What Is Yoga Therapy, and How Is It Different From a Private Yoga Session?

I get some version of this question a lot lately, especially since I started sharing that I'm moving into Phase 2 of my Yoga Therapy training, practicum sessions: "Wait, isn't that just yoga? What's actually different?"

It's a fair question, and an important one, because the honest answer is that yoga therapy and a private yoga session with me are genuinely different things, even though they can look similar from the outside — same mat (or chair, couch or cushion!), same breath, same person leading it. But beneath the surface, yoga therapy draws on a much deeper, older system than most people realize.

What yoga therapy actually is

The International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), the field's professional governing body, defines yoga therapy as the professional application of yoga's principles and practices to promote health and well-being, delivered within a therapeutic relationship that includes personalized assessment, goal-setting, lifestyle guidance, and individualized practice, for a single person or a small group.

In plain language: yoga therapy starts with your specific health picture — a condition, an injury, a diagnosis, a pattern you're trying to shift — and builds a plan around it. It's less "come do yoga with me" and more "let's figure out what your body and nervous system actually need, and build toward that together."

It's not just movement — here's what's actually underneath it

This is the part that gets lost the most: the physical practice, asana, is really just one tool in a much bigger, older system for understanding a person. Yoga, and its sister science Ayurveda, offer several maps for how a human being actually works — physically, energetically, mentally, and beyond. Yoga therapy leans on those maps to figure out what someone actually needs, not just which pose might help.

A few of the frameworks that shape this work:

The koshas — five layers of being. The koshas describe a person as five interconnected layers: the physical body (annamaya), the energy and breath body (pranamaya), the mental and emotional body (manomaya), the wisdom and intuitive body (vijnanamaya), and the layer of connection and bliss (anandamaya). Something that shows up as "just" physical tension might actually be rooted in the energy layer, or the mind, or somewhere else entirely. The koshas give a way to ask which layer actually needs attention. This is also the exact framework Living in Rhythm, my seasonal group series, is built on.

The chakras — the body's energy centers. The seven chakras map specific energy centers from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, each associated with different functions: safety and grounding, creativity, personal power, love and connection, communication, intuition, and a sense of something larger than yourself. Where someone feels stuck, literally or figuratively, often has a home in this map. And fun fact, these actually correlate with modern anatomy and physiology!

The vayus — the directions energy moves. Less commonly talked about outside of therapeutic yoga: the five vayus describe the different directions prana, or life energy, moves through the body. Prana vayu governs intake, apana vayu governs release, samana vayu governs digestion and balance, udana vayu governs growth and expression, and vyana vayu governs circulation and integration. Understanding which vayu is out of balance can shape a session completely differently than a generic "stretch and breathe" approach would.

The doshas — Ayurveda's constitutional types. Ayurveda, yoga's sister science, describes three constitutional types: vata, pitta, and kapha, each with its own tendencies, strengths, and patterns of imbalance. A vata-dominant nervous system that's anxious and scattered needs something very different than a kapha-dominant one that's heavy and stuck, even if the presenting complaint looks similar on the surface.

None of these are spiritual flavor text layered on top of exercise. They're diagnostic tools — ways of asking what's actually going on here, and what does this specific person need, before ever deciding what a session should look like.

Which brings me to the biggest misconception: yoga therapy doesn't require a single pose

Sometimes the most appropriate tool isn't asana at all. Depending on what someone is actually navigating, a session might include:

• Journaling and reflective inquiry

• Breathwork (also known as pranayama)

• Guided meditation or visualization

• Free, unstructured movement instead of a prescribed sequence

• Restorative stillness

• Sound or vibration (I work with various instruments including crystal sound bowls, drums, a rainstick, etc)

• Conversation and psychoeducation about what's actually happening in the nervous system

The postures most people associate with "yoga" are one tool in a much bigger toolkit, not the whole toolkit. Part of what assessment actually does in yoga therapy is figure out which tool, or combination of tools, genuinely fits what someone is working through, instead of defaulting to a mat-based practice simply because that's what's expected.

How that's different from a private yoga session

A private session with a yoga instructor, even a very experienced one, is usually still general instruction: movement, breath, and mindfulness practices, personalized to your preferences and adapted to your body that day, but not built around a structured assessment across these deeper systems or aimed at a clinical-style outcome.

A few concrete differences:

Neither one is "better." They're built for different things. A private session is a wonderful way to deepen a practice, build strength, or simply be met where you are on a given day. Yoga therapy is for when you're working toward something more specific: recovering from an injury, managing a chronic condition, navigating a brain injury, or working through a health pattern that needs more than a general practice can offer.

Where I am in that path right now

I want to be transparent about this, because it matters: I recently completed my 300-hour teacher training, which makes me a 500-hour RYT. I'm also well into my yoga therapy coursework, now moving into Phase 2 — practicum hours as a resident yoga therapist. Part of that coursework is studying these traditional systems in real depth, not just referencing them in passing, so I can actually use them as the assessment tools they're meant to be. My mentor works closely with me as I complete certification.

I'd rather be upfront about being in that process than pretend I'm somewhere I'm not. If anything, I think of it as a genuine benefit for the people working with me right now: you're getting focused, individualized attention from someone actively building deep expertise in this exact modality, with an experienced second set of eyes on the work.

So which one is right for you?

If you're craving deeper connection to your own body, a consistent practice, or a supportive space to move and breathe, a group series like Living in Rhythm is probably the right entry point.

If you're navigating something specific — a health condition, an injury, a nervous system that's been dysregulated for a while, a diagnosis you're trying to live alongside rather than around — yoga therapy might be the deeper support you're looking for, and it might not look like a yoga class at all.

And if you're not sure which one fits, that's a completely normal place to be. Reach out and let's talk about what you're actually navigating, and we'll figure out the right starting point together.

In gratitude, Morgan

Source: International Association of Yoga Therapists, Contemporary Definitions of Yoga Therapy