Who Is This Training For You
Our commitment is for you to walk away with a practical and accessible roadmap for leveraging trauma-informed yogas potential impact on personal growth and reflection, community building, challenging stereotypes, and lasting social change. All coming from our in the field experience as an award-winning program that is being used to transform the criminal justice system from the inside out.
Yoga Teachers Are you a yoga instructor looking to make your classes more welcoming to all kinds of folks? Learn practical tools to make your classes more accessible and just, whether you teach in a studio, school, or prison.
Yoga Students Cant find a trauma-sensitive class in your community? Join us online for a series of trauma-informed yoga classes and practice from your home at your own pace and schedule.
Mental Health ProvidersOur training will help you incorporate yoga, meditation, and breathing techniques in your work to enhance your clinical practice. Expand your repertoire with trauma-informed yoga training.
Educators Want to add more tools to encourage learning in your classroom? Learn practical tools to make your classroom more holistic, responsive, fun by incorporating mindful movement into your repertoire.
The 3 Best Sites To Pursue Your Certification In Trauma Informed Yoga Online
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Trauma takes many forms. Active duty military personnel can be victims of all sorts of trauma, from violence on the battlefield to sexual trauma. And the effects of those traumas can be carried with them for a lifetime, negatively affecting sleep, causing depression and anxiety, and causing sufferers to not feel at home in their own bodies.
Childhood trauma can come from physical or sexual abuse, neglect, bullying, and a host of other negative events. And, when children experience trauma, they dont have the skills to process the trauma or even ask for help in dealing with issues.
Adults can experience trauma from a sudden death of a loved one, a relationship breakup, humiliation, disappointment, violence or injuries.
The 3 Best Sites to Pursue Your Certification in Trauma Informed Yoga are:
Trauma can stay with you for a short amount of time or you may suffer from it for years. And, if you have prolonged trauma, and your nervous system gets stuck, you may be suffering from PTSD.
Article Topics
How To Find A Trauma
Many yoga instructors who specialize in trauma are currently teaching private and group classes online. For example, TCTSY has an extensive database of TCTSY-certified facilitators across the globe on their website. Other yoga organizations such as Yoga for Medicine and Exhale to Inhale also make finding trauma-informed yoga instructors simple with online directories and class schedules.
Another idea is to reach out to your local yoga studio to ask about who, if anyone, might be trained in trauma-informed yoga. You can ask yoga instructors If they hold specific credentials, such as the TCTSY-F , TIYTT , or TSRYTT . Alternatively, you can ask the instructor what kind of training they specifically have around trauma and make sure they have trained in a formal program before working with them.
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Healing Trauma Through Yoga: An E
Interpersonal trauma can lead to a wide range of debilitating symptoms which negatively impact quality of life.
In this succinct but informative and practical e-course, Center for Trauma and Embodiment co-director David Emerson explores relevant research, theories and techniques related to yoga as a healing practice for trauma.
Designed for students, teachers, clinicians and survivors, the course provides an overview and understanding of trauma, how to use yoga as part of the healing process, and how to incorporate components of trauma sensitive yoga into your life, classes or clinical practice.
Please Note: This course does not count toward continuing education credits.
What People Are Saying

Deb Phelps | 200 Hour
“The program provided me with fundamentals of yoga philosophy and asana and the confidence to teach. If you’ve had this dream then I encourage you to enroll as well – I am glad I did. Namaste.”
Cydney Smith | 200 Hour
“I found the program to be a wonderful mix of yoga philosophy and asana which helped me to strengthen my own practice and bring yoga philosophy into my daily life but it also helped me to do so in my classes.”
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The Yoga For Trauma Training Will Help You:
- Serve students and clients who have experienced trauma
- Understand different types of trauma and how they impact the brain, body and psyche
- Apply new tools to support those impacted by trauma
- Feel confident while teaching sensitive populations
- Communicate the science behind our physiological response to trauma
- Help your students & clients learn how our bodies respond to stress
- Respond to the unique needs of trauma survivors
- Integrate recent advances in the fields of yoga and trauma recovery into your healing work without losing yourself to a method.
- Connect to a growing international community of yoga and mental health professionals
What Y4t Grads Say:
“The course is a wonderful blend of theory and practical advice on how to better address trauma populations through yoga.”
Hilary McKown, Owner of The Yoga Place, Milan Italy
“I joined Y4T to offer yoga to abused women and children in the Philippines. Now that I’ve completed the program I believe everyone needs this training!”
Noreen Belarmino-Nikolic, Founder of The Surya Project, Manila Philippines
“This program will provide you with tools you will use for a lifetime, not just for your clients, but for you”
Belinda Thurston Founder of Just Be Yoga, Landsing, Michigan
“Y4T is advanced, but accessible. Lisa’s personality brings light to the difficult, yet important topic of trauma and healing.”
Tara Tonini, Founder of Bloom Healing Yoga, New York City
“Lisa holds a wealth of trauma knowledge with great intelligence and lightness.”
Colleen Millen, E-RYT, MFT, Walnut Creek, California
“I teach to a group of ex-prison inmates who are mandated to an outpatient program as part of their parole. Prior to Y4T I was having trouble gathering the students’ attention. This training provided me with the tools I needed to facilitate the class. The group has responded to my new style with enthusiasm they are thankful and even stick around after class to fill me in on their lives and their personal progress!
Christina Slack, Yoga Teacher, Novato, California
Participants will be able to:
Y4T Program Trainer
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*though All Sessions Are Mat Based Unless Otherwise Specified Participants Are Still Welcome To Join From An Elevated Surface Or From Seated As Well
Chair Practice:
In this 60 minute session, movements are offered from a chair or other elevated surface at a slower pace. Though it is chair based, participants are welcome to join from a mat or standing.
Slow:
In this 60 minute session, movements are offered at a slower pace and the session remains close to the ground for the majority of the practice.
Slow to Moderate:
In this 60 minute session, movements are offered at a slow to moderate pace with the option to move towards standing forms during the middle portion of the practice.
Moderate:
In this 60 minute session, movements are offered at a more moderate pace with movement towards standing and balancing forms during the middle portion of the practice.
When You Enroll You’ll Receive:
- Certificate of Completion. This qualifies for 32 hours of CE credit for Yoga Alliance and 8 CEC’s for licensed mental health providers in the USA . The ASWB is changing standards, so unfortunately, we cannot guarantee CEC’s for social work professionals at this time. CE Learning Systems, LLC is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. CE Learning Systems maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
- Recorded training sessions participate anytime during the week they are assigned
- Readings that complement the lecture content
- Assignments to help you reflect, integrate and apply your knowledge to your work and life
- One year of access to monthly group support calls
- PDF access to Embodied Healing: Using Yoga to Recover from Trauma and Extreme Stress and How You Can Heal: A Strength-Based Guide to Trauma Recovery.
- A print copy of Yoga for Trauma Recovery: Theory, Philosophy, and Practice .
Trainings are recorded, so you can watch the videos in your home time zone, when it fits into your schedule. Practices and reflection questions are included each week and are required to earn your certificate of completion. All readings and assigned reflections are required to earn your certificate of completion and to qualify for CEUs.
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Y4t Online Training Program Beginning In January 2022
The Center for Yoga and Trauma Recovery is a CYA Certified Yoga Training School.
Given the potential for both triggers and deep healing to occur while studying these subjects, it is important that you consider the timing, and the time and energy commitment of the course before enrolling.
Course enrollment fees are nonrefundable, but can be transferred prior to your program starting date.
Tcy Provides 30hr And 200hr Courses
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Our curriculum is Yoga Alliance-Approved, and our courses are go at your own pace.. Our content is multifaceted with video, audio, and textbook learning that is available to you throughout the training weeks, and that can be referenced for up to 1 year after you earn your certificate.
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TCY® is a well-researched and thoroughly tested modality that is founded upon teaching experience for over a decade.
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From the start, trainees have an optional Orientation 1-on-1 call, plus optional 15 minute 1-on-1 meetups via phone or video, upon completing each of your training modules. We want to make sure that you’re really integrating the richness of the program step by step.
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Systemic Challenges And Solutions
Trauma, Oppression, and Embodied Healing with Molly Boeder Harris, Founder of The Breathe Network, a nonprofit offering yoga and therapy to survivors of sexual violence.
Systemic Betrayal and Gender Diversity with Dragan Wright, psychotherapist andtrainer Specializing in Complex Trauma and Gender, Sexuality, and Relationship Diversity
Here’s What You Learn In The Program:

WEEK 1 – Foundations of HealthIn your first week, you will learn how to set yourself up for success in this program, and to how build a healthy foundation for your clients & students.
WEEK 2 – Understanding TraumaIn week 2, you will learn the current definitions and conceptualizations of trauma within the field of mental health. We’ll explore how the criteria for Post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as complex and developmental trauma, help us understand how trauma can show up during yogic practices.
WEEK 3 – Somatic Psychotherapy and The Nervous SystemIn week 3, you will learn the key role the nervous system plays in trauma recovery, and how to involve the body in the healing process. We’ll discuss concrete techniques to help students and clients stabilize in times of crisis, and process emotions when the time is right.
WEEK 4 – Fundamentals of Yoga Philosophy and PracticeIn week 4, you will learn the philosophical roots of yoga and how they relate to the themes we have covered thus far: post-traumatic stress, somatic psychotherapy and the nervous system. We will also cover the impact of postures and breath work on the nervous system, including some sample sequences for common manifestations of post-traumatic stress.
WEEK 5 – Principles of Trauma Informed Yoga In week 5, you’ll learn core principles in trauma informed yoga, which will guide you in setting up, or refining, your trauma-informed individual or group space.
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My Vinyasa Practice 40
My Vinyasas online 40-hour Trauma Informed Yoga Training can be finished is as little as 4 weeks.
Students will learn:
- How to hold space in trauma informed settings
- How to set up expectations for practice and protocols
- How to ground and set compassionate boundaries before and after class
- How to deepen your practice through experiential learning methods
Plus, students will receive:
- How to hold space in trauma informed settings
- How to set up expectations for practice and protocols
- How to ground and set compassionate boundaries before and after class
- How to deepen your practice through experiential learning methods
Yoga teachers can access the class from anywhere in the world. All they need is an internet connection. Theyll learn, per My Vinyasa Practice, how to create a safe and projection-free container for exploration through yoga for clients and students. Once students finish the program and become certified, they are invited to join My Vinyasa Practice as a paid Mentor Teacher.
The class is perfect for therapists, medical professionals and yoga teachers who are in contact with people affected by trauma. Also, the class would be helpful for yoga practitioners who want to deepen and inform their yoga practice.
For a My Vinyasa Practice review, check out that article.
What Is Trauma Informed Yoga
Also called trauma sensitive yoga, it is a therapeutic application of yoga that is designed to be sensitive to the needs of participants with trauma symptoms.
The intention of trauma sensitive yoga is to create a safe, welcoming, inclusive, and supportive space where students can start reconnecting with themselves and feel safe in their bodies. It emphasizes safety, empowers choice, and shares tools for resiliency and self-regulation.
Some ways that certified yoga instructors support these principles in a trauma informed class include:
- Teaching yoga poses that are accessible to everyone
- Avoiding vulnerable poses or overly activating asanas and breathing techniques
- Creating a calming, less stimulating atmosphere
- Guaranteeing no hands-on assists
- Using languaging, sequencing, and yogic techniques that align with polyvagal theory and regulate the nervous system
- Using a tone of compassion and openness instead of rigid instruction, judgment, or pressure
- Prioritizing participant agency and choice in what they do with their body overachieving correct alignment
- Encouraging self-awareness, self-inquiry, and curiosity about ones experience and physical sensations
- Teaching how to be present with what is, even if its unpleasant, over a just focus on the positive approach
- Teaching mindfulness and meditation for resiliency
- Assuming that all students have trauma in their past
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Advanced Psychology And Yoga Energetics
Yoga, Trauma and the Koshas with Susan Pease Bannit, author of The Trauma Toolkit and Wisdom, Attachment and Love in Psychotherapy.
What Everyone Should Know About Dissociation with Christine Forner, Past President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and author of Dissociation, Mindfulness, and Creative Meditations: Trauma-Informed Practices to Facilitate Growth.
Our University Research Project
For years, the American Medical Association , NASW and other organizations have fought against the rising tide of physician and clinician burnout in medicine. A survey in the Annals of Internal Medicine in June of 2019 estimated that burnout costs the U.S. health care industry $4.6 billion every year. And then came COVID-19, clinicians working from home, lockdowns and civil unrest. Along with those additional challenges, trauma for behavioral health care professionals became a national health care crisis.
Many of our clinicians report teaching the CYI skills to their clients have helped with their own fatigue and secondary trauma. Some have begun scheduling their days around teaching more group yoga sessions for this reason.
Utah State University has attached an IRB approved research project to Clinical Yoga Institute to study the effects teaching the CYI methods has on the clinician. It’s the first IRB research initiative of its kind in the US.
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The Potential Benefits Of Trauma
It can improve your mind-body connection. Yoga puts an emphasis on fostering the mind-body connection, which Cohen says is important for survivors to heal. “The mind can want something, but the body can still be bracing in hypervigilance,” she says. “It’s essential for full holistic healing for you to involve both the mind and the body.”
It calms the nervous system. Once you go through a highly stressful or traumatic event, it can be hard for your nervous system to go back to baseline, according to Cohen. Yoga activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which tells your body to calm down, she says.
It emphasizes the present. When you’ve experienced trauma or a stressful event, it can be hard to keep your mind in the here instead of on a loop in the past or trying to control the future both of which can compound stress. “We focus a lot on our connection to the present moment. We call it ‘interoceptive awareness,’ so navigating the ability to notice sensations in your body, or notice your breath,” says Ewing of the trauma-sensitive yoga technique.
It helps reclaim a sense of control.“When a person experiences trauma, their capacity to cope is overwhelmed, often leaving them feeling powerless,” says Renzi. “Trauma-informed yoga can support a sense of empowerment as students build self-trust and self-leadership skills.
Post Course Requirements For Certification:
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Lead 8 trauma-informed classes
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Participate in two one-on-one mentoring sessions with a training facilitator. Sessions are $100 each and can be booked online at: . Mentoring sessions can be completed in person or via zoom. The first mentoring session must be booked within one month of training completion. The second is to be completed within a year of finishing the training, unless other arrangements are made. Please teach and film two of your classes to review during your mentoring call.
Participants may also decide to complete additional mentoring.
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Rcyt Certificate With A Trauma
Get certified to teach yoga to children in a trauma-informed way
Get certified with our 95-hour teacher training.
Yoga Ed.s RCYT Registered Childrens Yoga Teacher Certificate with a Trauma-Informed Focus is an immersive 95-hour online program designed for anyone inspired to teach yoga and mindfulness to children and teens in a trauma-informed way.
Duration 3-6 month
Through this program, youll learn the principles and practices to safely teach yoga and mindfulness to children, deepen your understanding to successfully shift teaching practice for teens, and gain the knowledge and confidence to teach trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness classes to youth.
Yoga Ed. is a Registered Childrens Yoga School with the Yoga Alliance and approved to offer RCYT certifications program online. Upon completion of our program, you will be certified as a Yoga Educator with Yoga Ed. and eligible for Yoga Alliances RCYT certification.