Yoga Therapy & Psychotherapy: Connecting Mind, Emotion, and Body
By Julia Lazzarotto & Carina Raisman, Yoga ReSource
The body as a gateway to regulation
Psychotherapy provides a valuable space for understanding, naming, transforming, and integrating internal experiences.
Yoga therapy works directly with the nervous system, breathing, posture, and body patterns, which profoundly influence emotions, cognition, and the ability to relate to others.
Two different but complementary approaches.
Two paths to the same goal:
regulate, understand, adjust, and support humans in all their complexity.
This article explores their similarities, differences, and complementarity in the context of mental health and the therapeutic relationship.
1. Where we are similar
✔ A person-centered approach
Psychotherapists and yoga therapists are interested in:
needs,
internal states,
protection schemes,
resources,
adaptive abilities.
✔ Work on regulation
Both approaches aim to:
reduce hyperactivation,
increase emotional tolerance,
support internal security,
facilitate access to internal resources.
✔ The importance of connection
Whether verbal or nonverbal,
The feeling of relational security is a key element of any therapeutic intervention.
✔ The impact of stress, trauma, and personal history
Both disciplines recognize that:
the body remembers experiences,
emotional patterns influence the body territory,
Mental load affects breathing and muscle tone.
We are both working on the ability to return to oneself.
2. Where we are distinct
A. Intervention mode: top-down vs. bottom-up
Psychotherapy
Top-down intervention:
cognition,
narration,
understanding,
meaning.
Yoga therapy
Bottom-up intervention:
breathing,
posture,
movement,
interoception.
Think, understand, decode / Feel, inhabit, integrate.
B. The language used
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy works:
with words,
emotions,
relational diagrams.
Yoga therapy
Yoga therapy works:
with breathing,
posture,
muscle tension,
presence,
internal signals.
C. The bodily experience
Yoga therapy helps individuals to:
feel one's limitations,
recognize your activation signals,
decode his protective tensions,
return to a state of grounding.
These elements often enrich verbal therapy, but never replace it.
D. Access to the autonomic nervous system
Psychotherapy affects the nervous system through:
the relationship,
the narration,
emotional understanding.
Yoga therapy affects him through:
the movement,
breathing,
vagal modulation,
the release of tension.
Two paths to the same regulation.
3. Where we complement each other
This is where the alliance becomes powerful.
A. Preparing the nervous system for therapy
When the person arrives:
stressed,
activated,
contracted,
dysregulated...
The capacity for reflection and integration is limited.
Yoga therapy offers:
3D breathing,
deceleration movements,
parasympathetic posture,
body anchoring.
A regulated body allows for a more available mind.
B. Integrating awareness into the body
Psychotherapy opens up spaces for understanding.
Yoga therapy helps to:
embody these realizations,
release the associated tensions,
create new driving patterns,
transform automatic reactions.
C. Supporting the relationship with oneself between sessions
With yoga therapy, individuals learn to:
recognize activation signals,
adjust your breathing,
relax your shoulders,
open the rib cage,
reduce internal pressure,
Use simple calming techniques.
Autonomy becomes a therapeutic tool.
D. Addressing trauma with a safe physical approach
Modern yoga therapy follows these principles:
safety,
slowness,
fair effort,
consent,
non-intrusion,
stabilization prior to exploration.
It can support:
emotional tolerance,
the return to the present,
the dwelling place of the body,
vagal modulation.
Gentle and safe somatic work, compatible with trauma-informed approaches.
Two paths, one heart
Psychotherapy and yoga therapy are not parallel disciplines.
They are two complementary ways of exploring the human being:
one through words,
the other through sensations,
both through relationship and presence.
The head understands.
The body integrates.
Together, they enable a more complete, lasting, and embodied healing.