This document is the 20th anniversary issue of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy. It contains several editorials and articles on the history and future of yoga therapy. The editor's introduction looks back at past quotes and writings from the journal over the last 20 years to reflect on how the field of yoga therapy has evolved and what it means. The issue celebrates the progress of yoga therapy while exploring ideas and perspectives to continue advancing the field. It features contributions from many individuals involved with the International Association of Yoga Therapists since its founding.

1. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010) 1
Contents
Editorial...................................................................3
Kelly McGonigal, PhD
The Yoga Tradition
In the Beginning, In the Present Moment,
In the Future ...........................................................6
Richard Miller, PhD
A Dream Realized ...................................................9
Larry Payne
When Did Yoga Therapy Become a “Field?” ..........11
Shanti Shanti Kaur Khalsa, PhD
Down the Road: Yoga Therapy in the Future .........13
Judith Hanson Lasater, PhD, PT
Looking Back, Looking Forward ...........................15
Eleanor Criswell, PhD
A Conversation with Mark Singleton, PhD ...........17
Interview by Kelly McGonigal, PhD
Issues In Yoga Therapy
Yoga and Managed Care: A Cautionary Tale..........22
Bo Forbes, PsyD, E-RYT 500
Defining Yoga Therapy: A Call to Action ...............27
Gary Kraftsow, MA, E-RYT 500
A Perspective on the Creation of Educational
Standards for Yoga Therapy Practitioners ..............31
Elissa Cobb, MA, RYT
An Overview of Regulatory Issues for Yoga, Yoga
Therapy, and Ayurveda ..........................................34
Daniel D. Seitz, JD, EdD
The Role of Outcome-Based Standards
in Yoga Therapy .....................................................42
Scott Laurence, PhD, LMHC, RYT-500
Research
Yoga and Chronic Low Back Pain ..........................53
Neil Pearson, MSc, RYT-500
Yoga for Seniors with Arthritis: A Pilot Study ........55
Elizabeth de G. R. Hansen, PhD
Is Women’s Participation in Different Types of Yoga
Classes Associated with Different Levels of Body
Awareness and Body Satisfaction? ..........................62
Kelley Delaney, MA, APRN-BC, and Kristine Anthis,
PhD
Transformative Life Skills: Pilot Studies of a Yoga
Model for Reducing Perceived Stress and Improving
Self-Control in Vulnerable Youth ...........................73
R. Ramadoss, PhD, and B.K. Bose, PhD
Yoga Therapy in Practice
Ahimsa and Awareness: Core Principles Overlooked
in Yoga Therapy .....................................................80
Monica Hanson, RYT
Yoga Therapy: East-West Synthesis ........................83
Robert Butera, MDiv, PhD
The Use of Yoga for Spiritual Development in Older
Adults: A Theoretical Perspective ...........................87
Donna Wang, PhD, LMSW, RYT
Yoga, Pradhana Dharma, and the Helping
Professions: Recognizing the Risk of Codependency
and the Necessity of Self-Care ...............................90
Kate Hillman Garland, E-RYT-500
Teaching Yoga in Urban Elementary Schools .........99
Jennifer Cohen Harper, MEd, RYT
The Art of Yoga Project: A Gender-Responsive
Yoga and Creative Arts Curriculum for Girls in the
California Juvenile Justice System ........................110
Danielle Arlanda Harris, PhD, and Mary Lynn Fitton,
MS, FNP
Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse with Yoga ........120
Mark Lilly and Jaime Hedlund, RYT
Yoga for Children on the Autism Spectrum .........131
Jennie Ehleringer, MEd, RYT

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3. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010) 3
Editorial
Letting Our History Speak for Itself
Kelly McGonigal, PhD
Editor in Chief
Welcome to the twentieth anniversary issue of the
Journal. This issue celebrates the history and future of Yoga
therapy and our association, alongside the kind of practical,
educational, and thought-provoking articles that have been
this publication’s mission since 1990.
As I found myself wondering what I could put on this
page, I recalled a speaker who opened her talk by asking the
elders in the room for permission to speak. “You each have
earned the right to speak first,” she told them.
In this spirit, I would like to use this editor’s column to
revisit some of the wise words shared by previous Journal edi-tors
and authors. I searched the archives for glimpses of our
past that address, in some way, the question we find ourselves
still asking after twenty years: “What is Yoga therapy?”
As you read the following quotes from the last twenty
years, I think you will agree that together they convey the
heart of Yoga therapy—even if, after twenty years, we’re still
working on the formal definition.
I could, of course, have filled this whole issue with such
gems, and many wonderful contributors have been left out
of this brief retrospective. Fortunately, all back issues are
available to IAYT members at iayt.org. If you have not ex-plored
them, I encourage you to immerse yourself in our
own modern history of Yoga therapy.
The rest of this issue is also peppered with Perspectives
by those who have been with IAYT since its beginnings.
You’ll find personal stories and lessons learned mixed in with
reflections on the past and visions for the future.
Enjoy!
´
“Yoga therapy holds a unique perspective on healing. It
stands on the firm understanding that we are, from the very
beginning, healthy, and that our true being is unqualified,
undifferentiated awareness.” —Richard Miller, PhD, IAYT
Co-Founder, Editorial, Vol 1 (1990)
“All I seek is my own true nature. Whatever beautiful thing
I am seeking, I am. But then, if it is so, why do I miss it?
One cannot miss oneself. Still, if I keep missing it and begin
searching for it, having countless plans and schemes, doing
endless things to gain it, the search I would say stems from self-disowning,
self-ignorance.” —Swami Dayananda Saraswati,
“Discerning the Fundamental Problem According to Advaita
Vedanta”, Vol 2 (1991)
“In our time, it is important, perhaps even necessary, that
sensory experience be valued, be felt to be sacred. It is the
most direct medium of our intimacy with the planet, out
of whose elements our bodies are made. “ —Brian Lynn,
“Resistance and Release in Yoga Practice”, Vol 3 (1992)
“The Yoga therapist uses a wide range of techniques and
props in this work. However, the most important skills we
possess are the presence, understanding, and compassion
that we have developed through our own process of trans-formation.”
—Joseph LePage, “An Integrative Approach to
Yoga Therapy”, Vol 4 (1993)
“At some point in our spiritual growth, we need to take the
leap into trusting ourselves to know the answers for ourselves.
We can only learn this by being supported by processes that
take us to the edge of knowing and beyond.…Our therapies
have to teach us to trust ourselves and our capacity to know
ourselves.” —Michael Lee, MA, “The Call of Spirit: A Case
Study in Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy”, Vol 5 (1994)

4. 4 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010)
“How is the therapist to bring the divine into his practice?
His clients want relief, not religion. The answer is to do
nothing but avow and trust that as he works, the inherent
natural, evolutionary urge toward wholeness or unity spon-taneously
emerges. When the therapist has practiced Yoga,
he develops faith in the intelligence of the natural energy of
prana.” —W. Michael Keane, PhD, “When the Therapist
Is a Yogi”, Vol 6 (1996)
“The question of ‘what is Yoga therapy’ is one of my favor-ite
forms of entertainment. For me it is like being asked to
define God, because for me it permeates everything and it
is a part of all of our practices.…I see it as the salvation of
the universe.” —Amy Kline Gage, “Yoga Therapy: A Panel
Discussion”, Vol 7 (1997)
“Compassion and contact with the inner Light are the major
factors in healing. The challenge is to bring that Light into
all aspect of life. Every human being is unique and indi-vidual.
Compassion starts with acceptance of anyone who
comes to you to be healed.” —Swami Sivananda Radha,
“Light, Mantra, and Healing”, Vol 8 (1998)
“Looking at each person individually and teaching that per-son
in the moment is a form of practicing Yoga. I try to
remember that each person is an individual to be taught, not
a problem to be fixed.” —Judith Lasater, PhD, PT, “Face
to Face: The Student-Teacher Relationship and Private Yoga
Classes”, Vol 9 (1999)
“Freud suggested that the therapist must learn to ‘loan
the patient his ego.’ In Yoga therapy, I would say that the
therapist needs to ‘loan the patient his or her witness con-sciousness.’
But the capacity to do so presupposes that the
therapist herself is systematically developing her own wit-ness
consciousness and is capable of being the still point
at the center of the storm of pain, dissatisfaction, craving,
aversion, and delusion that the patient brings into the room.
This requires enormous skillfulness, and for most of us this
skillfulness is learned over the course of years of training and
practice.” —Stephen Cope, MSW, “Toward a Definition of
Yoga Therapy”, Vol 10 (2000)
“There is not really a word in the English language that cov-ers
the role of a Yoga teacher, let alone a Yoga therapist. One
could say a ‘Yoga sharer’ or ‘Yoga helper,’ but that sounds
odd. ‘Yoga teacher/student’ gives the impression of a barrier,
one to the other. ‘Yoga therapist’ establishes the idea of a
barrier more firmly….I think the proper role is only to help
with pointers to a person’s own therapeutic process. We re-ally
just need to let go and let healing happen. Don’t be too
specific. Yoga in some ways is the art of doing nothing.”
—Howard Kent, Interview, Vol 11 (2001)
“Once an ailment strikes, it affects all aspects—physical,
mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. The ailment may be
expressed in a part of the individual but affects the whole.
Yoga plays the important role of not only recognizing the
feeling of ill health, but of making work to resolve the ail-ment
using all the sheaths together.”
—Rajvi H.Mehta, PhD, “Understanding Yoga Therapy”,
Vol 12 (2002)
“Any excision of the spiritual aspects of Yoga in Yoga therapy
will flatten its effectiveness. After all, as human beings we
are not merely the physical body but a body-mind con-tinuum
capable of self-transcendence. This is, in fact, the
big lesson that contemporary medicine is gradually and
reluctantly learning. We should therefore not launch Yoga
therapist education from a position that has been shown
to be incomplete and inadequate for the treatment of the
whole human being.” —Georg Feuerstein, PhD, Editorial,
Vol 13 (2003)
“Yoga has a long history of freedom and innovation, two
pillars of its preservation and growth over the millennia.
This freedom, however, carries both traditional and modern
responsibilities for students, teachers, and especially thera-pists….
An established, respected therapy in the Western
world requires commensurate accountability.”
—John Kepner, MA, MBA, Editorial, Vol 14 (2004)
“We are just at the beginning of the blossoming of Yoga
therapy in the West. As this gentle, profound profession
makes its way into Western culture and the Western medical
setting, its potential for alleviating suffering in both relative
and ultimate ways is unlimited.”
—Trisha Lamb, Editorial, Vol 15 (2005)
“An example definition of Yoga therapy is ‘the application
of Yoga to individuals to empower them to progress toward
greater health and freedom from disease.’ The word empower
here is important because a key aspect of Yoga is the active
participation of the patient in the process of therapy. The
tools of Yoga require that the person make an effort. This is
not a limitation of Yoga, but a great strength.”
—Ganesh Mohan, “Exploring Yoga as Therapy”, Vol 16
(2006)

5. EDITORIAL 5
“Right now, there is no healing profession that honors and
studies the qualities of consciousness, transformation, and
presence. If not us as Yoga therapists, who will champion
the values of silence, ahimsa, and awe that occur in a Yoga
therapeutic relationship when we are ‘being with’? What
group of professionals will explore in humility that experi-ence
of the yoking of healing that goes beyond each of us as
individuals?” —Matthew Taylor, PhD, PT, “A Fork in the
Road: ‘Doing to’ or ‘Being with’?”, Vol 17 (2007)
“The education and courses you take that teach you how to
become Yoga therapists are invaluable, but love and com-passion
transforms the whole idea of therapy into healing.
Yoga therapy ceases to be ‘therapy,’ as it becomes a healing
experience that comes through a deep love and compassion
for your client, for yourself, and for knowing who you both
really are.” —Nischala Joy Devi, “Touching the Oneness:
What to Do When Nothing Else Works”, Vol 18 (2008)
“If you’re teaching Yoga to people therapeutically, you need
to have a regular practice, where you systematically go deep-er
into the practices. The ability to see students, I believe,
comes directly from your cultivated ability to see yourself.
A big issue with licensing and credentialing is that what it
takes to be a great Yoga therapist is a lifelong commitment
to learning and growth and a steady practice, and no regu-lating
authority will ever be able to control that.”
—Timothy McCall, MD, Interview, Vol 19 (2009)
“Many of you who are reading this and other articles in
this twentieth anniversary issue may be new to the field of
Yoga therapy. To you, my new colleagues, I say, ‘Welcome,’
and let’s continue supporting and growing our profession
together.” —Larry Payne, IAYT Co-Founder, “A Dream
Realized”, Vol 20 (2010)
Direct correspondence to editor@iayt.org.

6. 6 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010)
The Yoga Tradition
Perspective
In the Beginning, In the Present Moment, In the Future
Richard Miller, PhD
Co-Founder, International Association of Yoga Therapists
Integrative Restoration Institute, San Rafael, CA
Beginnings
In 1970, I began living an odyssey steeped in grace that
has carried me these past 40 years. I’ve had the good for-tune
to mentor with experts in the fields of psychotherapy,
Judeo-Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, Yoga, and Western,
Chinese, and Ayurvedic medicine. Along the way I’ve stud-ied
pre-med, obtained my MA in inter-disciplinary edu-cation
and my license as a marriage and family therapist,
completed my PhD and licensing as a clinical psychologist,
schooled in Chinese medicine and practiced acupuncture in
a free clinic in India, and studied with a mentor from the Far
East who helped me integrate Eastern and Western psycho-spiritual
perspectives. I’ve spent a year of Sundays traveling
with a Presbyterian minister; sat Zen, Mahayana, and Yoga
retreats; and met with a Japanese priest who quietly whis-pered
in my ear, “You drink a lot of tea.”
In the early years, I joined Yogananda’s Self-Realization
Fellowship and studied the Yoga teachings of Swami
Satchitananda, Bikram Choudhury (who used to fly me
to L.A. to teach classes when he’d go on vacation), Swami
Bua, and B.K.S. Iyengar. I founded the non-profit Marin
School of Yoga, taught Yoga throughout North America and
in Europe, and immersed myself in the nondual teachings
of Advaita, J. Krishnamurti, Da Free John, and others. And
through grace, I was able to spend 15 years with my spiritual
mentor, Jean Klein, before he passed in 1998.
Over the years, I have read countless Western and
Eastern medical texts and journals and every esoteric book
on Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity, Existentialism, Yoga,
Advaita, and nondualism I was able to lay my hands on.
With every step, my spiritual journey in Yoga deepened as I
entertained the perennial inquiry: “Who am I?” “What am
I?” “Why am I? “What is all of this?”
Early Visions
Then, in November 1979, while preparing a trip to
Taiwan for advanced studies in Chinese medicine, I re-ceived
a personal invitation from T.K.V. Desikachar to study
Yoga in Chennai (at that time called Madras), India. Two
months later I was in residence at the Theosophical Society
(TS) in Adyar, riding my bicycle to twice-daily meetings
with Desikachar, studying the therapeutic application of
Yoga from the ancient perspectives of Samkhya, Patañjali,
Vedanta, and Ayurveda.
It was during this first sojourn to Chennai that I struck
up what has become a lifetime friendship with my spiritual
brother, Larry Payne, who was at the time taking classes at
the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram while on his world
tour researching alternative healing modalities. As we walked
the TS grounds by the Bay of Bengal, we began hatching
plans to create an organization dedicated to exploring the
art and science of Yoga therapy, a field that was just blossom-ing
in the West. We envisioned an organization that would
foster community among Yoga teachers while supporting a
professional organization that would bring credibility to the
burgeoning field of Yoga therapy.
Throughout the ’70s, I encountered hundreds of stu-dents
who loved practicing Yoga, but who brought with
them physical and psychological distresses that I was unpre-pared
to address through my initial training as a Yoga teach-er.
Although my studies in Eastern and Western medicine
provided me with tools with which to help my students, it

7. PERSPECTIVE 7
was my years of tutelage with Desikachar that afforded me
real-time mentoring in the therapeutic application of Yoga.
Under his guidance, I examined case studies that ranged from
healing acute and chronic injuries to addressing deep-seated
psychological issues, utilizing principles drawn from the an-cient
texts of the Yoga Rahasya, Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Siva
and Gerunda Samhitas, and the Siva Svarodaya, and from
the teachings of Samkhya, Patanjali, Vedic chanting, mudra,
meditation, and Ayurveda. My studies over the years, as well
as my interactions with Larry and other like-minded Yoga
teachers, brought forward my desire to create a professional
journal that I envisioned would bring these principles, and
more, to my peers in the Yoga community.
Western medical practitioners and researchers held what was
available from the East in low regard. My desire from the
very first issue was to counter this lack by publishing a pro-fessional
journal that would stimulate, develop, and foster
high standards of education and research within the Yoga
community and among Yoga teachers and Western medical
practitioners and researchers.
When I passed on the baton as editor in 1997, Yoga
was in full bloom, Yoga research was beginning to gain in-terest
and respect, and IAYT was moving into adolescence.
Since then a succession of editors has stewarded my vision
forward, including Steve Kleinman, Georg Feuerstein, and
now Kelly McGonigal. I’ve been delighted to witness the
journal thrive into adulthood and become a peer-reviewed
and respected professional journal under the watchful lead-ership
of Kelly, John Kepner, and the board of directors.
Since handing over the reins, I’ve gone on to develop
the nonprofit Integrative Restoration Institute, which is
dedicated to disseminating the teachings and research on
Yoga and nondualism with various populations and is-sues,
including compassionate care, PTSD, homelessness,
chemical dependency, chronic pain and sleep issues, and
self-esteem and emotional/cognitive intelligence in college
students and preschool children.
Looking Forward
While I’m delighted to be part of the thriving field of
Yoga in general, and Yoga therapy and research specifically,
I am dismayed by the general tone I see developing in the
public sector with respect to the field of Yoga and Yoga
therapy. As Yoga has gained popularity, I’m concerned that
it’s being slowly severed from its spiritual roots. The general
public has come to view Yoga as exercise, with its spiritual
underpinnings nowhere in sight. Somewhere along the way,
the eightfold path is being lost. Why is it these days that
when Yoga practitioners become interested in meditation,
they have to look outside their Yoga community for classes?
I’m constantly dismayed by conversations on airplanes when
asked what brings me to my destination. When I reply, “I’m
teaching a Yoga retreat,” I’m met with, “You know, I need
to get to the gym myself more often.” When I respond that
I’m teaching a meditation retreat, I’m met with, “You know,
I need to learn to relax, too.” Something’s terribly wrong
when Yoga equals exercise and meditation equals relaxation.
I fear the same is becoming true for “Yoga therapy.” Yoga,
which is a system of education that fosters self-understand-ing
and eliminates suffering, is being advertised more and
more as a system akin to allopathic medicine, where symp-
Photo 1. IAYT co-founders Richard Miller (bottom row, cen-ter)
and Larry Payne (top row, far right) at Colgate University
in 1983.
So, in 1983, while studying with Desikachar during a
two-week intensive at Colgate University (see picture), Larry
and I formalized our plans to cofound the International
Association of Yoga Therapy (IAYT), with Larry as presi-dent
in charge of operations and I as vice president in charge
of creating and editing the professional journal of IAYT.
Founding the journal completed my long-time dream of
creating a professional periodical dedicated to Yoga therapy
in which teachers, students, and researchers could find arti-cles
integrating the fields of Eastern and Western Medicine,
research, and the multifaceted disciplines of Yoga.
IAYT Journal
In 1986, when the first issue of the IAYT journal de-buted,
Yoga was just beginning to boom in popularity. But
research, and courses in the West pertaining to the thera-peutic
application of Yoga, were basically nonexistent, and

8. 8 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010)
toms are addressed but the underlying causes of suffering go
unaddressed.
As we enter the next twenty years of IAYT, I wish to
challenge my peers and myself to raise the standards of how
we convey the meaning of Yoga and Yoga therapy, lest we
fall prey to our own viparyaya-vikalpa—the worst form of
misperception, where we think we know what we’re doing,
when in fact we’re operating from unsound knowledge. As
I go about teaching, I want every Yoga teacher and Yoga
therapist I train to be well-grounded in the underpinnings
of Yoga, which include Samkhya, Patanjali, and the path of
meditation that resolves suffering by revealing our inherent
interconnectedness. I want us, as a community, to be knowl-edgeable,
experienced, and comfortable in our understand-ing
of the spiritual heritage that informs Yoga.
As Yoga penetrates ever more deeply into Western cul-ture,
IAYT holds a sacred responsibility, as do each of us, to
cultivate, embody, and convey a deep spiritual understanding
to each student we work with. I hope one day in the not-too-distant
future to be sitting on an airplane and when asked
where I’m traveling and I say, “To teach a Yoga retreat,” that
the person sitting next to me responds by engaging me in an
intimate conversation sharing their spiritual heritage, where I
can smile inside and affirm that finally in the West, Yoga and
Yoga therapy equal the end of suffering and the awakening
of love in action.
Direct correspondence to 900 Fifth Avenue, Suite 203, San
Rafael, CA 94901. Telephone: 415-456-3909. Email:
rmiller@nondual.org.
Integrate Ayurveda
into Your Practice
Unfold a deeper understanding in your heart
and express it in your practice. Attend our
seminars, workshops and online webinars.
The
Ayurvedic
Institute
Albuquerque, NM
For more information,
call us at (505) 291-9698 or
visit Ayurveda.com/seminars

9. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010) 9
The Yoga Tradition
Perspective
A Dream Realized
Larry Payne
Co-Founder, International Association of Yoga Therapists
Director, Yoga Therapy RX, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA
As the International Journal of Yoga Therapy celebrates its
twentieth anniversary, I pause and take note of all that has
happened over the past three decades and relish that sub-lime
feeling of satisfaction one gets from seeing one’s dream
being realized.
My personal journey with Yoga began in the early 1970s.
A friend persuaded me to attend a Yoga class to remedy the
stress-related back pain I was experiencing as a consequence
of my high-pressure career as an advertising executive. I was
not your typical “Yoga type,” having come from an athletic
background that stressed competitive team sports. However,
my reward for venturing outside my comfort zone was im-mediate.
The pain relief and overall sense of well-being that
blanketed me following that first final relaxation stayed with
me for hours. Ultimately, it led me to reevaluate my life and
find a new path and career, which included cofounding the
International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT).
I traveled to Europe and throughout India to seek out
Yoga teachers and explore this new world that had opened
up to me. Ultimately, I met the man who was to become my
teacher, T.K.V. Desikachar. I was inspired by his approach
of teaching to the whole person and adjusting the postures
to fit the person. If I had benefitted from his guidance from
the start of my Yoga journey, I would have been spared the
serious knee injury and surgery that resulted from my naive
attempts to attain a perfect lotus.
It was during my second trip to India to study with
Desikachar that fellow student Richard Miller, PhD, and
I hatched the idea of founding an international organi-zation
to bring together under one umbrella the various
individuals and schools that were taking Yoga to its next
level: Yoga therapy.
Our immersion in the individualized, therapeutic, and
holistic approach practiced by Desikachar, and the work
of his organization, the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram
(KYM), a teaching center and clinic in keeping with the later
teachings of his father, the late Sri T.Krishnamacharya, was
a real eye-opener. Here was a Yoga therapy clinic that medi-cal
doctors and psychologists referred their patients to. Yoga
was an integral component of the treatment plan for people
struggling with chronic medical problems such as diabetes,
youngsters demonstrating problem behaviors, and even
stressed-out execs (like I used to be) who needed to learn how
to better handle the job-related stress in their lives.
That was my vision in cofounding the International
Association of Yoga Therapists with Richard Miller. Our
brain child had its roots in Unity in Yoga, an organization
cofounded by the late Sri Swami Satchidananda and Rama
Jyoti Vernon with the aim to bring together Yoga teachers
and schools to learn from one another and advance the field
of Yoga. At the time, I was assistant director and Richard
Miller was a charter member of Unity in Yoga. Our dream
was to create and build an organization that would help
grow a profession through which Yoga therapy would find
its way into the mainstream of integrative medicine. With
my marketing and organizational skills, I took the lead with
the association, and Richard published the journal. Lilias
Folan was the honorary president. Our carefully selected
charter board of directors included many of the best and
the brightest in the Yoga world at that time, many of whom
were also participants in Unity in Yoga, as well as physicians
and practitioners in a wide range of treatment modalities.
After its first decade, internationally renowned Yoga
scholar, Georg Feuerstein, PhD, shepherded the association

10. 10 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010)
and its journal through its second phase, taking it under the
wing of the Yoga Research and Education Center (YREC),
which he founded, until its third and current stage, under
the inspired leadership of the executive director, John
Kepner, MA, MBA, and Kelly McGonigal, PhD, the jour-nal’s
editor-in-chief. A more detailed history of both IAYT
and IJYT are available on the IAYT website.
When I describe this history in the introductory session
of my Yoga teacher training program (which I conduct one-on-
one, as it was passed on to me by my teacher), the fact
that IAYT’s history is a virtual Who’s Who in contemporary
Yoga is not lost on me, although they are my longtime col-leagues
and friends.
Twenty years later, the dream that gave rise to IAYT is
happening! Through the dedicated work of all involved, we
are witnessing the elevation of the status of Yoga and Yoga
therapy. Major universities and other institutions, including
the National Institutes of Health, now invest in research to
learn how and when Yoga can help. Yoga studies have taken
their place not only in this peer-reviewed journal, but across
the medical literature. The SYTAR conference provides an
opportunity for researchers and therapists to share find-ings,
learn from one another, and contribute to the health
and wellness literature. Enter the words “Yoga therapy” in
Google Scholar, and you will find more than 30,000 hits.
How far we have come!
And just where are we as a profession? Growing and
thriving. IAYT’s educational standards committee is tasked
with the responsibility of ensuring that Yoga therapists are
provided the necessary background and understanding
to perform competently and skillfully in the field. Well
over fifty Yoga therapist training schools are listed on the
IAYT website, with many more applications pending. Yoga
Therapy Rx at Loyola Marymount University, the universi-ty-
based Yoga therapist training program I cofounded and
codirect with my colleagues Christopher Chapple, PhD,
Rick Morris, DC, Richard Usatine, MD, and David Allen,
MD, will no doubt soon be joined by other university-based
programs currently under development.
What do I see as our next steps? My dream is to see
the continuing evolution and broadening of our profession,
where licensed professionals in a broad array of practice
areas see the benefit of teaming up with Yoga therapists to
enhance the treatment of their patients, and even see the
benefit of becoming trained in Yoga therapy themselves as
part of their comprehensive training. Many of you who are
reading this and other articles in this twentieth anniversary
issue may be new to the field of Yoga therapy. To you, my
new colleagues, I say, “Welcome,” and let’s continue sup-porting
and growing our profession together.
Direct correspondence to samatayoga@earthlink.net.

11. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010) 11
The Yoga Tradition
Perspective
When Did Yoga Therapy Become a “Field?”
Shanti Shanti Kaur Khalsa, PhD
IAYT Advisory Council; Guru Ram Das Center for Medicine & Humanology, Espanola, NM
The day before I started to write this article I sat with
eleven other Yoga teachers, each representing a member
school of the International Association of Yoga Therapists,
each a steward of their Yogic lineage and tradition, each a
­pioneer
in bringing Yoga as a therapy into Western medicine.
We met as a standards committee intended to create mini-mum
requirements for Yoga therapist training. Under the
skillful facilitation of Dan Seitz and John Kepner, we sorted
through such concepts as scope of practice, knowledge base,
clinical experience requirements, and core competencies—
areas few of us considered when our first Yoga student with
a health condition came to class. What a difference twenty
years makes!
When I was trained as a Kundalini Yoga teacher in
1971, the focus was on teaching healthy people. Sure,
people came to class to increase their flexibility and energy,
to reduce stress or improve sleep, but these were not con-sidered
people with health conditions. Fifteen years later,
students came to my class on La Cienega Boulevard in Los
Angeles with fevers that had no known cause. Many had
orange fungus growing in the creases of their skin or long
white filaments growing from their tongue. They were in
late-stage HIV disease. This was out of my realm; I had no
medical background and had no idea how or even what to
teach these students. Fortunately, my spiritual teacher Yogi
Bhajan lived in the same city and was available to train me
to teach Kundalini Yoga to people with health conditions.
Though I did not recognize it at the time, nor label it so, it
was under his direct guidance that I moved from being a
“Yoga teacher” to becoming a “Yoga therapist.”
Yogi Bhajan did not use the terms “Yoga therapy” or
“Yoga therapist” and encouraged us not to use this lan-guage.
We call what we do “bringing Kundalini Yoga into
the healthcare field” or “teaching Kundalini Yoga to people
with… (name the condition).” He felt that until there is
adequate research on the application of Yoga practice to sup-port
health outcomes, it is not appropriate to call what we
do “therapy” or “therapeutic.”
Other Yoga teachers were in a similar situation, with
students who had identifiable conditions and for whom a
regular Yoga class did not serve. We found each other. Larry
Payne knew Richard Miller; I knew Larry, who introduced
me to Sherry Brourman, who influenced my work with the
lymphatic system. Lisa Walford was teaching people with
HIV; so was I. Eric Small was down the road from me,
teaching Yoga to people with MS. Most of us taught special-ty
populations: just people with cardiovascular conditions,
just people with back pain, just women with breast cancer,
just people with depression.
Through the centuries Yoga has been taught and practiced
as a way for healthy people to reach their excellence. Even
though there are Yogic texts on the therapeutic applications of
Yoga, it is not historically a therapeutic method or interven-tion.
Fortunately, most of us had a lineage, a Yogic tradition
we followed with a living teacher who guided our work.
We helped each other connect with physicians and al-lied
health professionals, supported each other with mar-keting
and outreach, made connections to participate in
professional conferences. We formed a tribe of sorts.
Defining what Yoga therapy is and what a Yoga thera-pist
does? Who had time for that? I don’t recall that we even
used these terms in 1986. For many of us, it was more than
enough to address what was in front of us. In my own situa-tion,
new medical information about HIV and the immune
system came out almost daily, requiring me to constantly
learn more and modify how, what, and even where (hos-

12. 12 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010)
pital, hospice, home) I taught. Students died almost every
week. It was messy, chaotic, enormously demanding, and
changing fast. This is a field?
After a few years of this, it started to dawn on us that
something bigger was happening than just us teaching Yoga
to people with a health condition. Larry hosted a training
by A.G. Mohan at Meadowlark. From this we got a glimpse
of our range and impact and began to put language to what
we were doing: We were pioneers in the West for the thera-peutic
application of Yoga.
Larry and Richard got reflective, and one day in 1989,
Larry called to tell me they were forming the International
Association of Yoga Therapists. Would I like to be a charter
member? Absolutely. Now our tribe had a name and a home.
Were we a field yet? Probably, or at least getting close.
We started training other Yoga teachers to do what-ever
it is we did, and we began to expand what we
offered. My work with the immune system and HIV
disease led to courses on the practice of Yoga for people
with cancer, for chronic pain, for grief recovery, for
support during major life change. This led to work with
people with depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes,
and metabolic conditions. By 2004, we knew we had to
offer training not in specialty conditions, but in —dare
I say it—the field of Yoga therapy. We need to train
Yoga therapists, not just Yoga teachers who can teach
to specialty populations.
From this evolution, neither Yoga therapy nor Western
medicine is the same. Over the past twenty years, Western med-icine
has influenced the delivery of our Yoga therapy programs
and how we work with clients. In turn, we are influencing
Western medicine. There is more widespread acknowledge-ment
of the contribution the practice of Yoga brings to health,
and the ability of the body/mind/spirit to restore health. In
addition, popular books such as Yoga as Medicine by Timothy
McCall, MD, and Meditation as Medicine by Dharma Singh
Khalsa, MD, have brought the practice of Yoga and the Yogic
way of living as a therapy to a broader audience.
Today, the International Association of Yoga Therapists
holds conferences to bring together Yoga therapy practi-tioners
and researchers. We are working to create a unified
professional identity. We are creating standards and guide-lines
for the training of a safe, effective practitioner of Yoga
therapy. Faculty qualifications, regulation of the field? Areas
we did not dream of twenty years ago are now essential ele-ments
of the conversation.
The conversation continues and expands. What do you
want to contribute toward the future in the next twenty years?
Direct correspondence to drshantishanti@grdcenter.org.

13. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY – No. 20 (2010) 13
The Yoga Tradition
Perspective
Down the Road: Yoga Therapy in the Future
Judith Hanson Lasater, PhD, PT
IAYT Advisory Council; President, California Yoga Teachers Association
One of my favorite quotes states: Planning is absolutely
necessary and completely impossible. Clearly, planning or
predicting the future of such a new American profession
as Yoga therapy is a difficult task. But it is made easier by
thinking of this prediction in a new way.
Instead of guessing what might happen in the future,
another approach is to become clear about our intentions.
What do we, as a profession and community, want to create
in the next twenty years of Yoga therapy?
The first goal is to continue educating ourselves about
how to apply Yoga techniques in a therapeutic manner. We
have just begun to integrate what we have learned from
teachers with direct connections to the source of Yoga. There
is much more to understand and to learn. We need both the
traditional teachings of India as well as the modern teach-ings
of science. So much is being learned about the plasticity
of the brain, for example, that we can use in our work with
clients. We need to remain open to all the different tech-niques
that can be of help.
Next, we need to continue to meet as a community at
conferences and online to offer each other our experiences
and to question dispassionately what we have learned in our
work. This is critically important; being together to discuss
and challenge each other in a friendly way is a rich breeding
ground for all of us.
We also need to be willing to work with all other health
professionals in ways that simultaneously show our compe-tence
in our own field and our respect for what they do.
Moving toward collegiality with other healthcare practi­tioners
will support better outcomes for our clients.
One translation of the first sutra of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
is “now Yoga is shared.” The paradox of Yoga is that its value
increases as we give it away. When we share with others what
we have learned, especially with newer teachers, there is more
joy and health in the world. We need to establish and nurture
a system for passing on what we have learned.
Partly we do this through this journal and through our own
books. But more than that, we need to support and encourage
younger teachers as they gain experience first in teaching, and
then as they mature, in learning to apply Yoga techniques in a
therapeutic manner. I like to consistently find ways to include
newer teachers as assistants in trainings and workshops so we
can grow together as a community of learners. This is a way
I feel I can give back just a small part of all the gifts that the
practice and teaching of Yoga have given me.
If we do all of this with consistency and compassion,
the future of Yoga therapy will be beyond what we can ever
imagine or predict.
Direct correspondence to JudithYoga@mac.com.