WHAT IS TRAUMA SENSITIVE YOGA?
“What strikes me, and why I gave my book the title ‘The Body Keeps the Score,’ is that if it’s in the body, the treatment should be in the body. Body treatment is somewhere, like, way on the periphery of the world. Instead, we sit in a chair and we talk to people, somehow trying to magically make people safe in their body.
I did the first National Institutes of Health-funded study on Yoga.24, 25 It is more effective for chronic PTSD than any drug with people I’ve ever studied. I didn’t see a single drug-selling firm turn into a Yoga studio after we published this data. But this data was serious. If you learn how to really inhabit your body and learn to feel comfortable moving your body and being in your body, something starts shifting.”
Yoga (body-breath-mind tools) can be so effective at re-connecting us with the experience of safely living in our bodies, without fear of their sensations minute-to-minute, that Dr Bessel van der Kolk, together with Yoga teacher David Emerson, pioneered Trauma Sensitive Yoga as a therapeutic tool at the world-leading Trauma Center in Boston, Massachusetts (now called the Center for Trauma and Embodiment). There are now variations of it being taught around the world.
It was developed with veterans struggling with the symptoms of PTSD and people living with developmental trauma or what is clinically called Complex PTSD (c-PTSD), severe, repetitive trauma that typically happens during childhood / when growing up. Often this is some form of sustained sexual or physical abuse – a child’s basic survival needs not being met by their primary caregivers. A distinguishing feature of trauma is a fundamental separation from one’s authentic self, and the capacity to feel one’s own body - interoception - let alone feel safe within it, thanks to significant nervous system dysregulation. A person’s nervous system considers their own body, and its feelings, a threat.
Thus, helping individuals to regain a sense of agency regarding their body - to re-learn what it is to ‘have a body’ - and self-empowerment in their lives is a key aspect of trauma sensitive body-breath-mind teaching because it is a key aspect of healing. Healing that will endure. For this reason, I weave elements of trauma sensitive Yoga into all my teaching.
TSY involves slowly and carefully moving the body while learning remain present and manage nervous system arousal while feeling the harmless sensations in their bodies created by practice. Essentially TSY re-develops ‘interoception’ – the inner perception of signals from within the body that is vital to our capacity to meet our own needs, discern and protect our boundaries, and to our overall sense of wholeness.
TSY looks very different to most Yoga classes you will see in a studio or online, or to the image of Yoga presented on social media. Though it is not possible to remove all triggers, since the practice by nature is triggering for anyone wary of being present with their own body-mind, as much as possible unnecessarily triggering details are removed.
AVOIDED IN TRAUMA SENSITIVE TEACHING
Music – a song or style of music that I like could trigger very difficult memories for someone else.
Revealing clothing.
Overly strict or directive language, as is common in many traditional styles of teaching; instead using ‘invitational’ language that lets practitioners know they have a choice.
Being overly rigid and stern about alignment and the positioning of someone’s body in a posture, which is also very common in some traditional forms of Yoga.
Using unclear or metaphorical language instead of being clear and literal (this may include not using Sanskrit terms for postures, which could feel alienating, depending on the practitioner).
Over-use of highly activating postures and rapid ‘flow’ rather than having stabilisation as a priority.
Overly complex sequencing of postures and constantly changing a practice, both of which may be confusing and therefore stressful. Using a repeated practice that can be learned by heart encourages self-sufficiency and self-practice away from class.
IN REAL WORLD CLASSES
Mats placed very close together.
Incense or any other kind of strong scent or perfume.
Physical adjustments. While touch can feel therapeutic to some people, it can feel highly intrusive, upsetting and coercive to someone who has been abused.
The teacher walking around the room and behind students constantly, especially where students may be in a pose that exposes the pelvic area, such as what is known as ‘Downward Dog’ pose.
Practicing in room where there is a lot of noise and activity outside of the windows or nearby, such as a building site where there may be loud bangs.
It is not necessary for everyone to practice or self-practice in this way, or to incorporate all of these principles, especially once settled within practice. However, given the growing understanding that some kind or degree of trauma is often the root cause of many of the symptoms of mental ill health, psychosomatic illness or disconnection from Self that so many experience, trauma sensitivity will always inform my work.