What is Yoga Therapy?
One of the 5 applications of traditional yoga, yoga therapy is oriented towards healing. At any stage of life, part of a person’s journey may very well include dealing with an injury, illness, health condition or imbalance. Yoga therapy, yoga cikitsā in Sanskrit, applies the tools of yoga in an individualized way, usually one-on-one, to bring you back to balance, or sometimes to reframe a situation to learn to live with and manage a particular health condition. Having worked as a yoga therapist since 1995, Kevin will create a home yoga therapy practice designed exclusively for you that you can do on a daily or regular basis. With yoga therapy, you are an activate participant in your own healing; that is what makes it so empowering and interesting!
Someone once asked T. Krishnamacharya,
“How does yoga therapy address diabetes?” He responded, “Who is diabetes?”
This response illustrates that yoga therapy is not a formula, or a set prescription. One size does not fit all! There are principles that guide a yoga therapist when working with a person, but they are applied uniquely to each individual. There is only one you! Much suffering is relieved when we get support finding a deeper connection to our uniqueness.
How is Yoga Therapy different than Psychotherapy?
Acknowledging that there are many different kinds of psychotherapy, and many are now incorporating various practices that address the body and breath, it could be said that the main tool of psychotherapy is talk, or dialogue. In yoga therapy, though dialogue, discussion, and verbally expressing your experience is very important, it is not the main tool of transformation. What you share with your yoga therapist helps them to know you better, and enables them to create a home yoga therapy practice that moves you in the direction of healing, balance, and realizing your full potential.
Yoga looks at the multi-dimensionality of each person. Talking about things is important, but it has its limitations. There are dimensions before and beyond the verbal and intellectual aspects of our lives. Certain healing and growth is more readily accessed through the body, the breath, and meditation. Though our past has formed us and affects us deeply in how we think, speak, breathe, and act, we do not have to relive every difficult experience we’ve been through to heal.
What kind of Yoga Therapy does Kevin practice?
The foundation of Kevin’s approach to yoga therapy is the traditional lineage taught by the great masters T Krishnamacharya and his son TKV Desikachar known as Viniyoga. Viniyoga says that the tools of yoga should be adapted to serve the individual, not the individual trying to adapt to a certain kind of yoga. We are all evolving, changing, growing, learning, healing. Yoga therapy is an essential aspect of Evolutionary Yoga which celebrates and supports our unique nature and path.
Over time, meeting periodically, your practice will be updated and evolve as your needs and interests change and develop. To read more about other influences in Kevin’s approach to working with people, please see his bio.
“The home practice Kevin made for me has changed my life; I love it. My back doesn’t hurt anymore. When I practice the psychological part, the meditation on peace where I offer peace to myself, my family, my friends, and those in need, I feel very good inside. It’s a great way to start the day.”
– Peter Frank