Trauma-sensitive yoga

How yoga can help

Humans have a natural stress-response continuum. It ranges from normal stress to intense stress to chronic stress, all of which can be effectively managed with various techniques. Traumatic stress, however, is inescapable and overwhelms our coping skills while it is occurring. Its demands on the physiological system often result in a profound and lasting sense of vulnerability and/or loss of control.

Yoga can be a way for a trauma survivor to make peace with the body, reclaim the body, and learn that the body can be reliable, and safe. The direct experience of sensation begins the process of reclaiming the body as a friend rather than a foe to be judged or beaten down.

TC Trauma Sensitive Yoga focuses on noticing what you feel in your body  (“interoception”) and practicing making choices based on what you are feeling, helping to explore and befriend your body again in a safe supportive environment.

Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) is an empirically validated, adjunctive treatment for complex trauma or chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD, developed at the Trauma Center at JRI in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA, by David Emerson (Founder and Director of Yoga Services) in clinical consultation with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk.

Who are these classes suitable for?

Survivors of complex trauma, and treatment-resistant PTSD. No prior yoga experience is necessary and sessions are accessible to everybody.

Participants are required to be actively participating in therapy or have access to a counsellor or GP.

To register your interest for Trauma Sensitive Yoga in 2019 please email info@birchtreecentre.com.au.