Content Summary:

Chronic pain is a leading cause of disability worldwide and affects approximately one in five people, with exceptionally high prevalence among older adults. This 30-hour training module presents chronic pain as a complex biopsychosociocultural experience that shapes and is shaped by the body, vitality, emotions, and mind, rather than as a purely tissue-based problem. The module integrates contemporary pain science with yogic philosophy and practice to help participants understand how pain becomes a nervous system-mediated, neuroplastic phenomenon and why this creates meaningful opportunities for therapeutic change. Through the lens of Integrated Holistic Yoga (IHY), students are introduced to key pain theories, including Gate Control Theory and a neuroplastic, brain-based pain model, and learn to apply these concepts in person-centered assessment, treatment planning, and yoga-based intervention designed within their scope of practice. Core practices include Natural Posture as a foundational asana for pain prevention, restorative and somatic-focused asanas, breathwork (pranayama), mindfulness (dharana), and meditation (dhyana), all aimed at reducing suffering, restoring function, and supporting a more empowered relationship with the body.

This advanced training is grounded in a holistic and integrated model for understanding, practicing, teaching, and applying therapeutic yoga within a clearly defined, collaborative, person-centered framework. It emphasizes empowerment, self-agency, and self-efficacy, supporting the adoption of therapeutic yoga interventions that strengthen resilience, hope, and healing. The training invites yoga teachers, therapists, and healthcare professionals to consider each student, patient, or client as an individual and to adapt therapeutic yoga practices to their specific needs. This comprehensive view of yoga upholds diversity, equity, inclusion, access, community, health, and well-being, and is rooted in interdependence and co-regulation in service of the greater good.

Target Audience:

This 4-day online (synchronous) module offers an in-depth exploration of advanced strategies in the lineage of integrated holistic yoga to work with chronic pain. This training offers therapeutic yoga principles and strategies for healthcare settings. It provides 30 hours of didactics, discussions, practice teaching, and personal exploration. This advanced-level course is for trainees in the YogaX 800-hour Yoga Therapy Program, 300-hour Yoga Therapeutics Program, and YTT300 Therapeutic Yoga Program, emphasizing focus on:

·      Health, mental, and other allied healthcare providers interested in bringing therapeutic yoga principles and strategies into their clinical practice and emotional and mental self-care.

·      Health, mental health, and allied health-program students in graduate or medical programs interested in bringing therapeutic yoga principles and strategies into their supervised clinical practice and emotional and mental self-care.

·      Yoga providers interested in enhancing their emotional self-care and in offering therapeutic yoga classes with sensitivity to mental health concerns, especially, but not only, in mental healthcare settings.

·      Yoga therapists interested in enhancing their emotional self-care and providing therapeutic yoga interventions with concern for mental health, especially, but not only, in mental healthcare settings.