, and even the impact of family dynamics on the [...]

Equine therapy is such a unique experiential therapy model as sessions are never the same.  Often, our residents will approach therapy with one preconceived idea, however their actions will portray another idea and finally the horse(s) will show some other dynamic that was not seen initially.  Horses mirror our experiences by showing us what we [...]

Matt Hicks is a Recreation Therapist at Pasadena Villa Smoky Mountain Lodge, a residential mental health treatment facility located just outside of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Matt received a Master’s of Science in both Therapeutic Recreation and Recreation Administration from the University of Tennessee and is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist. He has [...]

Prescription drugs are one way to deal with depression, especially after all other alternatives have been tried. Prior to resorting to pills, however, you should look into other, healthier, more naturalistic ways, such as exercise and volunteer work to help treat your depression. This article provides good, sound advice for rescuing your life from the harsh tyranny that is depression.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a type of treatment that may be useful for psychiatric patients when traditional psychotherapy/talk therapy is not effective. It is an action oriented therapy, in contrast to treatments which delve into a persons past and examine the “whys” behind their feelings. It is a therapy aimed first and foremost at addressing [...]