Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

The topic under investigation is the holistic integration of yoga within Western approaches to psychotherapy. While vast amounts of research exist supporting the benefits of yoga for overall biopsychosocial-spiritual well-being, research is limited as it pertains to educating therapists, operating in a Western healthcare system, on how to bring yoga practices, principles, and philosophy into therapy. This study aims to understand what has facilitated the yoga-psychotherapy integration process for therapists with formal yoga training. The findings can be extrapolated to create future educational programming geared towards expediting and streamlining the integration process for therapists with little or no yogic background, which would increase the accessibility and applicability of this treatment modality for an enlarged number of clinicians. Within todays Western healthcare system, there exists a mind-body dilemma, wherein mind and body are treated as separate entities. However, complex conditions with medically unexplained symptoms such as idiopathic pain syndromes and anxiety disorders clearly demonstrate the intertwining nature of emotion and embodiment. Yoga psychotherapy is known to offer a therapeutic bridge between mind and body, effectively overcoming this inherent dilemma of westernized healthcare. In an effort to cater to clients seeking embodiment psychotherapy for diverse healthcare needs, Western healthcare must broaden its scope to include holistic approaches to therapy. However, this can only be safely and ethically accomplished if therapists are provided with the necessary educational training that equips them to apply integrated yoga-psychotherapy. For this reason, research capable of outlining the details of the integration process is imperative.