Using the ancient discipline to help heal.

When Danielle McDermott first tried a yoga class in 1994 at age 19, she found herself doing more than lunging into deep stretches. The Vancouver resident wound up in tears by the end of the session, and not because she had pulled a newly discovered muscle. Rather, she says, the ancient practice triggered a profound and unexpected emotional response.

“I had a really tight and inflexible body, and I was holding in a lot of tension—physical and emotional,” McDermott says. “I was completely shocked that, there I was, crying on the mat.” That teary moment made McDermott realize just how closely connected the mind and the body are. It also set her on a new career path. The 31-year-old is now a yoga therapist, combining her subsequent training in that centuries-old physical discipline with her background in psychotherapy.

“The pure practice of yoga changed my life,” says McDermott, who’s a member of the Prescott, Arizona–based International Association of Yoga Therapy. After earning a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Antioch University Santa Barbara, she went on to train and become certified in the emerging field of yoga therapy through Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy in Massachusetts.

Yoga therapy is gaining ground. According to IAYT executive director John Kepner, the association’s membership has nearly tripled since 2004. There are more than 2,000 therapists worldwide, including 30 in B.C. Although practitioners’ styles vary, yoga therapy is broadly defined as the adaptation of yoga poses for physical, emotional, and mental healing. McDermott’s approach can be described as one-on-one yoga or assisted stretching. Her technique is literally hands-on, so much so that it sometimes resembles Thai massage in the way she actively uses her own body to gently manipulate that of a client. She might sit behind you and plant her feet on your back while bringing your arms together for a stretch that opens the chest.

“I’m moving people’s bodies into various positions,” she explains. “There are different poses for different emotional states.” The Fish pose (aka supported Matsyasana), for instance, stretches the chest and is effective in helping people deal with stress and anxiety.

While she’s holding a person in a particular position, McDermott will ask her to explore any physical sensations verbally, to discuss what’s coming up in her mind or going on in her life.

“The body tells us a lot,” she says. “When a client is talking about something that’s really bothering them and they’re twitching or jerking or contracting a muscle, to me, it’s all information. The body is talking, giving us raw data.

“A lot of people keep everything inside and build a big wall that they hold around themselves,” she adds. “People carry a lot of tension in their hips, for example. When we start to stretch the hips, it almost melts the wall.” Though yoga is her principal tool, McDermott stresses that the main goal of her 60-minute sessions is therapy. She uses various psychotherapy techniques, like cognitive behavioural therapy and solution-focused therapy, to help people change destructive thinking patterns and negative self-talk. She applies those tactics to help people align themselves with yoga’s principles of being self-aware and living in the moment. Plus, she incorporates breathing exercises. At the end of each one-hour session—which costs $95—she writes down the themes and ideas that were discussed on a card that her client takes home to reflect on later.

“It’s a truly integrated way to access the mind and body. It allows people to access their own wisdom,” explains McDermott, who formerly worked out of the Vitality Clinic in Yaletown and now has her own space in the Marine Building (1400–355 Burrard Street; more details on McDermott’s practice are at www .mindbodyhealing.ca).

Among the most common reasons people visit her are to address stress, anxiety, depression, and trauma. “Stress is the root of a lot of problems,” says McDermott, who also volunteers as a yoga therapist at the Centre for Integrated Healing, a holistic cancer-care facility. “With yoga therapy you can get your life back on track and more balanced.” She says that doing yoga without therapy gives short-term relief from stress, but that to resolve more intense psychological issues, people need to dig a bit deeper. “You can’t come into the room and expect miracles,” McDermott says. “You have to do the work.”