Yoga in Britain - Stretching Spirituality and Educating Yogis - Suzanne Newcombe
Yoga as Therapy
Yoga in Britain - Stretching Spirituality and Educating Yogis - Suzanne Newcombe
Suzanne Newcombe [+]
Open University and Inform, King's College London
Suzanne Newcombe is a senior lecturer in religious studies at the Open University and
director of the educational charity Inform based at King’s College London. She recently
published the Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies (2021), co-edited with Karen O’Brien-Kop.
Description
Many reported experience of physical pain and suffering as a motivation to begin yoga practice. This chapter explores the growth of yoga as therapy to deal with specific medical complaints, with a particular focus on The Yoga for Health Foundation, the Yoga Biomedical Trust and B.K.S. Iyengar’s traditions of yoga for ‘remedial’ conditions as varying visions of applying yoga as therapy. The further professionalization of yoga teaching in the therapeutic context is considered. It is argued that yoga in Britain avoided a medical model of professionalization, while maintaining a popular promise of improving health and well-being.