the intersection of yoga philosophy and psychotherapy

A conversation with Dr Vicki Connop

All Parts is a newsletter for those who no longer want to force or fix their way through life. Our community space is called All Parts Home, where you have access to dozens of breathwork and movement practices, somatic explorations, educational workshops, and more to support self-compassion and curiosity. When you sign up for a membership, you automatically get a comped subscription to the All Parts newsletter.

Welcome back to the All Parts Collab Series!

Over the span of two months, I’ll be sharing 4 newsletters that I’ve written in collaboration with some of my favorite writers and fellow therapists. We’ll explore topics ranging from motherhood, to the intersection of yogic philosophy and psychotherapy, to defining what spirituality means for you, and the difference between top-down and bottom-up approaches to therapy.

This week we have someone I’ve admired for a long time,

Dr Vicki Connop

from

The Therapy Room

This week, Dr Vicki Connop from The Therapy Room and I dive deep into the intersection of ancient yogic philosophy and contemporary psychotherapy. We discuss the similarities and distinctions between yoga and specifically polyvagal theory, why it’s important to avoid over-simplifying these teachings, and how we practically integrate these approaches in both 1:1 and community-based work.

Vicki is a UK-trained clinical psychologist currently living and practicing in Auckland, New Zealand. She is also a qualified yoga teacher and has a special interest in trauma therapy.

Dr Vicki Connop was one of the first therapists I subscribed to on Substack. She has such rich and embodied wisdom to share on so many topics such as emotional wellbeing, trauma, relationships, and connection to Self.

Question 1: How does ancient yogic philosophy inform modern day psychotherapy?

Eliza: There are themes and moments where modern neuroscience seems to validate ancient wisdom, and vice versa. Which feels really exciting when I come across these concepts and ideas!

I recently was thinking specifically about the yoga gunas and how, in a way, they remind me of polyvagal theory.

For a very brief overview for those who don’t know, the gunas are the 3 fundamental qualities of nature that shape our mind, body, and emotions. Sattva is a state of harmony, wisdom, and peace. Rajas is movement, drive, and intensity. Tamas is described as heaviness, lethargy, and stagnation.

Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, explains how our autonomic nervous system regulates safety and connection. It describes three states: the ventral vagal state (social engagement, safety, and connection), the sympathetic state (fight-or-flight, mobilization), and the dorsal vagal state (shutdown, collapse, or disconnection). Our nervous system constantly shifts between these states based on perceived safety from past and present experiences.

It doesn’t feel like too big of a stretch to compare Sattva with ventral vagal, rajas with sympathetic arousal, and tamas with dorsal vagal. Of course it’s not a perfect comparison (as we’ll dive into more depth below), but both describe the dynamic states that ultimately shape our human experiences.

Ancient yogic wisdom, with its emphasis on breathwork, meditation, and self-awareness, offers tools to shift from tamas or excessive rajas toward greater sattva - just as Polyvagal Theory suggests regulating the nervous system through breath, movement, and social connection.

In their own way, both these frameworks recognize the importance of cultivating states of safety and balance in supporting well-being.

Vicki: Eliza, this feels incredibly timely as I have recently completed a certification in Applied Polyvagal Theory in Therapeutic Yoga with Arielle Schwartz, Stephen Porges, and Deb Dana (an incredible course through The Embody Lab, that I highly recommend). The model they presented very much maps Poly-Vagal Theory onto the yogic teachings of the Gunas.

Yoga offers such a comprehensive catalogue of tools for working with these nervous system energies, through breath, posture, movement, mudra, and meditation practices designed for upregulating, downregulating, and balancing. I love when modern-day neuroscience catches up with and validates teachings and wisdom that have existed for centuries and been passed down through the lineages of teacher and student.

The teachings of yoga have often been distilled down to asana (postures) in the Westernised world, as this is the part that is packaged and sold in studios around the globe. But if we revisit the original teachings, asana is just one of the eight limbs of yoga. The other limbs offer powerful roadmaps for living, and offer wisdom that can integrate really beautifully into therapy work, showing us ways for living with more presence, integrity, equanimity, and non-attachment. Ways to reduce our suffering and live with greater ease.

In the psychology world, wisdom traditions like yoga can sometimes be dismissed as not ‘evidence-based’. Thankfully the research is beginning to catch up now and some of the therapeutic benefits of yoga are well-documented. I believe there’s a case for drawing on both evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence. Sometimes the evidence comes from centuries of lived experience and embodied wisdom.

Eliza: Yes! There’s a reason that these traditions have remained relevant for thousands of years.

Question 2: Where are there potential false connections or ways where we might need to be careful in connecting the two?

Vicki: I think we need to be cautious in allowing these teachings to become too prescriptive. There can be a tendency in certain schools of yoga to tell the student what they will experience from a particular practice i.e. this practice creates that effect. What my therapy room work has taught me is that humans don’t respond quite so predictably. A breath practice that is downregulating for one student, can be upregulating or panic-inducing for another student. A practice that is deeply restorative for one, can lead to numbing and checking out for another. This becomes especially the case when there are layers of trauma in the mix, and this experience can induce a sense of failure or shame in the person who is not experiencing the expected outcome.

A trauma-informed or therapeutic approach teaches us to meet each individual with a ‘don’t know’ mind. To offer practices and suggestions as experiments, to approach them with curiosity, and to gather more detailed information about what effect this has for this particular individual in this particular moment. To get creative and collaborative with the person in front of you in the room, and to embark on a shared journey of discovery around what works for this unique body and this unique set of circumstances – some of which may look nothing like traditional yoga practices. This approach gives back agency to the individual, rather than the knowledge residing with a teacher, therapist, or guru.

Eliza: Couldn’t agree more, Vicki. Yoga is often taught in group settings, so there might be a class called “yoga for stress relief” as a catch-all phrase, but what might be taught could be triggering for someone whose nervous system does not feel safe in stillness or rest. It’s important not to expect or encourage the same result for everyone who joins a group offering, but instead meet each person and their unique nervous system with curiosity, as you explain brilliantly!

I think maybe a reason that this might happen is that we don’t take into account the larger context of both modalities and how they were built from different principles.

Yoga is often taught in Sangha, or in community, while polyvagal theory is inherently more focused on a person’s unique nervous system. One is not better than the other in this case, but we can forget in our western culture that yogic philosophy has been evolving for thousands of years and is, at its root, a spiritual practice. Polyvagal theory, on the other hand, is still a developing theory that has its roots in western science and heart rate variability research.

When we try to put yoga in the western medical model, we might see studies and research that confirm that yoga is great for stress, anxiety, depression, and more, however we might also see an extracted and diluted form of the practice that is untethered to some of the fundamental values and beliefs of which it was born.

On the other hand, if we try to fit polyvagal theory into yoga's thousands-year history, we risk blending yoga's rich tradition with a theory that's only decades old.

When connecting any therapeutic modality or theory with yogic philosophy, we must recognize and respect the unique origins and purposes of both modalities.

Question 3: How do you integrate polyvagal and yogic theories into your practice as a therapist?

Vicki: How this shows up in practice, in my therapy room, looks very different with different people. It’s so important to start by meeting someone where they are. The first step is usually cultivating awareness. From the moment someone arrives in my room, I will usually have a felt sense of their nervous system and how it resonates in my own system. I try to gently guide them to noticing their own embodied awareness and tuning into the sensations and signals from their own body. Some people can do this instantly, whilst for others this is the work.

We work to build some awareness of where their body is now, which branch of the nervous system is dominant, and to support that state. It’s never about swooping in and trying to change or fix something. But once we’ve cultivated that container of awareness and support, we can begin to be curious about what’s needed. There are so many tools and practices that the yoga teachings offer that can help to nudge our state in a particular direction. I’ve come to think of them broadly in three categories – the accelerators, the brakes, and the balancing practices (that blend both accelerator and brake). What works for whom is very individual.

The accelerators help to generate upregulation in the nervous system. Examples would be rapid breathing practices like kapal bhati, and shapes and postures that open the body (like back bends and heart openers), along with strengthening practices like core work, or movement practices like vinyasa sequences. In the therapy room, this might be as simple as standing up and shaking the body to bring some vitality into the system. These types of practices can be useful in shifting the dorsal vagal brake and bringing more sympathetic tone to the nervous system.

The brakes are the cooling, down-regulating practices that move us from sympathetic fight/flight activation towards a balanced, grounded ventral vagal state. In yoga, these include internalising practices like forward folds, or practices that make contact with the ground and the back body. Breath practices that emphasize the exhale are also useful, along with soothing breath practices like bhramari (the humming breath).

The balancing practices bring a blend of both, to help us find middle ground – in yogic terms sattva and in poly-vagal terms, the ventral vagal state. These can include balance postures, practices that combine internalising and externalising (like cat-cow stretches), or balancing the left and right sides of the body. It also can include balancing breath practices like nadi shodhana (alternate nostril breathing).

Eliza: You’ve covered so much here so I won’t repeat anything! For me and my practice I have different offerings that feature different ways of working with the nervous system.

Of course there is my 1:1 work that is inherently individualized to that specific person’s needs. I love that I can pull from various modalities and techniques to support a person back into their body, and how I work with each client looks different.

While working 1:1 with folks, I noticed there was a need for support outside of the therapy room, so I developed the All Parts Home, an online community that supports people to develop the daily practices and moments of connection with their body that helps build safety and self-trust.

I’ve found so much joy in offering both 1:1 and community support in this way. One thing I say all the time is that healing is an inside job, and we cannot do it alone (that ventral vagal state is available when in connection with others, after all).

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