Can Anyone Call Themselves a “Trauma-Informed” Yoga Teacher?
This article originally appeared on Yoga Journal
As the subject of trauma becomes more and more established in our culture and our conversations, an increasing number of yoga teachers have begun to describe their classes as "trauma-aware" or "trauma-sensitive” and to refer to themselves as a “trauma-informed” yoga teacher.
The physical practice of yoga--including its emphasis on breath awareness, mindful movement, and meditation--has long been known to benefit those working to recover from trauma. Yet not every yoga class is trauma-informed. So what exactly is the distinction between a standard class and one that comes with a special designation? And which teachers are allowed to call themselves "trauma-informed"?
What We Know About Trauma and Yoga
Anyone who walks into a yoga class has some form of trauma, explains Nityda Gessel, a licensed social worker, psychotherapist, trauma-conscious yoga educator, and founder of The Trauma Conscious Yoga Institute.
"Trauma isn’t just big, catastrophic events," explains Gessel. "It’s also microaggressions, systemic oppression, emotional neglect." Whether the trauma is lived, intergenerational, or collective, Gessel says, "it’s not just what happens, but it’s also what doesn’t happen--the basic human needs that go unmet."
The emotional and physical imprints of trauma vary from person to person. Trauma's aftermath can manifest in the body through many ways, including exhaustion, stress, anxiety, emotional numbness, and the tendency for an individual's actions and attitudes to become "hijacked by our nervous systems," says Gessel. Another common consequence is detachment from the body, which can feel unsafe or overwhelming as it relates to trauma. Detachment can look like feeling out of touch with yourself or with reality.
Yoga has been shown to help reestablish the mind-body connection in many who suffer from the effects of trauma, according to scientific research, including that of psychiatrist and trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk. In his groundbreaking book, The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk explains what he learned from 30 years of research in neuroscience and clinical therapy with trauma survivors. He specifically names yoga as one vehicle for helping with recovery from trauma based on its ability to help a person emotionally self-regulate, become present with physical sensations, and cultivate a sense of safety in the body.
In the decade since the publication of van der Kolk's findings, dozens of studies have explored the effect of breathwork, physical movement, and meditation on recovery from trauma. The results largely support his observations. A study conducted by the National Institutes of Health found that veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experienced reduced symptoms and increased cognitive functioning and life satisfaction following a 10-week yoga protocol. Other studies support the inclusion of yoga in rehabilitation programs for treatment-resistant women suffering from PTSD.
Although yoga itself is not considered a healing modality that can override the ravaging effects of trauma, it can be harnessed as a complement to other therapeutic interventions.
Who Can Call Themselves a "Trauma-Informed" Yoga Teacher?
Gessel explains that a teachers who refers to themselves as a "trauma-informed" should have taken trauma-related training in addition to the minimum 200 hours of basic yoga teacher training. But because there is no universal regulation of the term, anyone can label their classes or themselves as "trauma-informed."
Teachers who use that designation with themselves or their classes could have graduated from a months-long certificate program led by social workers, attended a three-hour workshop, or spent 90 seconds reading an article online about trauma-informed yoga. Although any knowledge of trauma-informed teaching is beneficial for all teachers, there is a difference between drawing on techniques that can support certain populations in everyday teaching and promoting a class as “yoga for veterans” or “trauma-informed yoga."
Yoga that's not adapted to meet the needs of people with trauma, even when shared by the most well-intentioned yoga teacher, can do more harm than good, explains Gessel. The movement of the body and the focus on the self can create situations that activate common trauma responses, including dissociation, hyperarousal, hypervigilance, and flashbacks, she says. "Especially for those with acute trauma...people are in a very vulnerable state." A trauma-informed teacher needs to understand how to recognize this and be able to help the student recover a sense of safety.
What’s the Difference Between a Yoga Teacher and a Yoga Therapist?
It's important to distinguish between a trauma-informed yoga teacher and a yoga therapist. A trauma-informed yoga teacher may have taken any form of training and might lead classes at a yoga studio, addiction recovery center, prison, veterans organization, or other group that supports those in need.
A yoga therapist tends to have studied in a months-long certification program and often works one-on-one with clients where the teacher can apply yoga techniques to address specific physical or mental health conditions. "This could include yoga poses, breathwork, or meditation," explains Anna Passalacqua, yoga therapist and co-founder of Breathing Deeply, a yoga therapy school. A yoga therapist may work in various settings, including wellness centers or hospitals.
However, neither of these roles should take the place of therapists or clinical psychologists who work with clients through talk therapy in a counseling setting. "A yoga teacher's skill set is different than a therapist's. It is not a substitute," says Passalacqua.
What It Means to Be a Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher
Yoga teachers interested in helping students with trauma can seek out a curriculum that explains the complicated neuroscience of trauma, the subtle and overt ways that trauma reveals itself in the body, and what helps the nervous system recover. Trauma-informed programs help teachers learn how to create a safe environment that supports survivors as they seek to resolve their trauma, which includes not being re-traumatized.
More comprehensive trainings educate teachers on how to tailor a class to provide person-centered support. With any kind of trauma recovery, it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. Trauma-informed teachers bring an awareness of potential triggers into how they handle every aspect of class, and in ways that are nuanced yet pivotal. This means that the emphasis is on teaching people, not poses.
Trauma-informed yoga teachers are attuned to the fact that students may have experienced situations in which bodily autonomy, or the right to decide what happens to their body, has been taken away from them. This awareness reveals itself in subtle ways, such as allowing students to place the mat wherever they like rather than forcing everyone to form a circle and face each another to ensure students maintain autonomy and privacy. Teachers also make sure there is visible access to the door.
A trauma-informed yoga teacher will either exclude certain poses or adapt them. For example, a hip opener for someone with a history of sexual abuse might feel overwhelming. Similarly, some teachers refrain from offering hands-on adjustments to students, while others make sure there is consent from the student.
A teacher who is not trauma-informed may give more authoritative commands, such as telling students to hold a pose for a certain number of breaths or suggesting that they endure intense emotions that arise or insisting that they close their eyes during Savasana, the final resting pose in a yoga class. "Someone who’s trauma-conscious is going to be using a lot of invitational language...creating safety, giving people lots of choice, options, and opportunity to explore different movements, breath practices," says Gessel. "In a trauma-informed yoga class, everything is an offering, rather than demanded, so that people really have authority over their own bodies."
For example, trauma-informed yoga teachers might suggest: "Close your eyes here if that feels comfortable to you," or, "Try finding a soft downward gaze."
"Teachers also need to think about where they position themselves and how they walk among their students," Passalacqua says. She explains that one approach taken by trauma-informed teachers is staying in a student's field of vision instead of potentially startling them by walking up behind them during class.
Joy Lawwill, a recent graduate from the Three and a Half Acres Yoga trauma-informed training, says the experience changed the way she teaches, though she doesn't advertise her classes as trauma-informed. Lawwill explains that she now demonstrates multiple options when introducing a pose in order to make it accessible. And she no longer corrects students' poses.
Lawwill teaches virtually and says that many students keep their cameras off during class--a decision that she welcomes. Yoga isn't about pleasing a teacher with your alignment, she says. She pays more attention to the pattern of her voice and ensures that it is steady and calm. She says that during her trauma-informed training, she also learned tools to approach students who may be experiencing a trigger.
Gessel believes that the more a trauma-informed yoga teacher engages in self-examination, the better able they are to help others. "They need to have the ability to regulate their own nervous system effectively, and therefore be able to co-regulate other nervous systems in the room," she says. This is essential when working with sensitive populations where individuals may experience dysregulation much of the time, such as in a prison or at a recovery center.
Still, there are no requirements for promoting oneself as a trauma-informed yoga teacher. "My biggest concern about someone saying they are trauma-informed without proper training is that they will do harm to their students," says Passalacqua. "Someone who has experienced trauma deserves to have a safe environment, especially when it is being marketed that way."
What to Look for in a Trauma-Informed Yoga Class
There's no obvious way to distinguish if someone is adequately equipped to work with individuals suffering from trauma and there isn't a regulating body that designates a teacher, training, or class as "trauma-informed."
Passalacqua suggests students can read a teacher's bio before class and research the trauma training program they attended. However, attending a trauma-informed training doesn't guarantee an ability to translate that to a class setting. Conversely, there are yoga teachers who may not have taken a training but have found reliable resources and become truly well-informed and capable of helping others. Passalacqua explains that it can be helpful to talk to the teacher beforehand to inquire about their experience teaching trauma-informed yoga. A teacher who shows up to this conversation empathetically can help you ascertain whether they might be a fit, she says.
Ultimately, what's most important is how comfortable a student feels in a teacher's class and whether the style of the teacher resonates with them, regardless of the teacher's training, explains Gessel. That does require a bit of trial and error, which can be scary.
An understanding of trauma's overt and subtle effects on the physiology and psychology of students and the ability to support them in nuanced ways is the essence of trauma-informed yoga. It's a sensitive undertaking. Although anyone can call themselves a trauma-informed teacher, not everyone is one.
About Our Contributor
Xenia Ellenbogen (she/they) is a writer who focuses on health, reproductive rights, mental health, and wellness. She has a BA in writing from The New School.
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