What Is Therapeutic Yoga? Exploring the Connection Between Body, Mind and Healing
- Eddie Eccker, MS, LMFT
- Aug 11
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 14
You already know what stress feels like in your body. Shoulders that will not drop. Breath that stays high in your chest. An evening where you cannot settle even though nothing is actually wrong.
Therapy is mostly a conversation, and conversation does real work. Some of what you carry never quite makes it into words, though. It shows up instead as tension, restlessness, fatigue, a posture you did not choose, or a sense of being slightly disconnected from yourself.
Therapeutic yoga is one way to work with that. It has little to do with athletic performance, flexibility, or getting a pose right. It uses movement, breath, awareness and choice to sit alongside the work you are already doing in therapy.
This September, Voyages Counseling is offering Embodied Belonging, a four-week therapeutic yoga series for our clients. Details are further down, and the short version is Wednesday evenings starting September 9, with a September 2 registration deadline.
What therapeutic yoga is
Therapeutic yoga adapts elements of yoga for a specific purpose and a specific group of people. A session might include gentle movement, body awareness, breathing practices, some education about what is happening physiologically, time to reflect, and space to notice how different experiences land in your body.
It is not psychotherapy delivered through yoga. It is also not an exercise class. It sits in between, as a place to explore mind-body awareness while your individual therapy continues on its own track.
Nobody is grading your form. The point is to observe what you notice and make choices based on your own needs, limits and comfort.
How trauma-informed yoga is different
A conventional yoga class often runs on direct instruction, hands-on adjustments, and the assumption that everyone moves through the same sequence together. A trauma-informed approach pays attention to how language, environment, choice and power dynamics affect the people in the room.
Trauma-informed practice generally emphasizes trust, collaboration, empowerment, voice and choice. Those principles shape how practices get introduced and how you are invited to respond. You can read SAMHSA's guidance on trauma-informed care for the fuller framework.
In practice, in a trauma-informed setting:
Movements are offered as invitations rather than instructions.
You control your level of involvement.
Multiple options and modifications are available for everything.
You can pause, change a movement, or simply watch.
Physical assistance is never assumed.
The emphasis stays on what you notice internally rather than how anything looks.
You are never expected to disclose anything personal.
Resting and not participating are treated as real choices, not failures.
Trauma-informed does not guarantee that you will feel calm, comfortable or safe. Bodies, rooms and practices affect people differently, and pretending otherwise would be its own kind of dishonesty. What the approach can do is create conditions that support choice, predictability and respect.
Why bring the body into therapeutic work
Stress responses are physical as well as emotional. You can know with complete intellectual clarity that something is over and still find your body braced for it. Tension, vigilance, shallow breathing, numbness, the urge to leave the room.
Therapeutic yoga makes structured room to notice those things without demanding that they change. You might find yourself working with questions like:
What tells me I am starting to get overwhelmed?
How do I recognize comfort, and how do I recognize discomfort?
What happens if I slow this movement down?
How does it feel to make a different choice than I usually would?
What helps me stay present?
When is pausing more useful than pushing through?
Noticing, practiced repeatedly, tends to get more specific over time. People often leave with a shortlist of movements, breathing patterns or sensory practices that genuinely help them, which is more useful than a general instruction to relax.
What the research actually says
Research suggests yoga may support general wellness, stress management and some aspects of mental and emotional health. Findings vary considerably depending on the population studied, the type of yoga, and the quality of the research. Evidence for yoga as a treatment for conditions like anxiety disorders or PTSD is limited, and we are not going to overstate it. See the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health for a fuller summary.
The Department of Veterans Affairs describes yoga as a complementary and integrative practice. Its review notes that trauma-sensitive approaches may use invitational language and avoid hands-on adjustments, while emphasizing that the evidence base for yoga as a PTSD treatment remains limited. That review is at the VA National Center for PTSD.
So we offer therapeutic yoga as a complement to appropriate mental health care. It does not replace psychotherapy, medical care or evidence-based trauma treatment, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
Yoga is generally considered safe when practiced appropriately with qualified guidance, though injuries can happen. Please tell us about relevant physical limitations, and check with an appropriate healthcare professional if you have questions about whether a movement practice is right for you. NCCIH also publishes safety guidance.
What Embodied Belonging is
Four weeks, 90 minutes each, built around awareness, choice and connection. Every session combines:
Trauma-informed yoga and mindful movement
Practical nervous-system education
Breath and body-awareness practices
Guided personal reflection
Facilitated group conversation
A closing practice you can take into the week
No previous yoga experience required. You do not need to be flexible, athletic, or familiar with somatic work. Options and modifications are offered throughout.
Participation is invitational the whole way through. Choosing a different movement, taking a break, or sitting and observing are all legitimate ways to be in the room.
Week one: awareness and grounding
An introduction to some foundational nervous-system concepts and to practices for noticing the present moment. The focus is curiosity and observation rather than making your body become calm on command.
Week two: stress, emotions and regulation
How activation, withdrawal, tension and disconnection actually show up in a body. You will start identifying which movement and awareness practices feel supportive to you specifically.
Week three: boundaries, compassion and connection
Noticing your own cues, making deliberate choices, and respecting your limits. This week looks at how boundaries and self-compassion can be practiced physically rather than only discussed.
Week four: integration and resilience
Pulling the previous three weeks together. You will reflect on what you noticed across the series and build your own plan for carrying selected practices into daily life.
Your facilitators
Ashley Zimmerman, MA, LPC, LMHC, RYT-200 is a somatic psychotherapist, registered yoga teacher and professionally trained dancer specializing in trauma recovery and mind-body integration. She brings extensive experience in movement and embodied practice to help participants explore greater awareness, connection and resilience.
Matt Lewandowski, MA, LPC, LMHC is a trauma-informed therapist and yoga teacher dedicated to integrating movement, self-awareness and connection into the therapeutic process. His approach emphasizes compassionate exploration, personal choice, and the relationship between emotional and embodied experience.
Is this for you?
This series tends to suit people who recognize themselves in things like:
You can explain your patterns clearly in session and still feel them running in your body afterward.
You want to understand your own nervous system in practical terms.
You would like to catch a stress response earlier than you currently do.
You are working on boundaries and want to practice them somewhere lower-stakes than the relationship they are actually about.
You want a few concrete tools rather than another concept.
A small, structured group appeals to you more than a large class.
You do not need to feel comfortable in your body to come. You do not need any confidence about yoga. Willingness to explore at your own pace is genuinely the whole prerequisite.
Series details
Dates: Wednesdays, September 9, 16, 23 and 30, 2026
Time: 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.
Location: Voyages Counseling, Centennial. 6909 South Holly Circle, Suite 304, Centennial, CO 80112
Cost: $240 for the complete four-week series
Deposit: $60 to reserve your place
Group size: 10 to 12 participants
Registration deadline: September 2
The series runs with a minimum of 10 paid participants. Your $60 deposit applies to the total. If we cancel because we do not reach minimum enrollment, deposits are refunded in full.
Embodied Belonging is open to Voyages Counseling clients and is designed to supplement ongoing individual therapy.
Frequently asked questions
What is therapeutic yoga?
Therapeutic yoga adapts elements of yoga for a specific therapeutic purpose or population. Sessions typically combine gentle movement, body awareness, breathing practices, education and reflection. It is not psychotherapy delivered through yoga, and it is not an exercise class. It occupies a complementary space where you can explore mind-body awareness while continuing individual therapeutic work.
How is trauma-informed yoga different from a regular yoga class?
A conventional class often relies on direct instruction, hands-on adjustments and a single sequence everyone follows. A trauma-informed approach treats movements as invitations, offers multiple options and modifications, leaves your level of participation entirely up to you, does not assume physical assistance, and treats resting or observing as valid choices. The emphasis is on internal experience rather than how a posture looks.
Do I need yoga experience or to be flexible?
No. Options and modifications are offered throughout every session, and no previous experience with yoga or somatic practice is expected.
Can therapeutic yoga treat anxiety or PTSD?
It should not be presented that way. Research suggests yoga may support general wellness and stress management, but evidence for yoga as a treatment for anxiety disorders or PTSD is limited and varies by population, style and study quality. Both NCCIH and the VA National Center for PTSD describe it as complementary rather than a standalone treatment. Therapeutic yoga complements psychotherapy, medical care and evidence-based trauma treatment rather than replacing any of them.
What if I do not want to be touched or adjusted?
Physical assistance is not assumed at any point. Nobody will adjust you without your explicit agreement, and declining is an ordinary part of how the series runs.
Who can join Embodied Belonging?
The series is available to current Voyages Counseling clients and is intended to supplement ongoing individual therapy. Talk with your Voyages therapist if you are considering it.
Reserve your place
Space is limited to 12 so the group stays small enough to be responsive. Registration closes September 2.
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