ITEGRATIVE MINDBODY THERAPY: AN EVOLUTION IN APPLYING YOGA THERAPEUTICALLY

Integrative Mindbody Therapy (IMBT) formally called Mindful Body Yoga is a movement-based therapeutic practice that targets the rebuilding and reconstructing of our implicit mind-body connection. In 2014, I was in graduate school and working with pain management with clients who had exhausted all that Western medicine could offer them. Most had come to yoga being a last resort. Because of my training in Hanna Somatics and what I was learning through biofeedback and psychophysiology, I started looking at all the yoga postures we were teaching in the Ashtanga sequences and wondered, which ones do we really need?

IMBT emphasizes the in-the-present experience of one’s body to develop access and freedom of movement, and so much more. Metaphors (such as grounding, fluency, and center) guide this practice to give us a deeply felt “value-in-movement.” The metaphors help us get out of our heads in a way by using our heads in new ways.

IMBT can be adjusted to work with many different populations and is now part of my dissertation research.

To therapeutically work with yoga is a charged and often messy space in the fitness-focused yoga empires out there today. My work continues to evolve. I am currently studying the Katonah Yoga practices and I incorporate their material in the classes I am currently offering. Katonah is a syncretic Hatha yoga practice developed by Nevine Michaan. See current offerings.