Integrative Yoga Therapy
Integrative Yoga Therapy aims to bring yoga to the broader population by offering yoga therapy certification which seeks to apply yoga’s mind-body focus to mainstream wellness and stress management programs.
Joseph Le Page, first trained as a Kripalu yoga teacher and energy healing body worker, developed Integrative Yoga Therapy in 1993 after completing graduate level work in experiential education and conducting studies of traditional healing arts in countries around the world. The philosophy of Integrative Yoga Therapy is to offer yoga therapy teacher training that gives graduating yoga therapists the tools to offer yoga’s health benefits in other settings than the traditional yoga studio. Integrative Yoga Therapy training offers a broad, generalized program, yoga therapist trained in Integrative Yoga Therapy have the flexibility to teach in a wide variety of settings and address the needs of people in hospitals, community centers, senior centers and corporate settings.
Integrative Yoga Therapy offers a pragmatic approach in its yoga therapy courses to facilitate creativity and a unique, comprehensive and in-depth learning experience. The intensive training program’s loyal following of practitioners includes educators, psychotherapists, physicians and other professionals seeking to integrate the benefits of yoga-based wellness into their primary practices.
The Integrative Yoga Therapy training program offers two levels of yoga therapy certification, a 500-hour level and a 1,000-hour level respectively. Both require completion a basic 200-hour yoga teacher certification first. The IYT 500-hour professional yoga therapy training program is designed for those who are already yoga teachers or therapists familiar with yoga for therapy. Certification begins with an intensive two-week foundation module, followed by an additional two-week in-depth practice module and a one-week specialization program in an area of interest. Home study and therapeutic practice within the community may substitute for IYT’s specialization training. The 1,000-hour IYT yoga therapy certification is quite rigorous and features a one to two-year internship of directed community study with a distance-learning mentor.
There are many variables to the cost, contact hours and homework required to become an IYT yoga therapy teacher that are dependent on the options chosen by the IYT student. IYT offers four training sites and basic tuition starts at around $4,500.