Mental and Emotional Healing Through Yoga

A Guiding Framework for Therapists and their Clients

Ghada Osman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351673556
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

Mental and Emotional Healing Through Yoga combines key research on the intersection of yoga and mental health with a client-centered, step-by-step framework that can be applied to a range of complex mental and emotional disorders. The book guides readers through the initial intake of the first client session and the development of subsequent sessions, providing case examples from the author's practice to show how yoga's mind-body connection facilitates recuperation and healing. While well-grounded in research and case studies, the book is also highly readable, making it accessible to professionals such as psychotherapists and yoga therapists, as well as individuals and families struggling with mental health issues.

Part I

Background

1Understanding Yoga

Relieving suffering is the focus of the practice of yoga, making its lens an invaluable one via which to view emotional health. To better appreciate that perspective, we will survey the origins, development, and central philosophy of yoga. This will give us a context in which to understand the Three-Pronged Model I have developed to work with emotional health, which I will be introducing at the end of the chapter. If yoga and its philosophy are unfamiliar to you, do not be daunted: you can begin to work with the Three-Pronged Model while you are in the process of familiarizing yourself with some of this information. The yoga practices in this book are rooted in movement and breathwork; the rest of the information presented enriches the practice at many levels, but can be explored gradually.

The Origins and Development of Yoga

The Origins of Yoga

While the earliest existing documentation of yoga is in the Rig Veda, an Indian text believed to have been written between 1700 and 1100 BCE, in general, today’s yoga is based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a work dating from 200 to 300 CE that is believed to be a collection of earlier materials (Brisbon & Lowery, 2011; Coward, 2002). Based on the Sanskrit word sutra, meaning “thread” (from which is derived English “suture”) and referring to “threads of wisdom,” the Yoga Sutras offer guidelines for living a meaningful and purposeful life. The Yoga Sutras fell into obscurity until the late 19th century, when they gained popularity thanks to the efforts of Indian teacher Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), to whom we will return shortly.

The classical texts describe yoga as a form of mental rather than physical discipline, with four paths: jnana yoga (the path of wisdom or intellect), bhakti yoga (the path of devotion, and love of God and others), karma yoga (the path of mindful action and service to others), and raja yoga (the path of encountering and transcending the thoughts of the mind via meditation). Hatha yoga – the physical yoga to which we are accustomed in the West – has traditionally been considered preparation for raja yoga (Bahadur, 1977; Connolly, 2007).

The emphasis on hatha yoga in India began in earnest in 1933, when the palace in the state of Mysore hired Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888–1989) to run its yoga hall. A scholar of Sanskrit, Ayurveda medicine, and other classical disciplines, Krishnamacharya is hailed as the “Father of Modern Yoga,” as he sequenced yoga postures, combined them with deep breathing, and generally led the way for both becoming an integral part of yoga, instead of a step towards meditation. Furthermore, Krishnamacharya produced a number of gifted students, including B.K.S. Iyengar, K. Patabhi Jois, and T.K.V. Desikachar, respectively the developers of the styles of Iyengar, Ashtanga, and Viniyoga, which have become so popular in the West (Broad, 2012; Mohan & Mohan, 2011).

History of Yoga in the West

While raja yoga had gained significance in the West from the 1880s among groups such as the Theosophical Society (Ervast, 1921), more general Western awareness of yoga and meditation came with the World Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 1893. The Parliament marked the first time that Western audiences on American soil received spiritual teachings from South and East Asian teachers. Swami Vivekenanda – the Indian teacher who had popularized the Yoga Sutras – came to the United States to present at the Parliament, and then went on to teach meditation practitioners in New Hampshire and established ashrams (places of spiritual retreat) around the country (Taylor, 1999). Just over two decades later in 1920, Paramahansa Yogananda arrived in the United States as India’s delegate to an International Congress of Religious Liberals, founded the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) to disseminate his teachings on yoga and its tradition of meditation, and also began lecturing around the country.

The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States, leading Westerners to travel East to seek teachings. In 1947, Indra Devi, the first Westerner to study with Krishnamacharya and the first to bring his lineage to the West, opened a yoga studio in Hollywood. Her three popular books brought hatha yoga to the demographic with which it now tends to be associated in the West: women. In 1950, Richard Hittleman returned from studies in India to teach yoga in New York, presenting a nonreligious physically oriented yoga for the American mainstream that even came to be featured on television (De Michelis, 2005).

A confluence of major events half a century later led to an even broader awareness by many Americans of at least the existence of yoga. The 1960s, with their counter-culture movements and exploration of alternate world views, alongside circumstances leading to an influx of Asian spiritual teachers to the West (Taylor, 1999), served as a catalyst for the spread of yoga-related teachings. Outside of the political realm, a central factor leading to yoga gaining a boost in the United States was the recognition of its benefits, first for fitness and second for countering stress. From this grew yoga’s association with emerging forms of complementary and alternative medicine (De Michelis, 2005).

Yoga in the West Today

Now, in the United States, there are dozens of types of yoga, often named after a key teacher or concept. Different styles of yoga are characterized by variations in posture and breathwork practice. As Richard Rosen (2015) highlights, it’s more appropriate to think of the term “hatha yoga as an umbrella term than as a monolithic praxis” (p. 25). For instance, the three styles of yoga originated by Krishnamacharya’s three students, B.K.S. Iyengar, K. Patabhi Jois, and T.K.V. Desikachar, differ dramatically in terms of emphasis and pacing, highlighting the creativity within the yoga tradition.

But despite the variation in the particulars of the practice, from the second half of the 20th century on, yoga classes in the West – whether at a gym, a community center, or a studio, or prerecorded – came to be relatively standardized into an overall structure. That structure can be divided into three parts: introductory quietening time, practice proper, and final relaxation (De Michelis, 2005, p. 251):

(i)“introductory quietening time: arrival and settling in”

For a few minutes at the start of the class, practitioners are typically invited to begin focusing inwards, and to notice their body, breath, and/or thoughts. They are encouraged to put aside the obligations and roles of their day-to-day lives, and be with their experiences in the immediate moment.

(ii)“practice proper: instruction in postural and breathing practice given by the instructor through example, correction, and explanation”

Depending on the style and the teacher, this segment of the class may involve flowing from one posture to the next or holding poses; the incorporation of a good deal of breathing practice, or not very much; and a focus on a physical theme (e.g., the back), a psychosocial theme (e.g. gratitude), or no particular focus. This section takes up most of the time of the class, typically around an hour.

(iii)“final relaxation: pupils lie down in savasana (‘corpse pose’) … possibly with elements of visualization or meditation”

Savasana, or corpse pose, is so named because it is a pose of complete stillness that serves as an opportunity to integrate all that preceded it. Practitioners typically lie on their backs in savasana for two to ten minutes. They are then slowly guided out, and usually invited to observe any state changes. They may notice a decrease in the fluctuations of the mind, the natural turbulence of their thoughts, and/or the restlessness of the body compared with at the start of their practice.

Basic Tenets of Yoga

Now that we know a little about the development of yoga, we will turn to some of its basic tenets. These give us a template via which to understand mental and emotional health, and will both contextualize and directly inform the model that is at the center of this book. First, we will discuss some practices that are typically explicitly mentioned in a yoga class, and then we will move on to a few other aspects of philosophy.

The Eight Limbs of Yoga

I was first introduced to yoga at my gym in 1997. After class, I got in my car and, as I always did, automatically turned on the radio. But immediately, I found myself turning it off. The radio was interrupting an unusual sense of calm and peace that I was experiencing. As I kept practicing yoga, I continued to be pulled in to that stillness each time I finished a class. But my practice involved only the physical form of asana for years, before I came to understand yoga on a deeper level. And honestly, if the physical had not been my path in, I probably never would have come to yoga – it would have felt too alien to me, especially at a time when it had not mainstreamed in the same way that it has in the last couple of decades.

A physical practice was of great benefit to me at the beginning. But physical postures practiced without an eye to the other aspects of yoga can lead to a practice that is superficial, harsh, and ego-based. While I felt a sense of calm after yoga, I would often try to push through poses. At times I was carried away by how a pose looked on the outside, rather than the effect that it had on the inside. But ultimately, yoga is about the inner journey. If I raise my level of anxiety by thinking I need to force myself into a particularly challenging physical form, that does not help my emotional health, however impressive it may be to my ego.

The eight limbs (ashtanga) of yoga contribute to that inner journey, and each can be seen as a branch to mental and emotional healing. As we discuss them, some might feel too foreign to you, and that is completely understandable. I am mentioning them now so that if you are unfamiliar with them, you have a chance to know that there are many ways in which you can work with yoga to reach more emotional balance, and that the majority of them do not involve binding yourself into a pretzel. In fact, “by definition, yoga is seen as the control of the five senses and a reduction of mental activity” (Mehta, 2010, p. 157); the physical is simply one way to get there. In this book, we will be learning ways to use two of those limbs in particular – postures and breath – to calm the turmoil that tends to dwell in the mind.

What do we mean by control of the five senses? Most of us tend to look outside of ourselves for fulfillment. Our awareness and energies are directed outward, leading us to believe that we will be happy if we have the right job, relationship, or figure. Yet even when we get the job, the relationship, or the figure that we thought held the key to our happiness, we discover that we are not fulfilled. Our minds continue to chatter with frustration and self-doubt, and our bodies remain restless.

When we experience turbulence of thoughts and restlessness of body, we often look outside of ourselves for a “fix.” We may eat, drink, spend hours online, play videogames, or shop. But all these are quick “fixes” that don’t fix anything at all. They are distractions. Once they are over, we are back to where we were, and in need of more distraction. Again and again, our experiences show us that nothing external can really shift the internal, yet most of us continue to grasp at the external.

Yamas and Niyamas (Ethics)

The first two limbs, the yamas and the niyamas, are the ethics of yoga. Yama refers to ethics regarding the outside world, while niyama refers to those of the inner world. The yamas and niyamas are central to a genuine, present-focused, and therefore emotionally healthy practice.

The five yamas – nonviolence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), nonstealing (asteya), right use of energy (brahmacharya), and non-greed (aparigraha) – allow us create a yoga practice that helps us develop an inner sense of calm. For example, violence and nonviolence are not just about hurting someone physically, but also emotionally. And if I do not want to hurt someone else emotionally, why would I want to hurt myself? Why would I, for example, want to force myself into a movement that does not work for my body, or berate myself for how I am not able to do a pose “right”? Those are both actions that raise anxiety. The same applies to being true to myself by practicing what works for me (satya), not competing with anyone else to produce a pose that brings attention away from them and to myself (asteya and aparigraha), and using my energy in the wisest way (brahmacharya). When I follow these principles, my physical practice will feel smoother.

The same goes for the niyamas: cleanliness (saucha), contentment (santosa), focused energy (tapas), study of the sacred scriptures and of one’s self (svadhyaya), and surrender to God (Isvara pranidhana). Saucha can be viewed as removing impurities in general. That refers literally to coming to practice with a clean body (who wants to practice next to someone who has not showered?), as ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Background
• Part II Application
• Conclusion
• Index