Yoga in the Psychotherapeutic Process
I have been practicing yoga for about 25 years, and for many years I led both individual and group yoga classes. Over time, however, I stepped away from the traditional role of a yoga teacher, as I feel more drawn to integrating yoga into the psychotherapeutic process.
I offer movement and breath-based options, always with the freedom to choose. Through yoga, we can meet our bodies, listen to their signals, and possibly notice emerging emotions. I draw on my experience as a yoga teacher, but in my soul and my current practice, I stand in the role of a psychotherapist.
Setting an Intention Together
If we choose to focus on yoga during a therapy session, we’ll begin by setting an intention together.
Sometimes it can be helpful to include calming practices or relaxation — allowing ourselves to, even for a short time, let go of racing or repetitive thoughts, and to soften tension held in the body.
Through yoga practice, movement, breath, and body awareness, we may come into contact with emotions. These can begin to move and release through the body. When that happens, we stay with the emotion, allow ourselves to feel it, and let it move through in whatever way our system needs at that moment. Yoga becomes an entry point into emotional awareness — which we can then continue to work with psychotherapeutically.
But sometimes no emotion arises, and that’s completely okay too. There is no pressure to “make something happen.” Instead, if something does come up, we offer it space and attention, allowing it to be there — either continuing to explore it through movement and breath, or through other body-psychotherapeutic techniques. This allows the inner impulse that has arisen to be completed.
This is always a gentle practice — a few postures, present-moment awareness, breathwork. It’s not a typical yoga class like you may know from yoga studios. Our main focus is on being in contact with ourselves, and on sensing what is happening within us — both physically and emotionally. Because the two are connected.
Especially in the context of trauma, we can include yoga grounded in the principles of Trauma Sensitive Yoga. The essence of this approach is that you have the freedom to choose — how to do a movement, or whether to do it at all. The focus is on conscious awareness and internal experience: what is happening in the body, and how it feels.
And you are the one who decides about your body.
For someone who has experienced traumatic situations — such as assault, abuse, restricted movement, or invasive medical procedures — the experience of reclaiming agency over the body and the freedom of choice can be deeply healing.
I am not in the role of a teacher who tells you what to do and expects you to “follow instructions correctly.” That could easily replicate familiar patterns of someone else having control over your body.
Instead, I offer options throughout the trauma-sensitive yoga practice — and you choose what feels right. In your range, at your pace, you decide what happens with your body.
I will gladly facilitate this kind of yoga practice — which might involve just a few movements while seated on a chair or standing. It can be a valuable support, especially in the context of complex trauma.
A Flexible Approach – Yoga as Therapeutic Support
Sometimes a different intention may arise. The practice may be more free-form, intuitive — a bit like yoga improvisation — depending on the therapeutic need or moment.
Still, the core remains the same: being present in our body, with our breath, allowing ourselves to feel and release emotions if they arise — in a safe and contained therapeutic space.
This is not about “exercising” or learning yoga poses. Yoga here is a way to be with ourselves, within ourselves — integrated into our psychotherapeutic work.
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