Yoga for Mental Health

Support students experiencing mental health challenges with compassion, confidence, and skill.

1 Year LIVE Online
Teacher Training through Zoom

Take your teaching knowledge and skills to the next level by joining this 1-year professional training and learn how to hold safe spaces and teach classes to deeply support your yoga students and clients experiencing depression, anxiety, trauma, stress, burnout, and high sensitivity.

Our training is registered with the Yoga Alliance and counts towards your continuing education hours.

YACEP Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider

Join us now and learn:

How to Create a Safe Space

  • Setting up your room: spacing mats, tips for the use of music, fragrance, creating a sense of safety, …
  • The role and attitude of a therapeutic teacher
  • How to cue your classes in a mental health aware and trauma-sensitive way
  • Adjustments in yoga for mental health classes
  • Difference between yoga, therapeutic yoga, and yoga therapy
  • Best practices for yoga for mental health teachers
  • Practices to include and to avoid
  • Do’s and don’ts for therapeutic yoga classes

Designing, Sequencing, and Teaching
Classes for Mental Health

  • Yoga for trauma & PTSD
  • Yoga for depression
  • Yoga for anxiety
  • Yoga for stress
  • Yoga for burnout
  • Yoga for high sensitivity and overwhelm
  • Nervous system informed sequencing and Polyvagal Theory
  • Ways to sequence your classes
  • Class themes
  • Contra-indications
  • Variations and adaptations for students with mental health challenges

Psychology & Therapeutic Skills

  • A Humanistic Approach
  • Recognizing Common Mental Health Problems
  • Yoga Psychology
  • Yoga therapy frameworks: Mental health in the 5 bodies (koshas), The 3 tendencies and mental health (gunas), Mental health challenges rooted in the 5 elements (chakras)
  • Therapeutic Skills for Yoga Teachers
  • Compassion & Boundaries
  • Scope of Practice
  • Self-Care for Yoga Teachers: How to take care of your own health & energy to prevent burnout & compassion fatigue

Techniques & Practices

Learn yoga, somatics, and therapeutic tools for your yoga classes and client sessions.

  • Yoga Postures (hatha, restorative, yin, flow)
  • Somatic Exercises
  • Practices to Regulate the Nervous System and Vagal Toning
  • Therapeutic Breathing Exercises & Pranayama
  • Guided Relaxation practices (incl. ready-made scripts)
  • Working with neuroplasticity
  • Mindfulness
  • Compassion Based Resilience Training
  • Meditation (incl. ready-made scripts)
  • Embodied Voice Work
  • Chanting, Ritual & Devotion

Practice Teaching

We find it important that you graduate feeling confident to start teaching. That’s why teaching practice forms an integral part of this program. You’ll have weeks off to practice teaching with your peers. Students experience this as an extremely valuable component of our training. Not only is it an opportunity to put into practice what you’ve learnt, you’ll learn a lot from each other’s skills, expertise, and also mistakes.

Learn powerful yoga, breathwork, and meditation tools to optimize mental & emotional health.
Join us today and turn your classes into deeply healing experiences.

WHEN YOU UNDERSTAND HOW YOGA PRACTICES AFFECT THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM, YOU WILL BE MORE CONFIDENT TO GUIDE YOURSELF AND YOUR STUDENTS TO NEW LEVELS OF WELLBEING.

Your Teachers

Deniz Aydoslu

MSc, E-RYT 500, YACEP

MSc Criminology

Yoga for Mental Health Teacher

Teacher Trainer

YACEP

Alexa Owen

BA, C-IAYT, E-RYT 200

BA Psychology

MA Clinical Social Work (in training)

Compassion-Based Resiliency Teacher

Yoga Therapist

Rebekka Lehmann

MA, RYT 200, TSY

MA Psychology & Trauma Counselor

Trauma Sensitive Yoga Teacher

Burnout & Compassion

Fatigue Specialist

Ava Irani

E-RYT 500

Yoga Teacher

Non-Dual Meditation Teacher

Trauma-Informed &

Functional Spiritualiy

Andrea Trank

Ed.S., M.Ed., E-RYT, GSY

Yoga Teacher

Trauma-Sensitive

HeartMath® Practitioner

Integrative Medicine Health Coach

Brittany Williams

Trauma-Sensitive

Shadow Work Facilitator

Advocate for Communities

and Leaders Holding

Marginalized Identities

Akari Tamura

Yoga Teacher

Embodied Voice Teacher

Kirtan Leader

At the end of this course, you will be able to confidently sequence and teach yoga classes to deeply support students experiencing depression, anxiety, trauma, stress, burnout, and high sensitivity.

This course is for:

Yoga teachers, teachers in training, coaches, therapists, mental health professionals, medical professionals, and holistic therapists with some yoga knowledge.

What's Included

✓ Weekly live group classes via Zoom (recorded for replay)

✓ Additional resources like audio files and scripts

✓ 1-on-1 Teaching practice with peers

✓ Supervised teaching practice and teacher feedback

✓ Optional exam at the end for certification

Embrace the connection between the physical and emotional, the scientific and spiritual.

Full 1 Year Training

100 hours of which

✓ 55 hours weekly live Zoom classes

✓ 33 hours teaching practice, class preparations, and feedback

✓ 12 hours project research & presentations

with breaks in autumn, Christmas, spring, and Easter

This training is fully accredited by the Yoga Alliance. Upon completion, you can register the course hours for continuing education credits.

YACEP Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider

What’s the Workload?

Live classes are 2 hours and take place on Saturdays.

On average, you’ll have class 3 Saturdays per month and 1 Saturday per month is dedicated to teaching practice.

We cover all materials during the live classes to keep the workload outside of class to a minimum. We do however encourage you to practice throughout the week what you have learnt.

You’ll have holiday breaks: 1 week in autumn, 2 weeks for Christmas, 1 week in early spring, 2 weeks for Easter, and 1 week in late spring

Examination

Completing your course work and examination is optional but necessary in order to receive the 100h Somatic Yoga for Mental Health Certificate.

✓ Participation in the classes and group projects

✓ Teach an online group class to your peers

✓ A video recording of one of your online teaching practice sessions with a peer (we recommend recording all your teaching practices with peers and then choosing one of them to hand in as part of your course work)

Upon Completion

✓ 100h Somatic Yoga for Mental Health Certificate

✓ Listing on the Somatic Yoga for Mental Health Website

Are you ready to become a yoga for mental health teacher and teach therapeutic yoga classes, workshops, and retreats that are warm, nourishing, healing, and transformative?

Our next course starts on 9 September 2023

Enroll Now

2800 euro

After payment, please fill out your online onboarding form

This only takes a few minutes. We ask you all the basic info we need in order to enroll you in the course.

Your spot on the teacher training program will be secured after payment.

You’ll receive an e-mail to confirm your participation within 1 week of signing up, along with an enrollment questionnaire.

If you encounter any problems during your sign-up process, please e-mail us at deniz.aydoslu@outlook.com

Cancellation policy: due to the digital nature of our courses, we can not offer you a refund if you change your mind. However, you do receive lifetime access to your course. It’s also possible to transfer your place to a friend or join the program live next time it runs.

FAQ

I am a Hatha / Ashtanga / Restorative / Yin / Vinyasa / Flow / Prenatal / Chair Yoga Teacher. Is this course suitable for me?

Yes!

This course is especially designed for yoga teachers and teachers in training.

Mental health aware and therapeutic yoga is designed to apply to ANY style of yoga teaching.

It’s important to know that therapeutic yoga is not a new style of yoga, but rather a set of principles that can be applied to any style of yoga that you’re teaching.

I am a Psychologist / Psychotherapist / Social Worker. Is this course suitable for me?

This course is for you if you are a helping professional and want to integrate yoga and somatic tools into your client and patient sessions. To take this course, you need some yoga knowledge and be willing to practice yoga throughout this course. You’ll learn a lot of valuable information and techniques to integrate into your sessions.  This training does not replace an initial 200h yoga TTC, so it doesn’t educate you as an all-round yoga teacher. It is a continuing education program for yoga teachers and mental health professionals that enjoy yoga and mindfulness practices.

I’m not a yoga teacher. How will this training benefit me in 1:1 consultations with clients outside a yoga hall?

There are 2 ways in which the training can benefit you: through the framework we offer and teach you, and through the tools you’ll learn.
 
The framework we teach you will help you understand mental health challenges, in particular anxiety, depression, burnout, and high sensitivity, from a yogic holistic perspective. This means that we’ll look at what happens in the body, energy, and mind and how we can help clients self-regulate and improve their emotional and mental wellbeing. This includes teachings on trauma, the nervous system, and the yogic subtle body or energy system. This yoga therapy framework gives you the knowledge of how and when to use advise and practices that you already have in your toolbox (the modalities you already work with). You’ll understand the particular challenges of mental health problems from a yoga therapy perspective and how we can help our clients restore energetic and mental balance.
 
Then there’s the toolbox. Even though we don’t teach you how to teach and correct all the basic yoga postures (that’s for a regular teacher training), you’ll learn some great tools that you can bring into your client sessions
* You’ll learn how to guide an embodiment practice for complex trauma
* You’ll explore different types of therapeutic movement
* You’ll learn how to guide breathing exercises
* You’ll learn how to sequence a yoga practice
* You’ll lean how to guide an inner child healing journey
* You’ll learn how to guide meditation
 
As part of the course there is a lot of opportunity to practice what you have learnt. So you’ll have the chance to practice new tools as well as explore how you can integrate them into the work you already offer.

I’m not a yoga teacher or therapist, can I take this course?

It depends. We welcome all professionals that are in a position of help and service AND who are experienced yoga practitioners. We welcome teachers in training, therapists in training, and other professionals in training too. If you’re a serious yoga student thinking of a career change, you’re welcome to join this course too. Some prior knowledge of yoga is needed for this course.

Can I take this course for my own healing?

While this program for sure offers a lot of personal development, it is designed for people who are already working in an area where they help others, like yoga teachers and therapists, or those who are studying for such a career. In other words, you’ll learn a lot of information and skills to help others that you can also use to help yourself, but the focus of the program is to train practitioners, not to heal yourself.

This course does not offer personal therapy. If you are severely struggling with your own mental health, please find a qualified healthcare professional to work with.

Is this a psychotherapy training?

No. While we cover both Western and Eastern psychology in this course as well as psychotherapeutic techniques, this course is not a degree in psychotherapy. During this course, you’ll learn therapeutic skills and practices to support students in their psychological healing that you can integrate into your yoga classes and 1-on-1 sessions.

How long is this course?

The course takes a full academic year, from September until the end of June with breaks in Autumn, Christmas, Spring, and Easter.

Is this an online course?

Yes, all classes take place LIVE online so that you get a real academic experience and are in continuous touch with your teachers.

When do the live sessions take place?

Live sessions are 2 hours and are generally on Saturdays 3pm CEST. This is:

  • 15:00 Brussels/Paris
  • 14:00 London
  • 09:00 New York
  • 06:00 Los Angeles
  • 23:00 Sydney/Melbourne
  • 20:00 Bangkok
  • 18:30 New Delhi

Occasionally, a class may be on a different day and/or time.

What if I can’t make the Live sessions?

Ideally you join as many live sessions as possible to make use of the transformative power of group energy. However, the live sessions will be recorded and you can watch them when it suits you. All content will be accessible online 24/7. You’ll be asked to write up some notes while you watch the class and share them with us so that we know you’ve caught up on the lesson.

What happens during live sessions?

Each class centers around one of the main teaching topics. You’ll receive a lecture and there may also be guided practices, discussions, and Q&A.

Will I get the chance to practice teaching?

Yes, absolutely. Gaining teaching practice and confidence is an important aspect of this course. That’s why we’ve built teaching practice into the course structure. Occasionally, you won’t have class on Saturdays and will meet with a peer instead to practice teaching 1-on-1 or group classes. On top of these dedicated teaching moments, you are encouraged to practice teaching as much as you can, either online with your peers or face-to-face with your students.

How many hours do I need to dedicate to coursework?

Your live class is 2 hours. While we try to keep coursework outside of class to a minimum, you are encouraged to keep practicing what you’ve learnt between classes. Sometimes you’ll receive an additional video or audio practice to help you deepen your own practice throughout the week.

You will also be asked to read a book from our reading list and prepare a short presentation.

Overall, expect to set aside 2,5 hours per week for this course (including your live class).

Will we have weeks off?

Yes, there will be a break during autumn, Christmas, spring, and Easter.

What certificate will I get after completing this course?

After completing your coursework, you will receive a certificate ‘100h Yoga for Mental Health Teacher Training’. You can claim the course hours with Yoga Alliance as continuing education (CE) hours.

Does this course certificate allow me to become a yoga teacher?

This course is a continuing professional education course. This means that it doesn’t qualify you as a yoga teacher if you do not already hold a 200h certificate. While this course covers topics like yoga postures, breathing exercises, meditation, and yoga psychology, it covers them at a more specialist level. This means that we won’t cover the basics of teaching yoga.

Is this course approved by the Yoga Alliance?

Yes, we are a registered YACEP. After completing this course, you can claim your course hours as continuing education hours with Yoga Alliance.

Are the exams for this course difficult?

We know that the word ‘exams’ can bring up a whole lot of anxiety. From our experience, exams are necessary in order to test a student’s ability to run safe classes for mental health. Passing this exam gives the student extra confidence to then go out and teach, knowing that they are able to help and hold space for their students. It also makes sure that in the occasional case where a student demonstrates that they are absolutely not ready to offer this work, we can withhold certification until the student is ready.

The exam is not a big scary event. It consists of your participation in class, your coursework, and teaching a 30-minute class. 

Do you offer refunds?

No. However, we understand that life sometimes gets in the way of plans, that’s why we are flexible if for any reason you are unable to attend or complete the program. You can either choose to join the course next year, or to complete the course at your own pace. All lectures are recorded, so you can take the course at a later time at your own pace. If you’d like to get your certificate upon completing the program, please get in touch with us as soon as you know that you won’t be able to attend the program. You can go through the course at your own pace within 3 years of signing up and we’ll offer you a free one-on-one 30 minute Q&A session with one of the lead teachers so that you still get personalized support. After that, you’ll hand in your exam work. If instead you choose to join a live course and postpone your studies, you can join a live course when it runs next time.

Do you offer scholarships?

Yes. We have 2 scholarships available for people who are highly motivated to take this course but are struggling to make ends meet. Typically, these scholarships go to people from minority communities and people in third-world countries that are already doing amazing work in their communities.

We also offer 2 reduced rates at a 20% discount for people who are finding themselves in a difficult financial situation.
 
 
For other students we offer payment plans. Please contact us so that we can discuss a payment plan that meets your needs: deniz.aydoslu@outlook.com

Are you ready to become a yoga for mental health teacher and teach therapeutic yoga classes, workshops, and retreats with confidence, sensitivity, and depth?

The course starts on 9 September 2023.

Enroll Now

2800 euro

After payment, please fill out your online onboarding form

This only takes a few minutes. We ask you all the basic info we need in order to enroll you in the course.

Your spot on the teacher training program will be secured after payment.

You’ll receive an e-mail to confirm your participation within 1 week of signing up, along with an enrollment questionnaire.

If you encounter any problems during your sign-up process, please e-mail us at deniz.aydoslu@outlook.com

Cancellation policy: due to the digital nature of our courses, we can not offer you a refund if you change your mind. However, you do receive lifetime access to your course. It’s also possible to transfer your place to a friend or join the program live next time it runs.