Article about Trauma Informed Yoga
by Fiona Ward, interviewing Susi Wrenshaw
Glamour Magazine, November 2021
If you've ever found practicing yoga emotionally difficult, trauma-informed yoga could be worth a try. In a nutshell, it's a specific style of yoga which helps people recover from emotional trauma by replacing the negative emotions with feelings of safety and connection.
Most yogis would say that the practice of yoga has helped them deal with challenges in their lives – be it mental health problems, job struggles or day-to-day stresses. And though yoga is a powerful tool for many in reconnecting with themselves, it can also be a very triggering practice for some – particularly those dealing with ongoing and complicated trauma.
Sound familiar? We spoke to Susi Wrenshaw, a registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance Professionals, to find out what trauma-informed yoga (TIY) really is, and how it could help almost anyone...
Yoga Therapy in the National Health Service: Experiences with Non-Epileptic Attack Disorder
by Susi Wrenshaw
Intended audience: yoga teachers, yoga therapists, interested yoga practitioners
Originally published in Yoga Therapy Today, a publication of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (www.iayt.org). Shared with permission.
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During my time as a yoga therapist in the Neuropsychology Department at Salford Royal Hospital, I had almost 1,000 individual appointments with patients who were diagnosed with non-epileptic attack disorder (NEAD). This article shares some of my experiences with NEAD—also known as psychogenic nonepileptic seizures, dissociative seizures, or functional seizures—as well how I became a yoga therapist in this clinical setting. Having recently completed this contract, my time there will stand out for me as a cornerstone in the development of my own therapy practice and because it involved the groundbreaking step of the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) employing a yoga therapist in a psychology department.