CPD03 Trauma Informed Yoga Teacher Training: Compassion based Yoga Therapy (May 17-20, 2024)

Trauma is a prevalent sociological health ailment.  Adverse child experiences, inept assistance, or compassionate connection in the face of suffering, as well as levels of disconnect that impact inability to feel safe, significant, or to make sense and meaning in life have impacted our society in ways that are quite often too vast to fully fathom.  Clients come seeking wellbeing through various primary or secondary treatment methodologies that include (albeit not limited to) therapy, yoga, or meditation.

Any experience of fear and/or pain that doesn’t have the support it needs to be digested and integrated into the flow of our developing brains.

This definition encourages us to look into the neural and interpersonal aspects of experience for an understanding of how we become traumatized rather than toward the nature of the experience itself or a list of symptoms. We might consider the embedding of trauma to be a rupture in the inherent process integration of our ongoing experience, with healing arising through the initiation of and experience of repair so that the journey toward integration can follow its natural course. Badenoch, 2017, pp.40-41

In terms of yoga’s personal contribution to the mental wellness of people who suffer from trauma and other psychological conditions, yoga therapy is now known to be one of the best therapies available.

The Boston Trauma Center director, Bessel van der Kolk states:
‘We had better results with yoga in people with chronic PTSD than any medication that I or anybody else had ever studied,’ he says. ‘That, of course, is pretty interesting and exciting, and not so good news for psychiatry, because psychiatrists are unlikely to transform themselves into yoga instructors. But is yoga helpful? Absolutely.’

Trauma is a prevalent sociological health ailment. Adverse child experiences, inept assistance, or compassionate connection in the face of suffering and levels of disconnect that impact the inability to feel safe, significant, or to make sense and meaning in life have affected our society in ways that are quite often too vast to fully fathom. Clients seek well-being through various primary or secondary treatment methodologies that include (albeit not limited to) therapy, yoga, or meditation.

It is our role as both yoga and meditation teachers to always ensure the safety of our clients while promoting increasing levels of wellbeing. This stems from understanding ailments and suffering from a multiplicity of perspectives in many ways. This includes the neurobiology of trauma, interpersonal relationships, the role of the practitioner, and various practices of meditation.

Moreover, in learning to become more trauma-informed in your teaching, you will be focusing not only on the emotional and physical state of your student but helping them on a path towards regaining their sense of control and ownership over their own body and their own experience.

It is now a known scientific fact that trauma is stored in our bodies. According to the ancient yoga sutras, our face, body, and posture hold the history of our lifetime and the generations that precede us. Metaphysically and scientifically proven, our past is stored in our cells, genes, and DNA. Trauma affects our cells and changes our body, our gut, our brain wave patterning, our nervous system, and our brains.

In this course, we will use traditional yoga therapy techniques to explore how grief, shock and trauma can affect the nervous system, mind, muscles, organs, and fascia. Furthermore, we will bring presence to body and breath, bringing the freedom of movement and mind into the present. Breathing together, moving together, and making eye contact with trusted others help us dissolve the past in our bodies, even our genes.

This intensive is intended to support yoga and meditation teachers or therapists to make their classes more trauma-informed. Please note that this course is not a qualification or certification to provide trauma therapy or trauma treatment. Moreover, its practices and theories discussed and taught are not intended as interventions for those who have experienced trauma.

What You Will Learn

• Understanding the philosophy behind practice including the historical roots of the meaning of suffering within the yoga tradition in combination with the ethics of teaching trauma informed practice.
• Understanding the physiology behind practice including concepts such as heart rate variability, plus the latest neurophysiological research based theoretical models of trauma for personalised yoga.
• Understanding the psychology behind practice including how to build safe and trusted relationships before taking someone to the state of yoga in combination with how to apply research within the classroom.
• Understanding from a complete immersive experience the foundations, applications, and teaching methodologies of trauma informed practice with awareness and mindfulness.

BIYOME’s Specialty Intensive Teacher Training can be undertaken as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) with Yoga Australia and/or the Meditation Association of Australia, as well as obtaining Continuing Education (CE) recognition with Yoga Alliance. The course contact hours, and non-contact hours (CPDs and CEs), allocated across Meditation Australia and the two registering yoga bodies do, however, differ. Please contact us for more information. 

Should you wish to complete a full meditation certification (110 hours – 1000 hours) or yoga certification (150 hours – 650 hours), please view this Specialty Intensive Training as an elective within our full course offerings.  Details are available here.

About the teachers

CELIA ROBERTS BSc

Head Senior Yoga & Meditation Teacher

Yoga Therapist & Ayurvedic Practitioner

Director of BIYOME

EDWINA KEMPE

Licenced TCTSY Specialist

Social Worker

SAMANTHA LINDSAY-GERMAN

Kundalini Yoga

LEANNE DAVIS 

Yoga Australia Past President 

Viniyoga Yoga Therapist & Senior Yoga Teacher