If you feel disconnected from your body, numb, frozen, disembodied, or frightened of/gripped by unpredictable, uncontrollable feelings, sensations, or somatic experiences, then Trauma Sensitive Yoga could help.
Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TSY) is an intervention designed to treat those who identify as surviving a history of accumulative abuse or neglect (Complex PTSD), and is taught in a very different way to that of a normal yoga class. The most important difference is the focus is on interoception and the subjective experience of both facilitator and student/client, rather than what shape the form takes or the rhythm of those shapes. The student/client is invited to choose their own rhythm, and make their own choices based on what the yoga forms feel like for them.
TSY focuses on learning to become aware of your body though interoception: practising to recognise sensation, or lack of sensation, in the body. Every aspect of the practice is collaborative, invitational, and choice orientated, to facilitate in the client a sense of safety and autonomy.
The Yoga forms are offered as an option, not a given. This is a non-hierarchical, subjective endeavour where the teacher works alongside the client, experiencing the practise with them. It is about facilitating an opportunity to build experiences of interoception, while being able to make choices about what one does with one body during the practise. This has the potential to be healing because it invites an experience within the context of relational safety.
Different from Trauma Sensitive Yoga is Yoga. As I teach it, yoga is a functional, mobility based and progressive strength practice intertwined with the more classical yoga forms that focus on flexibility and playful expressions of yoga shapes, and/or relaxation (restorative yoga). The focus is on improving your movement patterns, and bodily awareness (an embodied mind), to feel better in your body.
The Way I make use of Trauma Sensitive Yoga
1) Within the psychotherapy hour.
When it has been thoroughly thought about with the client, and I have made an assessment based on my clinical understanding, we may come to an agreement to incorporate 5-10 minutes of TSY during the talking therapy (for eg at the beginning of the session).
2) TSY as a stand alone treatment.
If you are interested in TSY as a stand alone treatment, I am available to talk with you on the phone to discuss this option further. It is helpful to think of TSY in this capacity as an adjunct to talking therapy, which would be with a different therapist than the one providing the TSY.
Sarai's Yoga Background
Before training as a psychotherapist Sarai was a full time yoga teacher (YAP Accred. Senior Teacher). Sarai is a graduate of The Yoga Clinic's 20 hr Trauma Sensitive Yoga training, which combined with her experience working in the Tavistock Clinic's Trauma Service as a psychotherapist, has enriched her understanding of using yoga as an intervention for Complex Trauma.
She has taught yoga in various capacities including workshops, trainings, mentorship programmes, classes and privately, in London and worldwide since 2002. She taught at Triyoga for many years, and at various other organisations and yoga centres including her home studio.
Her background was in Ashtanga and Iyengar, before developing her own teaching style which combines functional movement and mobility with more traditional yoga forms (including elements of dynamic and restorative), to progressively build on the level the student/client is at. She focuses on building strength and flexibility at end range, and developing a sense of self attunement, in order to move and feel better in your body and daily life.
Sarai has taught a culturally diverse range of people from various socio-economic backgrounds, including adults, children, the elderly and those with special needs, with many different somatic and psychological presentations. Her interest lies in facilitating a space where the student/client is invited to become curious, so that the option may arise to live a more creative and fulfilling life.
Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TSY) is an intervention designed to treat those who identify as surviving a history of accumulative abuse or neglect (Complex PTSD), and is taught in a very different way to that of a normal yoga class. The most important difference is the focus is on interoception and the subjective experience of both facilitator and student/client, rather than what shape the form takes or the rhythm of those shapes. The student/client is invited to choose their own rhythm, and make their own choices based on what the yoga forms feel like for them.
TSY focuses on learning to become aware of your body though interoception: practising to recognise sensation, or lack of sensation, in the body. Every aspect of the practice is collaborative, invitational, and choice orientated, to facilitate in the client a sense of safety and autonomy.
The Yoga forms are offered as an option, not a given. This is a non-hierarchical, subjective endeavour where the teacher works alongside the client, experiencing the practise with them. It is about facilitating an opportunity to build experiences of interoception, while being able to make choices about what one does with one body during the practise. This has the potential to be healing because it invites an experience within the context of relational safety.
Different from Trauma Sensitive Yoga is Yoga. As I teach it, yoga is a functional, mobility based and progressive strength practice intertwined with the more classical yoga forms that focus on flexibility and playful expressions of yoga shapes, and/or relaxation (restorative yoga). The focus is on improving your movement patterns, and bodily awareness (an embodied mind), to feel better in your body.
The Way I make use of Trauma Sensitive Yoga
1) Within the psychotherapy hour.
When it has been thoroughly thought about with the client, and I have made an assessment based on my clinical understanding, we may come to an agreement to incorporate 5-10 minutes of TSY during the talking therapy (for eg at the beginning of the session).
2) TSY as a stand alone treatment.
If you are interested in TSY as a stand alone treatment, I am available to talk with you on the phone to discuss this option further. It is helpful to think of TSY in this capacity as an adjunct to talking therapy, which would be with a different therapist than the one providing the TSY.
Sarai's Yoga Background
Before training as a psychotherapist Sarai was a full time yoga teacher (YAP Accred. Senior Teacher). Sarai is a graduate of The Yoga Clinic's 20 hr Trauma Sensitive Yoga training, which combined with her experience working in the Tavistock Clinic's Trauma Service as a psychotherapist, has enriched her understanding of using yoga as an intervention for Complex Trauma.
She has taught yoga in various capacities including workshops, trainings, mentorship programmes, classes and privately, in London and worldwide since 2002. She taught at Triyoga for many years, and at various other organisations and yoga centres including her home studio.
Her background was in Ashtanga and Iyengar, before developing her own teaching style which combines functional movement and mobility with more traditional yoga forms (including elements of dynamic and restorative), to progressively build on the level the student/client is at. She focuses on building strength and flexibility at end range, and developing a sense of self attunement, in order to move and feel better in your body and daily life.
Sarai has taught a culturally diverse range of people from various socio-economic backgrounds, including adults, children, the elderly and those with special needs, with many different somatic and psychological presentations. Her interest lies in facilitating a space where the student/client is invited to become curious, so that the option may arise to live a more creative and fulfilling life.
