In this episode, we discuss the integration of yoga into mental health sessions. I will go over three key strategies for incorporating yoga practices, including grounding, breathwork, and asana, in a trauma-informed and ethical manner. This episode features detailed case studies and snapshots that illustrate transformational results in therapy, addressing anxiety, chronic worry, developmental trauma, and anger. I will also share practical tips on planning yoga practices, using organic approaches, and inviting clients to direct their own movements, empowering therapists to bring yoga into their practice safely and effectively.
“ It can be intimidating to move from traditional talk therapy to a more somatic body-based approach with trauma-informed yoga or somatic practices. It’s just out of most of our comfort zone until we get used to doing it and learn more about it. ”
- Basics of Integrating Yoga into Therapy
- Case Studies: Real-Life Applications
Connect With Me
Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58
Facebook: Yoga In The Therapy Podcast
Join the private Facebook Group: Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room
TikTok: @YogaChris58
Rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify
How To Build Competence and Confidence in Integrating Yoga Into the Therapy Room
Claim your 30-Day Aura Guest Pass from Chris McDonald
Transcript
Chris McDonald: Are you ready to see what bringing yoga into sessions can look and sound like? Today you get to peek behind the curtain and explore real life case studies that illustrate the magic of integrating yoga into mental health work. I'll teach you three key ways to start bringing yoga into your therapy room.
I'll walk you through case studies so you can witness what a session with yoga integration can look like When you include grounding, breathwork, and asana into a traditional talk therapy session from start to finish, you'll hear how these practices are adapted to meet each client's unique needs while maintaining a trauma informed and ethical approach.
I also guide you through some hands on yoga practices that I use with clients. Discover how you can use yoga to help clients regulate their nervous systems, process emotions, and connect with their inner strength. On today's episode. of Yoga in the Therapy Room podcast. Stay tuned. Welcome to Yoga in the Therapy Room, the non traditional therapist's guide to integrating yoga into your therapy practice.
I'm Chris McDonald, licensed therapist and registered yoga teacher. This podcast is here to empower therapists like you with the knowledge and confidence to bring yoga into their practice safely and ethically. So whether you're here to expand your skills, enhance your self care or both, you're welcome.
Are in the right place. Join me on this journey to help you be one step closer to bringing yoga into your therapy room.
Welcome to the Yoga in the Therapy Room podcast, the non-traditional therapist guide to integrating yoga into your therapy practice. I'm Chris McDonald, your host, a licensed therapist, Andy Yoga teacher. Today is my return back from the holidays and it's hard. I know a lot of you can relate when you take some time off and come back to work.
Sometimes you get that Sunday scaries where you have some anxiety and mind racing before coming back to work. And I know it was hard for me to get to sleep last night, but I did some of my yoga practices, did some breath work last night, and then did some asana practice and a walk this morning. So that helped to settle me.
But overall I must say that I'm well rested, rejuvenated, and excited to start the year with you with this podcast. Today is a solo episode. No guests today because I wanted to deliver some of my expertise from many years of integrating yoga into clinical sessions. Now over the years, one of the biggest requests I get from listeners is the how and when do you integrate yoga into therapy sessions?
This is not something taught in graduate school. In many yoga trainings, especially studio trainings or those taught by non therapists, they don't have the expertise to address this, which is one reason why I created my yoga basics course for therapists where we address this. But I'm going to talk to you some Very basics about this today, and let's face it, overall, it can be intimidating to move from traditional talk therapy to a more somatic body based approach with trauma informed yoga or somatic practices.
It's just out of most of our comfort zone until we get used to doing it and learn more about it. So I thought today I'd unpack some examples of the how and when you can integrate into sessions, just to give you some ideas, maybe some tools to use, With this can come some really transformational results.
Now these are based on true stories with clients I've had, but names and all identifying details have been omitted or changed to protect client confidentiality and privacy. So in this episode, we're exploring some case studies that demonstrate the power of yoga based practices in the therapy room. From grounding techniques for anxious clients, to breathwork for emotional regulation, and of course, yoga asana for trauma healing.
So these stories I hope can give you some inspiration and help you see how yoga can complement and enhance traditional talk therapy. I'm going to start first, before we go to the case studies, just to share a little bit of about ways to bring yoga into the therapy room. And then I'm going to go into a deeper case study, a longer one, and then two shorter ones that are very different.
So I wanted to give you a little bit of flavor because we never know what clients bring and we never know what practices can be helpful at times because clients bring so many different kinds of issues. So the more you can learn different kinds of practices, the more it's going to be beneficial to you.
I know sometimes when I'm in a session, I'll be like, Oh, that aligns perfectly with this breathwork practice. Or, Ooh, that aligns with that short yoga flow that I learned. So that's the cool part. Once you get more experience and practice that you'll have those. Aha moments too, where wow, this would really line up.
This would be an alignment. So there's several ways to bring yoga in the therapy room. One of them is to have something planned. Now what I do each week is have a general plan for all my clients. That means not specific, individualized. Totally. So for example this week, I'm going to offer some laterals, which are side stretches for clients as an option.
Does that mean I do it with every single client? No, but if there is nothing coming up of specific problem with a client that I can think of a yoga practice, then I might offer that as a suggestion. How would that feel for you? If I, we bring that into therapy today, or if I have a client's asking for a yoga practice, but there's nothing specific that they wanted to use as far as asana, because a lot of my clients have done it before.
Then I have a baseline of something I can use. And of course, most of these practices are going to be helpful for clients, regardless of their issues. So we don't always have to individualize, which can be really difficult, especially when you're just starting out. So each week I have a breathwork practice, an asana practice, either a short flow or maybe just one or two poses.
And then a meditation because I integrate all those. And if you don't, that's totally fine. Just see what works for you. Even if it's just starting with one breathwork practice, try it with all your clients. That's how you build confidence. That's how you build confidence, which I also put that in my checklist, which is free, which you will get more information about that in the ad in today's episode.
But just know that that the more we do these, the better the results, the more confident you'll feel. The more practice you can have, the better. So the first one, like I said, is the planned approach. And this works well if you're a more structured clinician, if you like to have things in order, or if you might be in a session and your mind just goes blank as far as, shoot, I know Chris talked about this yoga practice.
I can't remember what it was. Write it down. So I have little notepads in front of me with some of these practices and For those who, I don't know if you can see this, but that it has by breath, by movement practice, and a meditation that I plan for each week. So that helps me to kind of stay in alignment and remember these practices.
I've already embodied these practices and know the cues really well and plan to use them this week. As part of my planned approach for some clients, again, it's not all, which leads me to the second way to bring you in the therapy room is more of an organic approach. So it's similar to what we do with talk therapy.
So let's say you have a client who doesn't talk much and only offers they talk about maybe a party they went to on Saturday and it was fun and that's all they give you. So maybe you got to use that. So we got to use what the client brings and explore that a little more with open questions, clarifying questions, go back to your basic clinical skills.
We can do that with yoga, and I'm going to show you and demonstrate through these case studies, two of them, that of how you can use more of an organic approach. And the third way, again, these are not the only ways, but the third way I'm going to share is yoga. ask the client how do they want to move. This can be more challenging, especially if you're not used to somatic or body based approaches.
This might be a higher level skill, so if you feel uncomfortable with that, that might be later once you get more used to bringing somatic practices and embodying practices into sessions. But it can be very interesting to see what comes up with that, and if this is how you flow, As a clinician, you're more, go with the flow, see how it goes, what comes up, you don't need to plan things, and this might really resonate with you.
And then once they, let's just say for a minute they do a forward fold, you can ask them again, now how does your body want to move? And just keep going with that a few times and do it with them. This is the other piece of yoga in the therapy room. It's important that you do it with them unless you have a physical issue that you cannot do that.
And what I do, I'll say, Oh, that hurts my back to do that full today, but I'm going to stay here in seated pose while you do that pose. And I'll join you in the next asana. Because we can queue it if you have physical issues or disability. Now, is it ideal? No, but we are human. We have our own issues. So we do have to account for things that we cannot do as well.
So don't feel like you have to do all of these. And the other option is to only present. Some plan practices that you can do so you can kind of cheat your way around a little bit. But again, if you're using the, how does the client want to move question, then of course, you might just say, I can't do that practice, but I will do something else.
Or you can just offer yourself a variation. I'm going to do it this way a little bit different than you just to honor my body. And by doing that, you are modeling self care, taking care of you. And letting the client know it's okay to do something different than someone else, especially in session is kind of building that trust as well so that maybe if you offer for them to do something like a side stretch and they're like, Ooh, this hurts, but I'm going to do it because she's a therapist and I should follow what she says.
That it encourages them to say, Ooh, wait a minute, this is hurting my back and to speak up, especially if you work with clients who are more shy or have difficulty asserting boundaries or speaking their voice. So just know that that's really beneficial to share with them. your own experience if you're having some issues with any practices you bring in the therapy room.
And again, knowing that what I mentioned with either the planned yoga or moving the organic approach or asking how they want to move, they all can be integrated with clinical theory. I'm not going to dive into that. That would be a whole other episode and several episodes because that's a whole course, right?
But I often integrate with Pauli Wegel theory, which I think is relatively easy for me. And once you learn that, it can be easy for you as well, as well as parts work. So once you kind of get the groove with. clinical theory and how you can embody these practices with your clients. It does kind of flow much better.
It's like building those neural networks in your brain, just like with exercise. The more you go to the gym and lift weights, the stronger you get. The same for you. The same learning curve. Once you do this over and over, you are building strength, you are building confidence, and you can really feel it more in your body.
And just be confident and brave just to step into this realm. That's the other piece of this is finding the courage within to do these practices. This is not traditional psychotherapy, and that's okay. It's okay to honor the fear within of stepping into something in the unknown, but just try it. Just take, give yourself the option of trying.
And just know that you may fumble, you may fall, but that's okay. You can recover and try something else. Try it a different way. I will be vulnerable for a moment and let you know I've never done an episode like this before, so bear with me as I share some case studies. This was stepping out of my comfort zone.
because usually I'm offering some kind of teaching and just to share case studies. I was like, what is the best way to do this? And it took me some reflection and I finally, I think I found some ways, but I'd love your feedback. You're always welcome to reach out to me and let me know how you like this episode at Chris at Yoga in the Therapy Room.
Because I would love to hear more from you. Are you a mental health therapist interested in bringing yoga into your therapy room, but feel uncertain where to start? Maybe you're worried about staying ethical or want to feel more confident in what you're offering. I've got just the thing for you. I'm excited to share my free resource, how to build confidence and competence with yoga and therapy sessions.
This downloadable checklist includes best practices for integrating yoga, plus reflection questions to help you refine your approach and feel empowered. It's the perfect tool for anyone wanting to blend yoga into therapy in a safe and impactful way. Step into the therapy room with confidence and transform your sessions today.
Go to hcpodcast. org forward slash build confidence. That's hcpodcast. org forward slash build confidence. Let's go into the longer case study and then we'll go to the shorter one because this one may take a little bit. And like I mentioned before, this is based on Real case studies, but I did change all names and identifying information to protect privacy and confidentiality.
So the first one I'm going to share is Sarah, a 40 year old teacher. She has chronic worry about her performance at work, worries about finances. In her future relationships, she tends to overthink a lot. She struggles to relax, coupled with physical symptoms like muscle tension in her back, shallow breathing, and difficulty sleeping.
She has panic attacks where she would shake uncontrollably, have trouble concentrating, have a racing heart, and her breathing became really shallow. These would last up to 10 minutes. And what I'm going to mention is based on the seventh session with her, so I had seen her for a little bit. of time. And we have done some yoga practices already.
I think that's important to mention. So the goal for her was, of course, to reduce the physical symptoms of anxiety and help her develop the tools for managing overactive thoughts, overthinking, and to be able to stay more within her comfort zone. window of tolerance. And I began the session with a trauma informed check in, creating that safe and supportive environment for her.
Often what I do with clients with anxiety is use some brief solutions with asking them to rate their anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, and see how she's doing. At this point, she rated hers about a 7 for her level of distress and body tension. And she was sharing a lot of struggles at work, so we didn't start the session with yoga, so we did a little bit of checking in verbally to see how she's doing, what's going on with her, what has been difficult for her.
I move into sharing with her, I'm wondering if a grounding practice and breath work would be helpful for you right now. So she did agree to this, so I introduced a seated body scan and mindfulness practice and invite her to guide to notice sensations of her feet on the floor, feeling the chair beneath her.
Noticing where her hands meet her lap, feeling her chair holding her up, hands resting on her thighs, noticing sensations in the hands, and moving up to her upper body, noticing her spine as it reaches up towards the ceiling, noticing her shoulders. arms, and her hands again, and bringing awareness to the neck, head, and face.
And this really helped her to reconnect with her body in a non threatening and more safe way. And she did say it still helped to bring her anxiety down a little bit, but again, this was just the very beginning after we did a little bit of talking. Sometimes breathwork practices for those with trauma can be triggering.
Now it depends on the client and their level of anxiety. So one breathwork practice I like to teach is to have a longer exhale than an inhale. And one way to do that is to inhale for a count of four, hold for two, check in with how the hold for two feels, and exhale for a count of six. And this helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system, brings that sense of calm in the body.
helping to regulate more. Throughout this breathing practice, I encourage her to move at her own pace and only do what feels right for her body in this moment. I also let her know to keep it trauma informed that she can stop at any time and we'd be doing this entire practice of grounding, breath work, and some gentle yoga for about, you know, a week or so.
20 minutes, so letting them know the time involved. And as she did her breathwork, I asked her to focus on how the breath felt in her body, maybe scanning, noticing any tension in her chest, shoulders, or in her belly. And as she mentioned that she felt tightness in her chest, I invited her to place her hand on her chest and acknowledge there with compassion, just being present with what is for the moment, slowing down for a moment, bringing that mindful awareness of the emotion and sensation.
And then we moved on to, I offered some yoga movements for her. And of course, with trauma informed language with yoga in sessions, we emphasize choice, empowerment, and not judgment. She's again reminded she can modify or opt out at any time. I walk her through a chest stretch where she brings both hands to the chest.
Inhale brings arms out to the side, and then exhale bringing hands back to chest, and we go through that several times. And again, I bring up notice sensations, where you feel this movement in your body while we're doing it. And then after the practice, we just pause, slow things down a bit, reflect what went well with that practice.
Is there any other emotion coming up? Checking in with her chest, any tension still there? And then I bring in that other way to bring yoga in the therapy room by asking, is there any other movement that you would like to do? She mentioned child's pose. We had done child's pose in the last session. So I walk her through child's pose in my office.
We have a mat. Put a mat down for her, and she reminds me how calming and protective it felt for her. And I let her know she can widen her knees for more comfort, coming out of the pose if she feels overwhelmed at any point. And I use cues such as stay as long as it feels supportive. Notice how your body feels here.
Notice your belly on your thighs. Notice the ground holding you up. And you can also bring your hands, instead of out front, towards your feet, if that feels better for you. And I found a lot of times it's almost like becoming a turtle. I've done that with children, where you become a turtle. And, Just kind of thinking into yourself of protection, safety, and just staying there and breathing.
And you can encourage clients in child's pose just to notice breath, take that time to notice. And throughout this, of course, I'm giving her the assurance that she's in control of her movements using the invitational language combined with mindfulness so that this can be a safe and empowering experience for her.
And after we come out of child's pose, we pause, take a moment, allow her to come back to her seat, and just do a brief body scan on her own, so I'm not going to walk her through this time. She's done these many times with me before. And just notice where she still feels tension. Where does she feel safety in her body or strength?
She noticed she felt more grounded and calm overall. She acknowledged there was still some tension in her chest, but it was less. I asked how the practice was overall for her, reinforcing there's no right or wrong answers. And she said she really shared that she loved the gentle movement and felt more relief.
And I ended the session with encouraging her to, to bring these practices for homework, to pick one, or if she wants to try all of them, that's always an option. So she can choose what feels right for her. Before we ended though, we did do a little more checking in on the issue that she started with, went a little deeper on that, and then we concluded for the session.
And just to give you an update, so after eight months, her anxiety was much more in control. She was able to practice more regularly at home, and her panic attacks were much less frequent. They did start out about three to four a week. And then she was able to have like, I think it was down to like one every couple of weeks.
There was tremendous gains with that. So that was the longer case study. And I thought that would be helpful to go a little deeper with how that could look in a session. So there's lots of ways to bring it in a session. So you can do it just at the beginning, maybe just starting with the grounding. You can do that.
We didn't do that. I mean, that's always an option, or you can do it in the middle. I call it like the sandwich So a little talk therapy to start, check in, invite invitational to whatever yoga practice, and then ending with some of the checking in verbally and talk therapy. Or you can just do it at the end.
A lot of my clients too, like they like to do it more as the ending practice. So I'll be checking the time and I will Make a note for them, especially if there's someone that I know loves to do some of these yoga practices. Hey, I'm noticing the time. How would it feel to do some breathwork practice or movement?
Or you can let them choose if they've done some of these with you before. So the next two case studies, I'm not going to go in as deep of a detail. I'm going to go about a little bit different just to give you a little, these are more snapshots of how to bring yoga into your therapy room. So this client's name is Heather.
She's a 30-year-old female with complex developmental trauma. She struggles to set boundaries with people in her life and ends up exhausted for all the giving that she does for others and not herself. She's often a people pleaser, and this was one thing that helped keep her safe, though as a child.
She's always afraid to sit with her feelings. and pushes them away when they do come up and struggles to take the time to be with those emotions. He's always afraid they will overwhelm her. And I've only seen her for three sessions for what I'm about to share this snapshot. So in this session, she kept wringing her hands.
This was in person and she really was struggling to connect with what she was feeling. I did reflect that I noticed her hands that seemed like there was a lot of tension there. Something was going on with her hands. And, I invited her to share what was she feeling in her hands right now. She said there was just so much energy.
She didn't know what to do with it. And I mentioned sometimes anxiety can create some restlessness or sensations in the hands or other parts of the body, but also let her know that sometimes even shaking out the hands and doing some wrist rotations can help relieve some of that extra energy. And how does that sound for you?
So that was the way that I invited her for this. So she did agree. So together, We shook out our hands like this, just shaking them out. You can try it with me. Listener, let's go ahead and shake them out and shake them up and down side to side. And this is what we did in session. Just overhead a little bit.
You get creative. If you're standing, you can also bring the feet into it. Turn around in a circle. Do whatever feels right. And then let them rest and check in. Tune in, notice what's coming up after that movement. And then I guided her through some wrist rotations for the sake of time. We'll do both at the same time.
So if you want to bring your awareness to your wrists, so see if you can do some gentle circles with your wrists, both at the same time. Think about nice, slow, it doesn't matter which way you go with your circles. Bringing ease into this mindful movement. And if you want to do bigger circles or even just try smaller ones, see how that feels.
And then go the opposite direction. Notice how one feels compared to the other. I noticed my right one has more sensation because I'm right handed and I type, can really feel it today. So just bringing that sense of awareness to the wrists. Good. And then we're going to flex and extend. This is what I told her as well.
So bring the wrist back towards you and then forward. Just do that a few times, seeing how that feels and settles. If you want to go slower or faster, you decide the pace. You can also bring the fingers into this as I offered for her and just shake the fingers, jazz hands, so we can bring that playful energy.
Whoo, we can shake really hard, ending with some shaking of the, just the hands and fingers. And again, we can bring hands out to the side as we do this, bring the arms down, just allow them to rest if you're seated, and then just bringing hands to So I allowed her just to take that mindful pause so that she could tune in more.
And notice how that feels in your wrist, listeners. And that's what I asked her as well. I led her through a breathing practice with her permission to conclude our session. So we just did some extension of the exhale, just like the four, six breath I did with Sarah. By the end, she felt much calmer and continued to do these practices regularly as well as some others.
And since. She has a lot more trauma. It has been a slow and steady progress with some setbacks, but overall, she is making progress, which is amazing. So, she's starting to sit with feelings more and be able to tolerate more. That distress tolerance has increased. As you know, though, it is a process. So that is Heather, again, just a snapshot part of a session.
So the last one I'm going to bring to you today is another snapshot, so it's not too detailed. Jackie is a 45 year old divorced woman who struggles with anger towards her ex husband, who was verbally abusive and recently was still harassing her over some issues with The divorce. She had made a lot of progress in therapy, but in today's session she was really fired up and angry and didn't want her ex husband Frank to take away how far she had come.
She was feeling helpless, hopeless about the future, and she was brought back into her old behavior patterns of comfort eating and not taking care of herself, not showering, really shutting down. And the anger became pretty strong, and she mentioned, how dare he continue to hold me back from who I have become.
This was an in person session, so she had difficulty sitting still as she was so fired up and angry. She exclaimed, I just want to punch him and proceeded to smack her right fist into her left hand, just like that. I reflected, I can see how angry you are. Would you like to stand up? And see if we can work through some of that anger.
She agreed. I modeled for her how she could continue punching the air while making a shhh sound with her breathing. So what we did was just basically some punching back and forth and going shh shh shh shh as we were punching. You can try it, listener. Just punch the air. And of course I did this with her.
And just let her go and notice what came up as she did this. And when she started to slow down and tire, I offered for us to stop and pause in Mountain Pose. I encouraged her to remember a time she felt empowered and how that felt in her body. And allowed her to get into that grounded energy, that grounded space.
Externally rotating hands forward if that felt right. Feeling the feet against the floor. Imagining roots coming from her feet into the earth. Go I then discussed how she could move her body in a way to reflect that empowerment. She stood tall with her hands on her hips and shoulders back. So she was recalling this time that she felt empowered and really put that into her body shape.
I reflected what I saw and did it with her, her movement. I reviewed affirmations that she could use in this shape and encourage her to come up with her own as well. I mentioned that she could say, I'm strong, I'm fierce. I'm empowered. I can trust myself. And she came up with a couple on her own as well.
She checked in much calmer at the end of session and reflected that the anger was much less. She said she felt like something released, which was beautiful to hear and witness. Months later, she left therapy because she was making a lot of progress and she didn't let what happened with her ex to really impact her and hold her back from who she wanted to become.
I wanted to end with that snapshot because I thought it would be empowering and inspiring for you as well as it was for me. Don't you love those sessions when you leave and you're just like, yes, this was awesome, amazing. Great, this worked out so well for this client. It's just such an honor to bear witness to so many client stories and how it can impact their lives in such a positive way.
And just a review for you before we conclude this episode, the three ways to bring Yoga into therapy room. And again, these aren't the only ways, but these are just something to think about. So planned yoga practices. Two is organic approach. Use what the client brings. And three, ask how the client wants to move or how does their body want to move, right?
There's lots of different questions or ways you can ask that question. Well that wraps up this episode. I hope you found it helpful and I appreciate your feedback if you want to reach out to me. And again that's chris at yogaintherapyroom. com or if you want to catch me on Instagram that is in my show notes or on TikTok.
And thank you for joining me today. Have you been interested in integrating yoga into sessions but are unsure how? How would you like to earn 1CE credit as well? In my recorded one hour course, you will learn the powerful benefits of using basic mindful yoga, breathwork, and meditation with clients to help reduce anxiety and depression.
You will learn the differences between slow mindful yoga and fit yoga. As well as some basic strategies for getting started, including room set up, how to keep it trauma informed, and even a script included for teaching some poses. Also there will be some ideas on how to use it in session. Go to hcpodcast.
org forward slash startup yoga. That's hcpodcast. org forward slash startup yoga today for more information. And once again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you a warm welcome. Much light and love till next time. Take care. Thanks for listening to today's episode. The information in this podcast is for general informational and educational purposes only.
It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are giving legal, medical, psychological, or any other kind of professional advice, we are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. Yoga is not recommended for everyone and it's not safe under certain medical conditions.
Always check with your doctor to see if it's safe for you. If you need a professional, please find the right one for you. The Yoga in the Therapy Room podcast is proudly part of the Psychcraft Network.