Zoe at Yoga Works for Over 40s is a registered Yoga Therapist providing online, one-on-one and group classes including Ayurveda as traditionally taught. Likewise she is a member of The AAYT which is dedicated to the Art and Science of Yoga Therapy. AAYT provides professional leadership and unity to the Yoga Therapy sector.
Leadership – Education – Integrative Medicine
Yoga Therapy is a complementary system of healthcare that empowers and supports individuals who want to manage their health issues using the principles and techniques of yoga. It is about assisting the whole individual rather than focusing on a particular condition.
Traditionally identified as Yoga Cikitsa, Yoga Therapy is an integral branch of yoga passed down through an oral tradition over thousands of years. Its primary goal is to offer a therapeutic or healing outcome by applying the tools of yoga, along with the principles of a healthy diet and lifestyle.
What is Yoga Therapy?
As a complementary health regimen, Yoga Therapy can be undertaken along with conventional medical treatment and has much to offer in helping a person cope with procedures and outcomes, relieving symptoms, managing the illness and identifying the cause.
Yoga Therapy can be preventative, restorative, curative and palliative.
“Yoga Therapy is the process of empowering individuals to progress towards improved health and wellbeing through the application of the teachings and practices of Yoga” The International Association of Yoga Therapists
What does a Yoga Therapist do?
In a private and therapeutic setting a qualified Yoga Therapist will:
- ask questions related to your presenting condition and past medical history
- observe and check your spinal alignment, a range of movement and condition of major joints and muscles
- design a personalised home practice to address key presenting concerns
- assess progress in follow-up consultations and adjust the practice where necessary towards reaching your goal
- refer to, and work with, other medical and complementary health professionals as required.
From Yoga Teacher to Yoga Therapist
Increasingly Yoga Teachers are seeking to improve their skills and increase their knowledge from the healing wisdom in the ancient art and science of Yoga Cikitisa.
- Experienced Yoga Teachers will know that yoga is intrinsically therapeutic at all constitutional levels. However, without adequate training and experience, there can be unintended adverse physical/physiological results.
- The trainee Yoga Therapist will gain the practical skills and wisdom of a body/mind science that encourages the natural process of self-healing.
- AAYT registered courses will teach the trainee Yoga Therapist how to work with individual students and their specific ailment(s). The trainee develops a framework that brings together science and insight, Western and Eastern traditions of healing, as part of a professional practice.
Yoga therapy is the application of concepts, principles and techniques of Yoga, suitably selected and appropriately modified to suit the individual and to bring out the specific therapeutic effect – Dr N Chandrasekaran, AAYT Board of Advisors
How does AAYT benefit Yoga Therapy?
The AAYT’s management committee consists of dedicated members working voluntarily to maintain a viable and sustainable association that:
- helps define and set standards for Yoga Therapist training and practice
- exclusively represents and promotes Yoga Therapy to the public
- promotes industry recognition and credibility
- encourages ‘best practice’ in training, and professional delivery
- ensures AAYT registered Yoga Therapy training is compliant with internationally recognised standards
- provides an ethical code and scope of practice compliance guidelines to its members
- provides website listing of AAYT registered courses for yoga teachers interested in postgraduate training
- helps people locate an AAYT registered Yoga Therapist in their area
- offers opportunities for engagement and ongoing professional development
The subtle power of Yoga Therapy is in the discipline of daily practice as prescribed by your Yoga Therapist – Karine Shellshear, AAYT President, 2017
Yoga Therapy is a self-empowering process, where the care-seeker, with the help of the Yoga Therapist, implements a personalised and evolving Yoga practice that not only addresses the illness in a multi-dimensional manner but also aims to alleviate his or her suffering in a progressive, non-invasive and complementary manner. Depending upon the nature of the illness, Yoga Therapy can serve as a means to manage illness, or facilitate healing in the person at all levels – TKV Desikachar and Kausthub Desikachar
To learn more about Yoga Therapy, accredited Yoga Therapy courses or to find a registered Yoga Therapist contact: secretary@yogatherapy.org.au or visit our website: http://www.yogatherapy.org.au
Your local Yoga Therapist is:
Zoe Campbell
Ph: 0407 956 071
E: contact@yogaworksforover40s.com
