Integrated Holistic Yoga Psychology: Volume 1 in Therapeutic Yoga Teaching, Clinical Service, and Practice

The three-volume series "Therapeutic Yoga Teaching, Clinical Service, and Practice" offers an integrated holistic approach to the teaching, clinical service provision, and practice of therapeutic yoga. The series provides comprehensive guidance for yoga teacher training, bringing yoga into healthcare, and deepening a personal practice. The series carefully reviews, weaves together, and scientifically and practically grounds therapeutic yoga practices and lifestyles in the traditional eight limbs of yoga, from Values and Lifestyle Practices (yamas, niyamas) that support ethical and intentional living, to Physical Practices (asanas) that transform anatomy, physiology, and sensation, to Breathing Practices (pranayama) that vitalize and bring ease into the nervous system, to Interior Practices (pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi) that invite self-exploration and personal insight - all to encourage transformation of maladaptive habits, reactivity, and stereotypes while opening space for new choices, adaptive responsiveness, and resilience in body, emotions, mind, and relationships. The series contextualizes all offered yoga principles and practices within the wholism of the five layers of human experience postulated by ancient wisdom and supported by modern science. Namely, it explores and honors interrelationships among body, vitality (energy and affect), mind (emotions and thoughts), wisdom and self-discovery, and relationships within families and communities, for personal and collective healing and thriving.

The first in the 3-volume series, Integrated Holistic Yoga Psychology, explores neurophysiological and psychological mechanisms underlying our human layers of experience, to create understanding, respect, and compassion for humans' embodied self (i.e., physical development and experience), vital self (i.e., energetic and affective development and experience), verbal and social self (i.e., emotional and mental development and experience), wise decentered self (i.e., development of and experience in relationships), and joyfully connected self (i.e., grounded in a particular biopsychosociocultural context). Integrated holistic yoga psychology recognizes and honors these layers in the practice and teaching of yoga, as well as in interactions with students, clients, and patients - and ourselves. It explores physical, energetic, emotional, cognitive, and relational patterns and habits, combining ancient wisdom about human nature with modern scientific findings.

Relying on ancient and modern yoga psychology, the book interweaves yoga practices with the layers of human experiences (i.e., koshas) in the context of human development across the lifespan. Concepts such as yogic expressions of nature (i.e., gunas) are integrated with the modern science of polyvagal theory. Wisdom about emotional afflictions (i.e., kleshas) is linked to the science of emotions, mood, and affect. Mind states, mental fluctuations and preoccupations (i.e., vrittis) are placed into scientific contexts of perception and misperception, memory and imagination, and the importance of sleep and calm abiding. Pattern locks (i.e., samskaras) are juxtaposed with principles of transforming reactivity into responsiveness and into choices that serve the greater good.

Integrated holistic yoga psychology is applied to the teaching, clinical practice, and personal practice of yoga. All practices, pedagogical approaches, and psychological principles are explored as transformative forces and deeper dimensions of yoga that move practitioners, teachers, and healthcare providers toward self-discovery, self-inquiry, and conscious decision-making while living, serving, and teaching with intention and purpose. The wish is for all to access compassion, lovingkindness, altruistic and appreciative joy, experienced with equanimity and deep contentment in every moment of daily life.