This informal CPD article, ‘Yoga Therapy: An Emerging Discipline in Whole-Person Healthcare’ was provided by Heather Mason: Founder and Course Director at The Minded Institute, who are leaders in the development and implementation of yoga therapy and mindfulness programs for those with mental health and chronic physical health problems.
In the early 1970s, before entering Harvard Medical School, a young aspiring doctor lived in a yoga ashram, immersed in yoga practice, a plant-based diet, and life within a supportive community. This experience shaped his understanding of factors leading to wellness and, as he progressed through medical training, crystallised into a clinical question: could structured lifestyle intervention alter the course of established disease?
That young doctor was Dean Ornish, the American physician and researcher. Drawing directly on his lived experience and sharpened through medical training, he developed a four-part programme for patients with cardiovascular disease built around plant-based nutrition, moderate exercise, stress management through breathing and meditation, and structured group support. The programme was applied clinically. Patients improved and what was being observed, measurable physiological change in a condition largely accepted as irreversible, required formal investigation. That investigation culminated in a 1990 study (1) revealing what had previously been considered unlikely: that coronary artery disease could be reversed through sustained lifestyle changes.
Development of Yoga therapy
This moment was not the birth of yoga therapy. Clinical investigations in India, the formation of the Yoga Biomedical Trust in the UK (2), and developments elsewhere meant the field was already taking root, but it was a pivotal moment marking the profound potential of the therapeutic application of yoga. That potential has continued to grow, and yoga therapy, previously understood as simply the application of yoga to health conditions, has matured into a sophisticated, biopsychosocial, person-centred therapeutic discipline with its own assessment frameworks, clinical reasoning, and scope of practice.
While yoga therapy is rooted in yogic philosophy and practice, it extends far beyond the use of techniques for symptom relief. It integrates psychotherapeutic inquiry, therapeutic attunement, trauma-sensitive and relational depth, with rigorous physiological and condition-specific knowledge, behavioural science, and medical understanding within a structured clinical framework.
Yoga therapy rooted in yogic philosophy
Kosha Model
Central to yoga therapy is the kosha model (3), which perceives the person as comprised of five interdependent layers of being: the physical body, breath and vital energy, the mind and emotions, discernment and inner wisdom, and a sense of integrated wholeness. This unique framing upholds a deeply layered biopsychosocial-spiritual perception of the person, recognising that health interventions must consider the whole person and providing practices that can meet each layer directly.
In practice, consider someone presenting with PTSD (4). Their nervous system is locked in patterns of hyperarousal or shutdown, their body carries the imprint of trauma, their mental habits are shaped by threat and avoidance, and their sense of self and meaning may be profoundly disrupted. Working within a carefully established therapeutic relationship, a yoga therapist works across all of these layers, possibly using breath practices to regulate autonomic state and foster nervous system resilience, gentle guided movement to rebuild somatic safety, mindfulness and attention training to interrupt hypervigilant mental patterns, and reflective inquiry to reconnect the person with their own values and sense of agency.
This same approach would be equally applied in physical health conditions, and notably, because yoga therapy works across all five layers of the kosha model, physical and mental health are addressed simultaneously. This matters: physical and mental health conditions co-arise far more often than they present in isolation, and a discipline that can hold both at once is a significant therapeutic asset.
Further reference fields
Likewise, working at the intersection of body, mind, and meaning, yoga therapy draws on fields such as psychoneuroimmunology and related research (5), allowing practices to be developed and refined in response to emerging evidence, while remaining rooted in the warmth and relational depth of the therapeutic encounter.
That combination of scientific rigour and relational depth, in tandem with a discipline that integrates somatic, psychological, physiological, and existential approaches within a single coherent framework, is precisely what is drawing increasing numbers of health providers to train in yoga therapy.
As healthcare moves increasingly towards integrated approaches, yoga therapy offers the capacity to help reverse coronary artery disease, and provides a template for whole-person health. Crucially, the skills yoga therapy cultivates do not only support better outcomes for clients, they nourish the clinicians who deliver them.
We hope this article was helpful. For more information from The Minded Institute, please visit their CPD Member Directory page. Alternatively, you can go to the CPD Industry Hubs for more articles, courses and events relevant to your Continuing Professional Development requirements.
References and Further Reading
1. Dean Ornish & the Landmark 1990 Study
Ornish, D., Brown, S. E., Scherwitz, L. W., Billings, J. H., Armstrong, W. T., Ports, T. A., McLanahan, S. M., Kirkeeide, R. L., Brand, R. J., & Gould, K. L. (1990). Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lifestyle Heart Trial. The Lancet, 336(8708), 129–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/0140-6736(90)91656-U
Five-year follow-up:
Ornish, D., Scherwitz, L. W., Billings, J. H., Brown, S. E., Gould, K. L., Merritt, T. A., Sparler, S., Armstrong, W. T., Ports, T. A., Kirkeeide, R. L., Hogeboom, C., & Brand, R. J. (1998). Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease. JAMA, 280(23), 2001–2007. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9863851/
Further reading: The Ornish Programme
https://ornish.com/zine/purpose-yoga-ornish-program/
2. The Yoga Biomedical Trust (UK)
Monro, R. (1983). Yoga Biomedical Trust [Registered charity, UK]. Charity Commission No. 285265. https://yogatherapy.org/home/about-yoga-medical-trust
3. The Kosha Model (Five Layers of Being)
The kosha model originates in the ancient text:
Easwaran, E. (Trans.) (2007). The Upanishads (2nd ed.). Nilgiri Press. (Original work: Taittirīya Upaniṣad, c. 6th century BCE)
4. Yoga Therapy & PTSD / Nervous System Regulation
Streeter, C. C., Gerbarg, P. L., Saper, R. B., Ciraulo, D. A., & Brown, R. P. (2012). Effects of yoga on the autonomic nervous system, gamma-aminobutyric-acid, and allostasis in epilepsy, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Medical Hypotheses, 78(5), 571–579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2012.01.021
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
West, J., Liang, B., & Spinazzola, J. (2017). Trauma-sensitive yoga as a complementary treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: A qualitative descriptive analysis. International Journal of Stress Management, 24(2), 173–195. https://doi.org/10.1037/str0000040
5. Psychoneuroimmunology & Yoga
Nesin, S. M., & Sathyamoorthy, Y. K. (2025). Psychoneuroimmunology of yoga and meditation. In K. J. Reddy (Ed.), Research Methodologies and Practical Applications in Psychoneuroimmunology (pp. 323–346). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-7432-0.ch015
Further Reading: Yoga Therapy as a Biopsychosocial, Person-Centred Discipline
International Association of Yoga Therapists. (n.d.). Scope of practice for yoga therapy (C-IAYT). https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.iayt.org/resource/resmgr/docs_certification_all/docs_ethics_scope/ciayt_scope_of_practice.pdf
Kepner, J., & Sherby, M. (2017). Toward an explanatory framework for yoga therapy informed by philosophical and ethical perspectives. International Journal of Yoga Therapy, 27(1), 9–20. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29135457/
Mason, H. (2018). Building bridges: Yoga in psychological therapies. The Psychologist / British Psychological Society. https://explore.bps.org.uk/content/bpscpf/1/305/22
