Trauma-informed Yoga

Using a trauma-informed approach in our services of facilitation, teaching, or guidance is a practical complement to developing good practices and compassion-based work.

A trauma-informed approach begins with realizing and recognizing the prevalence of trauma, chronic stress, and systemic oppression and the physical, emotional, and social impact on the individual and their community, as well as in the relationship with those who help them. Evidence has shown that trauma is related to impaired neurodevelopment and immune system responses, health risk behaviors, and chronic physical or behavioral health disorders.

Including person-centered practices beyond protocols and using an intersectional approach, considering the relationship and the power dynamics, are crucial to facilitate change because this relationship is actually a reflection of many socially constructed positions.

The decision-making process in trauma-informed services considers the prevalence and impact of adversities and traumatic stress, and the power dynamics that could socially reproduce the physiological trauma responses within the relationship in helping professions.

I like to define this approach as the perspective taken in the context of the service relationship, which is accountable and sensitive about:

- Intersectionality

- Safety

- Trust, collaboration, and mutual support

- Empowerment through agency and resilience building

- Attunement

- Choices

- Language

- Respect the scope of practice

These topics can be put into action in any teaching, coaching, or therapeutic setting, understanding the existence of an asymmetrical relationship in the specific context of support and guidance. We must act in a relational-cultural fashion, from the double expertise: we are experts in the field of our service, and the person in front is the one expert in their life.

Next, I will briefly address some grounded terms.

Intersectionality (Kimberlé Crenshaw, 1989) is the concept that all oppression is interconnected in the nature of social categorizations such as race, gender, and class, creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination and disadvantage. It is the acknowledgment that everyone has their own particular experience of discrimination, adversity, and oppression, and we must consider everything and anything that can marginalize people.

In body-based work, like yoga or somatic coaching, there is a relationship based on trusting the guidance of an expert, where the limits of personal space, volition, and agency possibilities get vulnerably opened. In terms of safety, the way the guidance is delivered and framed, in terms of language and attunement, and how the environment is disposed of will determine whether vulnerability or empowerment is enhanced. For example, some yoga practices are prescriptive towards a specific body alignment, while other styles encourage "holding on a bit more, or pushing harder." Under the light of trauma-informed yoga instruction, the priority shifts to the client learning to notice their own body's sensations and making choices that directly empower their experience.

This approach aims to contribute to accessibility and could raise the discussion about ableism and cultural sensitivity in Western yoga. Methodologies such as trauma-aware yoga, trauma-sensitive, sensory-enhanced yoga for trauma, etc., have developed frameworks of practice that have successfully worked in therapeutic settings, working with vulnerable communities, and collecting scientific evidence.

In these uncertain times, contemplative and mind-body practices can be effectively used to anchor ourselves and create resilience. A trauma-informed approach highlights the responsibility of change facilitators and care providers, in general, around our scope of practice and action: what is pertinent, what I am competent to provide, what is effective.

It is always the right time to educate ourselves, to bring up open spaces to diversities, and to consider the ethical codes of the disciplines we promote. It is time to actively question how the practices of personal and social change are another echo of the dynamics that have imprinted some historical damage in the first place, and how they might help, or not, in the natural development for a sustainable transformation of peoples and communities.

*This post is inspired by the literature of Emerson and Hopper, and Judith Herman;

the publication of SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach;

and the article of Carastathis, Anna. (2014). The Concept of Intersectionality in Feminist Theory. Philosophy Compass. 9. 10.1111/phc3.12129.