The burgeoning field is called yoga therapy, and its practitioners include psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers who incorporate yoga poses and meditative breathing into their sessions, as well as yoga teachers who want to learn how to address the emotions that bubble up in students during class or in private sessions. The idea, say yoga therapists, is to allow yoga to empower people while also priming them to access their deepest emotions.
A typical yoga therapy session with Dr. Elizabeth Visceglia, a psychiatrist and yoga therapist based in New York City, often starts with some kind of breath-work - energizing breaths for people who are depressed, balancing breaths for those with anxiety. Then patients practice yoga poses geared to their specific needs. People with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, are prone to losing their sense of being in the room when they experience a vivid reliving of their trauma. So Visceglia has them hold simple grounding positions, like the warrior or chair pose, before transitioning into talk therapy.
“Emotional memories are stored in your body.” Visceglia said. “A group yoga class, is not structured to enable you to process that. Ideally one would want to work with someone who is paying attention to both the physical and emotional experiences.”
That’s the philosophy behind yoga therapy instruction at Phoenix Rising in West Stockbridge, Mass., where yoga therapists, who do not need to be mental-health practitioners, learn to address both the mind and body in one-on-one sessions and group classes. Phoenix Rising yoga therapists put clients in assisted yoga postures and do a kind of “verbal exploration” of the present moment. The yoga therapist acts as a witness to clients’ exploration, with empathy and positive regard for their experience.
The concept of healing the mind via the body, and vice versa, has been around for decades. “Freud used to work with hysterical women with unconscious conflicts that they couldn’t express through words,” says Visceglia. “Only through looking at the symptoms of their body [like phantom pregnancies] could they even get to what was psychologically needed for healing.”
Since the days of Freud, research into the mind-body relationship has come a long way: Studies show that your mental health and mood are not only dependent in large part on physical factors like exercise, but also that unchecked stress, anxiety and depression can affect physical health, increasing blood pressure, heart disease and even risk of death. So, it was perhaps inevitable that patients would start bringing their yoga mats into therapy.
The practice is quickly gaining popularity. There are now close to 50 schools of yoga offering yoga therapy training in the U.S. And the International Association of Yoga Therapists more than tripled its membership between 2003 and 2009, to about 2,500 members. “Now we have more licensed health-care providers, including psychologists, coming in who are interested in using yoga in their work,” says Kelly McGonigal, the editor in chief of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy.
In fact, yoga therapy may even offer some aid to psychiatry’s most intractable patients. Visceglia is in the process of analyzing data from a recent study she conducted at Bronx State Psychiatric Center looking at the effects of yoga therapy in people with chronic schizophrenia, some of whom have been hospitalized for 15 to 20 years. Her study suggests a decrease in negative symptoms and an increase in quality of life. Yoga affects the endocrine system and the parasympathetic nervous system, systems that are out of whack in schizophrenia patients, Visceglia says, leading to an increased overall feeling of calm.
That sense of peace is what Joan Stenzler, a licensed clinical social worker and a yoga teacher in Fresh Meadows, NY, tries to create in her sessions. In addition to using physical yoga poses, Stenzler teaches her clients about the five koshas, or layers of consciousness, in yoga: physical, energetic, mental-emotional, wisdom and bliss. “Each kosha represents one aspect of our existence or consciousness and can potentially be open and accessible to the individual, or blocked,” says Stenzler, who helps patients identify and free themselves from their areas of blockage.
“When I first came [to therapy] I was having a lot of anxiety and physical symptoms that made me feel trapped,” says Rachel W., a special education teacher. “Through yoga, Joan helped me witness what I was experiencing and train myself to think past my body.”
But some experts are cautious about the combo therapy. Their main concern is safety: Are psychotherapists really equipped to teach yoga? “Yes, but only with extensive yoga training,” says Bo Forbes, a clinical psychologist, yoga teacher, and founder and director of the Center for Integrative Yoga Therapeutics in Boston. She believes psychotherapists should have in-depth study of yoga and a strong background in anatomy and alignment to limit client injuries. Currently, there is no official license or standards of practice for yoga therapy.
Further, says Forbes, many mental-health experts who try yoga therapy may have a difficult time overcoming the mores of their profession. “As psychologists, we have been schooled against touch. For example, it can take work for the clinicians who go through our teacher training programs to overcome that prohibition.”
Already, however, many therapists are guiding downward dog poses in the office. Says Stenzler, yoga and psychotherapy make a perfect union - which is what “yoga” in Sanskrit actually translates to. “The goal and intention in psychotherapy is to support a patient to be who they always were. And that’s yoga! I’ve been doing it all along and didn’t realize,” Stenzler says.
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Hello ,
I came on your website from twitter as you introduce this nice site for me .Thanks . This is a thoughtful post , thanks for such post . please keep on writing
Regards
Sudeep
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You are welcome,I will keep on writing
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I was also led here from a twitter from jackswine. I think this article is interesting. I took a yoga class a year ago and almost every session i would cry and while it was nice to stir up these emotions, it would have been better served in a private situation as you are talking about here. I didn’t know this situation even existed, thanks for the info.
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PLEASE NOTE:This article was written by By Alana B. Elias Kornfeld and published in Time Magazine on Tuesday, Apr. 14, 2009.
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I am a practicing psychotherapist for over 30 years and started integrating Kundalini yoga into sessions over the last few years. It seems perfect for people struggling with depression, anxiety and stress. It can be exceptionally helpful to supplement traditional psychotherapy with a yoga class.
Great website. I’ll pass it along to others.
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jasmine rodriguez Reply:
May 24th, 2009 at 5:13 am
Hi Marilyn,
I am a yoga teacher in Greece , teaching Anusara and Sivananda yoga in my private studio and giving private classes too. I saw your article and thought of sharing an experience with you, asking for your advice…
I am in group therapy now and my therapist (well, one of the 4 that sit in the group, two top dogs and two trainees)has invited me to his office to do some yoga breathing, asanas and light meditation to his after-teen group that he leads somewhere else. At the beginning I found it strange and thought he was making a pass at me. Later, i wondered whether he was just creating a “safe environment” of support and acceptance for me because that was the time when I was looking deeeeep into myself and my issues. Could it be? What do you think of that?
The bottome line is , I went and did some yoga sessions for his group (50 mins.) before he would start the talking cure. Kids liked it and all went smooth and well. As a result, I have been looking into the yoga-therapy relation and I find it so interesting.
We are thinking now of inviting a drama teacher to “our” group and organizing weekends with drama/therapy/yoga. What do you think? How is this going to affect my relationship with my therapist?
Thank you for your help.
Jasmine http://www.angelkristensen@yahoo.co.uk
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Bree Greenberg-Benjamin of Burlington, VT has been using psychotherapy and yoga together to combat eating disorders for the past 10 years. Her yoga experience has really increased her effectiveness as a psychotherapist. I hope you can take a minute to learn more about her. Check her out at: http://www.pratyaagati.com
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Indeed, Bree Greenberg-Benjamin has been a revolutionary fixture in Burlington for with with and even without eating disorders. I’ve heard of many she has helped not only through talk therapy, but also through yoga when talk therapy wasn’t enough. I wish her much success and encourage not only future patients but other clinicians to check out http://www.pratyaagati.com
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This is really forward thinking. I would love to see this as an alternative to talk therapy which often leads you in circles of dwelling on the negative.
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Yoga Therepy is not new. People in the west have just given it a name. Yoga has always been about mind/body. As a matter of fact, it is more about the mind. It didn’t become body oriented until it came to the West.
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I started practicing yoga and meditation at a time when I was deeply depressed and on three medications for depression and mood swings. Within two years, I was off meds and haven’t been on them since. Meditation has also been linked to healing the frontal lobe of the brain…
Would be good to give credit to the original writer of the story…
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1891271,00.html
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