What is Yoga Therapy? A Guide to Healing Through the Body

kempeneerh
Jan 11
6 min read

Yoga has become a familiar companion in the modern wellness landscape. From studios to apps, from breathwork to mindful movement, yoga helps us reconnect with our bodies, regulate our nervous system, and calm the mind. For many people, it feels therapeutic - and in many ways, it is.

Heidi Kempeneer, Somatic Therapist, guiding a client through a moment of deep relaxation. — Nervous system regulation and deep relaxation guided by Yoga Therapist Heidi Kempeneer

But yoga therapy is something deeper, intentional, personalised, and rooted in an ongoing therapeutic relationship. It goes further than a class or a routine, it is a comprehensive approach designed to support healing at the level of the nervous system, physical discomfort, emotional patterns, and lived experience.

What Is Yoga Therapy?

Yoga therapy combines the practices of yoga (breathing, movement, deep relaxation, and meditation) with a therapeutic approach to mental and physical wellbeing. Unlike a standard yoga class, which is often broad in its focus, yoga therapy is fully tailored to your health needs your goals, and the patterns your body and nervous system have developed over time.

At its heart, yoga therapy is a self-empowering process. It invites you into a personalised, evolving practice that connects body, mind, emotions, and intuition. It addresses dis-ease, not just symptoms, and does so in a progressive, non-invasive, and complementary way.

Whether for chronic conditions that persist despite conventional treatment, stress, emotional dysregulation, or a desire for deeper self-understanding, yoga therapy meets you where you are and invites you into a renewed relationship with your body.

You can learn more about how I offer yoga therapy, and the conditions it can support, on our SETUKA Yoga Therapy page.

Yoga Class vs Yoga Therapy

Yoga Classes

Yoga classes are wonderful, they bring breath, movement, and presence into our lives. They can help regulate the nervous system and cultivate a sense of ease and strength.

Generally designed for groups
Typically focus on general wellbeing, movement, strength, flexibility, or relaxation
Practices are structured for a wide audience
Helpful for general stress reduction and body awareness

But they are not individually tailored to your specific history, nervous system patterning, pain experience, or emotional landscape.

Yoga Therapy

Yoga therapy, by contrast, begins with listening: an assessment of your health history, nervous system patterns, stress responses, movement preferences, intentions, and challenges.

Begins with a personalised intake and assessment
Explores your body, patterns, symptoms, stress and pain levels, sleep, and history
Designs a practice based on your needs
Uses movement, breath, mindfulness, and deep relaxation in a way that supports your goals and nervous system capacity

Rather than leading a class, a yoga therapist is listening, observing, adapting, and co-creating with you as the practice unfolds. A yoga therapist then curates practices including breathwork, mindful movement, meditation, and guided rest, that support specific health benefits, such as:

nervous system regulation
pain modulation
anxiety reduction
trauma-informed healing
emotional resilience
sleep improvement

A yoga therapy practice evolves with you.

The Science That Supports It

Nervous System Regulation

Yoga and yoga therapy have measurable effects on the nervous system. Practices that integrate breath, movement, and mindful awareness signal safety to the nervous system, activating the parasympathetic nervous system - the branch associated with rest, restoration, and recovery.

Research shows that such practices can:

Reduce cortisol (the primary stress hormone)
Improve heart rate variability (HRV) - a key indicator of nervous system balance and resilience
Enhance vagal tone - helping the body shift out of chronic stress responses

These physiological changes align with what many people feel during sessions: a deeper sense of calm, regulation, and ease. ( Cambridge University Press & Assessment).

Trauma, Stress & Emotional Resilience

Past experiences, chronic stress and trauma shape the nervous system. Trauma-informed approaches to yoga therapy, which emphasise safety, choice, pacing, and non-judgment, help the body learn that it can relax into sensation rather than defend against it.

Studies indicate that trauma-sensitive yoga practices can significantly reduce symptoms of PTSD and anxiety, often in patterns comparable to established therapeutic interventions. The mechanism is somatic: by returning awareness into the body, the nervous system begins to recalibrate patterns of threat and regulation.

"Yoga can open the door. Yoga therapy walks with you through it."

Chronic Pain & Functional Improvement

Far from being only mechanical, chronic pain lives in the relationship between tissue sensation and nervous system interpretation: pain triggers stress, stress increases tension, tension intensifies pain. Yoga therapy interrupts this cycle by addressing muscular patterns, nervous system responses and emotional & cognitive interpretations of sensation.

Research reviews find yoga therapy to be an effective component of integrative pain management, especially for conditions such as chronic back pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia, and other chronic conditions.

Emotional Regulation and Interoception

Practicing yoga mindfully enhances interoceptive awareness (the ability to sense and understand internal bodily states), which is deeply linked to emotional regulation. Research suggests that this bodily awareness supports resilience, focus, and emotional clarity.

Most of us know by now that yoga is more than stretching, rather, it’s a body-mind practice that helps the brain and nervous system learn safety, presence, and regulation.

What Happens in a Yoga Therapy Session

In your first session, we get to know each other. Where you’re at physically, emotionally, and in your everyday life. We explore what you’ve tried already, what’s helped, and what continues to challenge you. From there, we co-design a practice that:

meets you where you are
honours your nervous system capacity
feels safe, supportive, and non-judgmental
can be integrated into your life between sessions

Physical postures may play only a small part. The heart of yoga therapy is attunement to your nervous system and lived experience. You may receive a tailored at-home practice guide, which could include breathing techniques, movement patterns, meditation, journaling, sleep or energy tracking - tools that support ongoing regulation and personal development.

Who Can Yoga Therapy Benefit?

Yoga therapy can support people through:

chronic pain
stress, burnout, and nervous system dysregulation
anxiety, depression, and emotional overwhelm
post-traumatic healing
recovery after illness or surgery
life transitions
grief and loss
supporting caregivers and people affected by chronic conditions
strengthening resilience and presence in everyday life setuka.ch

What unites these experiences is the recognition that healing must involve the body as well as the mind.

Trauma-Informed & Pain-Free: Safety First

A distinguishing feature of the way I work as a Yoga Therapist is a trauma-informed, pain-free framework. This means:

Choice and autonomy at every step - you are invited, never pushed
Safety and consent in movement and language
practices that honour your pace and nervous system capacity
your agency is always respected

This approach benefits everyone, not only those with trauma histories.

Yoga Therapy Complements Other Care

Yoga therapy is not a replacement for medical, psychological, or psychiatric treatment. It is a powerful complement - one that works with your physiology, your lived experience, and your embodied wisdom, alongside other care you may be receiving.

This collaborative mindset - working with physiotherapists, physicians, counsellors, and healing teams - often produces the most robust and integrated results vs one approach alone.

When Yoga Meets Healthcare: Why Training and Context Matter

Today, many people are being told to “do yoga” - by doctors, health specialists, and mental health professionals alike. And while yoga can be a powerful support, this well-intended advice sometimes overlooks an important distinction. A standard yoga teacher training of 200 hours is not designed to safely hold complex medical or psychological cases… nor should it be expected to.

Yoga therapists, on the other hand, complete a minimum of 850+ additional hours of specialised clinical education, including anatomy and physiology, medical conditions, contraindications, medication effects, somatic counselling and therapeutic decision-making, often in collaboration with healthcare professionals. At least another 300 hours of practical training through live case-studies under supervision is then required before rigorous examination and finally, certification. This level of training ensures that yoga therapy is not only offered with good intentions, but with clinical discernment, safety, and care.

As a C-IAYT certified Yoga Therapist, I work within these standards of practice, and you can learn more about my therapeutic approach to yoga therapy, and how I integrate safety, trauma-informed care, and nervous-system awareness, on my dedicated page here .

For medical and mental health professionals, referring to a C-IAYT certified yoga therapist matters. Because certification matters, training matters, and these distinctions can make an important difference in your patients’ safety, confidence, and wellbeing.

An Invitation to Embodied Presence

In a world that often asks us to override, optimise, and push our bodies, yoga therapy invites integrity: to come home to your body with curiosity, compassion, and awareness.

When you start yoga therapy, you’ll experience that we won’t be starting a new project that will require you to perform towards a set objective and measure your performance. You will discover a lived experience of presence and regulation, and the benefits extending far beyond the therapy room.

Yoga can open the door. Yoga therapy walks with you through it.

You can explore more about how yoga therapy works and book a session here.

If this post was helpful for you, feel free to share it with someone who might benefit too. And if you’d like to keep exploring themes like emotional wellbeing, transitions and nervous system regulation, I invite you to subscribe to the blog and join the SETUKA newsletter. You’ll receive occasional updates on upcoming workshops, fresh insights, and practical tools to support you, both personally and professionally, on your journey of growth and self-care.