What is Yoga Therapy?

Yoga therapy is the individualized application of the teachings and tools of Classical Yoga to health and wellbeing. It can help people work with health concerns alongside any medical care they may be receiving. Rather than starting with a particular style of yoga or a standard set of poses, we start with you: what you’re dealing with, what matters to you, and what you hope might change.

IAYT-certified yoga therapists have specialized training in adapting Yoga to the individual. That includes knowing how health conditions, injuries, medications, and other considerations may affect what we do. Because Yoga offers much more than poses, yoga therapy might include movement, breathwork, relaxation, meditation, or even talking a little yoga wisdom.

People start yoga therapy for all sorts of reasons. Some are dealing with pain or changes in strength, mobility, balance, sleep, or energy. Others have a health condition and wonder whether yoga therapy might help. Some want a more individualized approach to staying healthy and capable as they age. Others are simply looking for more from Yoga. Stress is a common reason, too, whether it comes from poor sleep, caregiving, grief, anxiety, a major life change, or simply having too much on your plate.

A Whole-Person Approach

Of course, there’s often more than one thing going on. Health concerns and other challenges rarely stay neatly contained in one part of life. Pull at one thread, and the fabric of your life starts to pucker.

Consider an older woman with knee pain. Her limp may be obvious. Less obvious is how that limp jams up her back, how pain interrupts her sleep, and how draining it all is! Everyday life gets harder. She might start leaving family celebrations early—and skipping other events altogether. Over time, she may lose touch with things that matter to her: time in nature, involvement in her community, relationships with family and friends, or even her sense of self.

“What did your doctor say?” the yoga therapist would ask. With that much pain, we’d want to know that she’s had appropriate medical evaluation. Licensed healthcare professionals are the ones to diagnose and medically treat disease or injury, not yoga therapists.

That’s okay, because yoga therapy doesn’t take the place of that work; it complements it.

So, if we aren’t looking at an MRI to see whether it’s arthritis or bursitis or a torn meniscus, how does yoga therapy approach this problem of the sore knee?

We start by looking at how she moves and asking how her knee affects her day: is it tough to get out of a chair, to walk, to step down a stair? How’s her balance? Is pain disturbing her sleep and mood? What helps it or makes it worse? And we follow her lead: the fact that yoga therapy looks at the whole person doesn’t mean every part of her life is ours to explore. We focus on what matters to her and what she wants help with.

If it’s safe and appropriate, we might work on strength, mobility, and balance to help her move more comfortably. If she’s already in physical therapy, we’d take care not to work at cross-purposes with what she’s doing there.

Yoga is just so adaptable. We can find ways for her to keep moving without simply pushing through pain. Helping the knee would be terrific, but regardless of how that shakes out, there are other places we may be able to help. A short routine for her back or some core-strengthening exercises might help her walk more comfortably even if the knee itself remains a problem.

Working with movement also becomes a way to build self-awareness—helping her notice what makes the knee pain worse or better, and whether she sometimes pushes too hard or holds back out of fear. She might notice if a painful day gets her mind spinning on “what ifs” at 2 AM, leaving her exhausted the next day. Breathing and relaxation practices might help with the stress and make it easier to sleep.

This interconnectedness is part of Classical Yoga’s understanding of the person: what happens in the body, breath, mind, energy, and our deeper sense of ourselves doesn’t happen in isolation. Her knee pain has tugged at those connections. But those same connections can also become pathways for healing.

That doesn’t mean one change will necessarily set off a predictable chain of improvements. But there may be more than one way in, and sometimes the positive effects build on one another. And whether or not the knee itself improves, more sleep plus a more comfortable back plus a little more energy? Now we may be getting somewhere—maybe even far enough to make it easier not just to attend that family gathering, but to enjoy it.

Another person with knee pain—even with the same structural problem—will have a different life, goals, concerns, resources, and experiences. Their yoga therapy sessions may look very different.

Getting Started

The first step is a brief phone call. We’ll talk about why you’re interested in yoga therapy, answer your questions, and decide whether it feels like a good fit.

Our first session helps me better understand what’s happening. We’ll talk about the challenges you’d like help with, what you’ve already tried, and any health concerns that may influence what we do together. We’ll also have time to explore a few practices so you can experience yoga therapy firsthand. Before you leave, we’ll choose one or two simple practices you feel comfortable doing on your own.

Follow-Up Sessions

Follow-up sessions start by talking about what you’ve noticed since we last met. Together, we’ll decide what to continue, what to adjust, and what to explore next. After the first session, we’ll usually spend more of our time practicing.

Just what we practice may change as we learn more. Sometimes the practices we expect to help most don’t, while others surprise us. I’ll offer guidance, explain why I recommend particular practices, and listen carefully to your experience.

I’ll typically ask you to choose one or two small practices to work with between appointments. When we meet again, we’ll talk about how it went. Did it help? Was it something you could realistically keep doing? Did it work better at one time of day than another? Did you change it in some way that made it work better for you?

And if you didn’t do it, that’s also useful information. Was it too long? Was the timing bad? Did you forget? Did you dislike it? That helps us figure out what to try next.

How Many Sessions?

I recommend starting with about six sessions, usually weekly or every other week. That gives us enough time to explore which practices are most helpful and make adjustments as we learn more. You’re not committing to six sessions, though. We can change course at any point.