What's the Difference Between Yoga & Yoga Therapy?

Yoga has grown to become a very popular practice, but yoga therapy is still relatively new and unfamiliar to many. I’d like to explain the key differences between them in simple terms. For brevity, I’m not going to get into the finer details on the origins of yoga or yoga therapy, their influences, history, or all the different types of yoga that exist today. I'll leave the finer historical details to relevant experts, and your research of yoga styles and offerings to Google. 

My goal is to give you a broad brushstroke of the features of yoga and yoga therapy, and help you figure out if either one, or even both, could be useful for your lifestyle or wellness needs.

If you’re short on time, scroll to the bottom to read:

• When to choose yoga
• When to choose yoga therapy
• 4 questions to ask yourself for more clarity
• My final thoughts on both  

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First, yoga today is very different from yoga in the past. It’s worth taking some time to distinguish between the two. Please note that there is no true separation. The progress of yoga falls on a continuum, but for the purposes of highlighting differences, a distinction helps.

Ancient Yoga

Yoga is 5,000+ year-old practice that originated from India. While not a religion, its roots are intertwined with ancient spiritual and religious practices such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The word “yoga,” means to yoke or unite. My use of the phrase, “ancient yoga” refers to the original intent of yoga practice:

to achieve the union of mind, body, and spirit for self-realization.

Self-realization refers to:

• freedom from suffering
• understanding who we truly are
• sensing our connectedness to each other, nature, the Divine (also known as: God, Oneness, Creator, Universe, whatever aligns to your belief system).

In other words, one could also say ancient yoga was about realizing the connection between individual consciousness and a higher or universal consciousness.

Anicient yoga was a philosophical and spiritual practice more than a physical one. There were few physical postures, and they were practiced to prepare for meditation.

The earliest postures were seated poses, such as lotus pose (padmasana). The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, focused on the quality of the pose, rather than a list of poses. (Yoga Sutra 2.46: "sthiram sukham asanam,” – the posture for meditation should be steady and comfortable).

Modern Yoga
Modern yoga is commonly defined to have started in the late 19^th century, when yoga was first introduced to the Western world. T. Krishnamacharya is regarded as the “Father of Modern Yoga” and credited with spurring the development of postural yoga.

As yoga continued to spread, students of yoga traditions became influential teachers, and helped shape the trajectory by extending the yoga lineage, experimenting with and adapting practices, and/or integrating their own experiences and knowledge. For example, Vinyasa or Flow is generally considered to have developed from Ashtanga.

Fast forward to today, modern yoga consists of a wide range of yoga styles that include physical postures, breathwork, mindfulness and/or meditation. 

Unlike ancient yoga, modern yoga places much more emphasis on physical postures.

A general yoga class that’s for example, 60 minutes long, will have roughly 40-45 minutes of physical postures, and 7-10 minutes on the front and back end for breathing and final relaxation.

Benefits of Modern Yoga
1. A form of low impact exercise
2. Many styles to choose from, widely available online and in-person
3. Better flexibility, mobility, balance, coordination, strength*
4. Stress reduction and calm**

Modern yoga classes tend to focus on a particular yoga style or class theme, and the physical postures that fit within that style or theme.  

*The strength element mainly comes from supporting the body-weight and long holds

**There may be other mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual benefits, but they tend to be a side effect than an actual focus of instruction. Thus, these are benefits that require consistent practice over time to develop.

Yoga Therapy
Yoga therapy has its roots intertwined with modern yoga, when influential teachers increasingly began to teach postural yoga, some with more of a fitness component, and others with a more therapeutic component - adapted to the person and to address specific conditions.

Key Developments in Yoga Therapy
In the 1920s, two yoga teachers and researchers separately founded their own yoga centers. It’s their interest and research into yoga’s physiological effects and treatment for health issues that paved the foundation for modern yoga therapy. In 1989, Larry Payne, PhD and Richard Miller, PhD founded the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), with the goal of advancing yoga therapy as a recognized health profession. Research and standards for yoga therapy have increasingly come into the picture. Personally, this matters to me. I value ancient wisdom and intuition, but I value modern science and reason just as much. 

Yoga therapy today: the application of yoga philosophy and principles using an evidence-informed, whole-person approach to promote well-being and manage health conditions.

The difference between yoga therapy of the 1920s and yoga therapy today?

• A growing body of scientific research
• Standards, ethics, and scope of practice
• Increasing integration of knowledge from fields such as psychology, neuroscience, epigenetics, and others as yoga therapy continues to develop

Some Features of Yoga Therapy

1. Yoga therapy focuses on the whole person – physical, mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual aspects
2. Yoga therapy sessions are designed with the whole person's wellness needs or goals at the forefront, vs. a specific yoga style, theme, or postures
3. Yoga therapy is highly intentional about the effects of breathwork, postures, guided meditation on the whole person
4. Safe, pain-free, holistic, and evidence-informed

Benefits of Yoga Therapy
1. All the benefits of yoga, and
2. Strategic + personalized for wellness
3. Increased self-agency
4. Accelerate healing, recovery, pain relief
5. Meet health/life challenges with greater ease

Yoga therapy blends ancient yoga wisdom with modern science, and works alongside conventional medicine to accelerate healing, recovery, and promote well-being.

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Choose Yoga to:
1. Learn a particular yoga lineage or style
2. Achieve specific yoga poses or poses within the yoga tradition
3. Follow the teacher’s class plan or theme
4. Enjoy group classes, or 1:1 sessions with more of a physical emphasis
5. Let benefits unfold in its own time

Choose Yoga Therapy to:
1. Focus on YOU and your life context
2. Target health or life issues
3. Proactively approach healing, recovery, and wellness
4. Complement treatment from healthcare providers, therapists, or experts
5. Build self-inquiry and self-connection

4 Questions for Added Clarity:

1. Am I struggling with something that could use personalized attention?
2. If I have a physical, mental, or emotional health issue: is conventional treatment meeting all my needs, or could I use additional support?
3. Will I be better able to achieve my wellness goals with whole-person support?
4. Am I disconnected from myself, and is that disconnection causing problems?

If any of those answers are yes, yoga therapy is worth exploring.

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I’ll leave you with some final thoughts –

Both yoga and yoga therapy can feel like homecoming and freedom. 

What I love about yoga is that the magic of yoga unfolds on its own. It’s not something you have to chase. As long as you keep practicing, its benefits – physical and otherwise - simply and organically unfold over time. I've never had to strive for a pose or a benefit - they came when I was fully ready, not on my ego's timing. There's a big difference. It's true - not every pose is achievable in every body. While the pose could be the bright, shiny thing that catches the eye and gets students in the door, it's not the thing that keeps yoga students and teachers going back. Every long-term yoga practitioner has stories about how yoga has helped them beyond the poses. 

The beauty of modern yoga is its accessibility – yoga is everywhere. There are so many different teachers, styles, and class formats to try. Free, paid, live, in-person, it’s all available. 

What I love about modern yoga therapy is that it elevates yoga and expands its usefulness for healing, wellness, and recovery. To address modern day struggles – anxiety, sleep disorders, digestive issues, chronic disease, cancer, and so on.

For that reason, to be certified with the IAYT as a IAYT Yoga Therapist requires additional training: 200 hours of yoga teacher training as a prerequisite, with a minimum of 800 additional training hours on the application of yoga to health conditions affecting every body system, 150 hours of case studies under mentorship and supervision, and the completion of research papers and multiple exams.

To keep it 100% real - yoga and yoga therapy are still pretty unregulated. Yoga alliance is simply a registry. IAYT is a certifying body, not a licensing body. Not every yoga therapist in-training wants to certify with IAYT, but I do. I'm doing it for my own personal integrity, as an indication that I care about standards, and that I'm not pulling things out of thin air - I've been learning from yoga therapists who have 20-30 years of experience working with clients and training yoga therapists. I've finished all of my training hours now, and I'm in the process of doing case studies under mentorship & supervision.

The beauty of yoga therapy is the way it supports and empowers the whole person, and complements modern medicine. It is especially powerful in times of need – when we’re in physical, mental, or emotional pain. There were times when my muscle weakness and fatigue from Graves Disease were so bad that I physically could not practice yoga. I kid you not – I couldn’t even manage a standing forward fold – my muscles would spasm so badly.

BUT, I could practice yoga therapy. I did entire adapted practices, accounting for my health issues, while lying in bed or seated on the couch. In fact, I did lying down and seated practices for an entire year before I was able to get back on my feet in my practice. I’ve experienced yoga therapy in my own body, and throughout my yoga therapy studies, I have seen the power of yoga therapy benefit cancer patients, fibromyalgia sufferers, those with autoimmune disease, and more.

I offer 1:1 personalized healing and wellness sessions where I provide more than yoga therapy. I blend other modalities like hypnosis and energy healing into my work, and bring all of my life experience - what I have fully embodied and live out authentically, into my sessions to give you the best results. To give you support, gentle guidance, connection, and a sense of wellness from within.

If you have any further questions about yoga or yoga therapy, feel free to let me know.