Blog: What’s Happening in Yoga Therapy
How ritual can contribute to healing
By Molly Goforth The spiritual aspect of yoga therapy is unique among complementary therapies, and I have found in working with clients that it is important to its effectiveness. The novelist Andre Aciman said, “Rituals are how we step into our private field of...
How yoga therapy works: Part 3—Increasing awareness
A foundational principle of yoga is that by becoming more self-aware we will heal, realize our essential wholeness, and live in ways that support that wholeness. Yoga therapy is a process for this transformation, and it starts with learning to pay attention in...
Box breathing—Or boxed in?
With the internet—and particularly social media—any idea can become a trend in days or even hours. Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about a yoga technique called box breathing or square breath (which yogis know as sama vritti pranayama). Box breathing, according to...
The safety of yoga therapy
Safety, in relation to health, is usually about physical safety: Will I get hurt doing these movements? Will this medication or supplement cause harm? The work of Drs. Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk to understand trauma response and healing has brought the...
Yoga therapy to support chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy
Treatments for cancer have advanced rapidly over the past 50 years, and people are surviving many cancers and surviving for longer. However, many of the treatments come with terrible and sometimes lasting side-effects. Yoga therapy is well-positioned to support people...
How yoga therapy works: Part 2—Frameworks for understanding
Yoga philosophy understands healing and health somewhat differently than Western models do. A primary model for understanding the work of healing in yoga is the panchamaya kosha, or five-sheaths, model, which holds that different aspects or layers of our experience...
Research puts yoga at the heart of health
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide—AND the leading cause of morbidity (illness) and disability, according to the World Health Organization. Although many remarkable surgeries and pharmaceuticals can save and extend the lives of people with...
How yoga therapy works: Part 1
Yoga therapy is an emerging profession in the West, so perhaps the most common question yoga therapists receive is, “What IS yoga therapy, anyway?” (yogatherapy.health has a section devoted to the answers.) Put simply, yoga therapy is the specific application of yoga...
Circus the yoga way: Adapted for children on the autism spectrum
By Kat Robinson You may be surprised to learn that the internally focused practice of yoga and the externally oriented art of circus have a lot in common: Both include body awareness and proprioception, involve breathing techniques to quiet the mind and create...
The yoga therapy partnership: 50-50
By Monica Le Baron In 2018, I was honored to do a practicum in yoga therapy and integrated positional therapy at La Casa de las Abuelitas, a women’s shelter in El Paso, Texas. Working there was challenging yet rewarding at all levels of my being. I learned four...
