Free Rein Australia was established in 2004 and is the practice, training and organisational home of the work that has developed into the Biological Completion Model™.

For more than 20 years, we have worked with thousands of individuals, groups and practitioners across personal development, trauma resolution, professional development and practitioner training.

Today, Free Rein Australia is where the work is applied, observed, refined and taught. Individual sessions, workshops and practitioner training are conducted in person, with the horses forming part of the environment where appropriate — but participation with horses is never required.

The work is grounded in nervous system logic: understanding what threat the nervous system detected, what defensive response it organised, what prevented that response from succeeding or completing, and what remains unresolved as a result.

Free Rein Australia is also the physical home of the Biological Completion Model™ (BCM) and the training environment for practitioners learning to work with the model.

Free Rein Australia is an NDIS provider under counselling.

Free Rein Australia is set on approximately 80 acres and includes a large open-air arena surrounded on three sides by covered areas that provide shelter from sun, wind and rain.

A dedicated indoor space adjoining the arena can be configured for training, workshops, groups and meetings, with kitchen and tea/coffee facilities available.

The property allows work to move easily between indoor teaching, practical exercises and the outdoor environment, including the presence of the herd.

The arena opens to views  of the landscape to the north, that add to a feeling of expansiveness.

Our Practitioners

Cindy Jacobs founder and Program Director of Free Rein Australia, developer of The Biological Completion Model™, and author of the forthcoming book, The Unfinished Response.

Before founding Free Rein Australia, Cindy established and managed a successful change-management business employing more than 40 staff and working with major corporations in Australia and overseas. For more than 15 years, she worked with organisations whose workforces often exceeded 1,000 employees, before moving into individual executive coaching focused on personal, professional and leadership development through the Institute of Executive Coaching Australia.

During this period, Cindy also trained in equine-assisted and somatic approaches and began working with groups in leadership and team development in the presence of horses.  She noticed something unexpected: people often became markedly more authentic and direct in the presence of the herd, even when working alongside colleagues, peers and managers.

As the work moved increasingly into personal and trauma-related material, Cindy recognised that coaching alone was no longer enough. She completed a degree in counselling and trained as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. She is a member of the Australian Counselling Association.

Over the years that followed, Cindy and the Free Rein herd worked with thousands of clients. Through that work, she began noticing recurring and predictable patterns in how the nervous system organised around threat, protection and unfinished defensive responses.

Those observations developed into the Biological Completion Model™ (BCM) — a framework for understanding and working with the way the nervous system organises when safety is threatened, and how it can reorganise when an interrupted defensive response is able to complete.

BCM now forms the foundation of Cindy’s clinical work, practitioner training and the broader body of work being developed through Nervous System Logic.

Her focus is no longer simply on helping people manage the effects of trauma, but on understanding the logic sustaining those responses and supporting the conditions in which resolution and agency become possible.

Cindy’s vision is to develop and support a growing community of BCM practitioners and, over time, BCM trainers who can carry the work into new settings and make trauma resolution and the restoration of agency more widely accessible.

Casey Fenwick has a degree in Social Welfare with a focus on mental health and disability, and is a BCM Practitioner.    She has also worked as an in-home carer.  Casey’s expertise lies in working with young people – young adults.  Being a new mother has given her insight to the challenges of motherhood, and she also works with new mothers to find balance in their role as mother while reconnecting to who they are.

 Candice Chan-Barritt is a mother of four, an experienced community Occupational Therapist, and a BCM Practitioner.   She is committed to supporting individuals and families in navigating life’s complexities. Her personal journey has been shaped by profound experiences, including the passing of her father and son, and a recent diagnosis of ADHD and dyslexia. These events have enabled her to have a deep understanding of grief, resilience, and healing, which she brings into her practice with empathy and professionalism.

As an AHPRA-registered Occupational Therapist, Candice brings a wealth of experience and a client-centred approach to her work. She holds a Certificate IV in Disability.

Pam Marshall is an experienced BCM Practitioner and Assistant BCM Trainer with a rich background in corporate environments and personal growth.  Pam specialises in working with young people, supporting social development, self-confidence and self-awareness. She also works with women across the lifespan, including those experiencing the effects of unresolved trauma.

Pam also facilitates programs in the presence of the Free Rein herd, where the horses form part of the environment in which participants can develop awareness, choice and agency.

The Herd

The horses at Free Rein Australia live together as a herd, with freedom to move, interact, disengage and choose whether or not to participate with people. They are not ridden and are not trained to perform a therapeutic role.

They live across approximately 80 acres and are handled gently when necessary, but their daily lives are organised around being horses rather than around human use. There is no requirement for them to approach a client, remain in an interaction or behave in a particular way.

This matters.

The horses are free to respond to what is happening rather than perform a conditioned response. Their movement, proximity, disengagement and re-engagement become part of a living environment in which people are also invited to notice their own state, movement, boundaries and choices.

Their value lies in the conditions their presence helps create.

A herd of freely moving horses brings immediacy.  People often become more present, less able to rely on rehearsed social responses, and more aware of what is happening in their bodies.  The horses respond to changes in posture, movement, intention and congruence, often bringing attention to something before it has been put into words.

At Free Rein Australia, the horses are not the intervention.

They are part of the environment in which the work becomes visible.

Disclaimer

We do not provide medical or any other health care or fitness advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The site and its services are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for specific medical or mental health advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment.

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