What is IMT?

IMT sessions combine talk therapy with yoga philosophy, movements, and poses. Yoga helps us to develop better body awareness, so that we understand the connections among the physical-emotional-mental-spiritual. Increased body awareness also allows us to become more aware of thoughts and emotions at earlier, more subtle stages, allowing us to intervene sooner. And yoga’s movements and poses, philosophies and breathing techniques offer endless tools for dealing with our suffering. Lastly, integrating movement into therapy provides experiential and multi-sensory learning (versus keeping us only in our heads)–we learn better and can shift more deeply this way.

Typical IMT sessions involve some talk and some movement, although the ratio is determined together, in partnership, and addresses your specific needs on a given day. Our movement can range from gentle breathing exercises to a full vigorous asana practice.

Many techniques can be classified as Yoga Therapy, and many people find “regular” yoga classes to be mentally or emotionally therapeutic in some way. A few things that set IMT apart from other Yoga Therapy practices and from yoga classes are:

• its foundations in clinical experience and neurobiology
• its focus on our wholeness rather than weakness and diagnoses; its view that we are all divine individuals, not the labels of our disease
• its passionate dedication to partnership rather than hierarchy
• its comprehensiveness, touching on many aspects of the self: emotional, cognitive, spiritual / philosophical, physical and communal.

I find IMT to be a great primary or adjunct therapy, and I often work in partnership with physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, doctors, and more traditional psychotherapists.