A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF PRACTITIONERS’ USE OF YOGA WITH YOUTH WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED TRAUMA
Abstract
It is not uncommon for youth (ages 2–19) to experience trauma. There are various types of traumatic events that may lead to adverse effects on youths’ emotional, cognitive, social, physical, and spiritual health. It is important that youth receive support and resources to address the negative impacts trauma may have on their minds and bodies. Yoga is a holistic practice that may address these negative effects in all 5 health domains. However, there are many inconsistencies and gaps in the literature regarding the use of yoga with youth who have experienced trauma. The purpose of this descriptive survey research study was to address these inconsistencies by describing the approaches of 56 practitioners who utilize yoga with youth who have experienced trauma, and their perceptions of how and why they use yoga with these youth. Findings highlighted the importance of implementing trauma-specific adaptations when facilitating yoga with youth who have experienced trauma, such as increasing participant autonomy, providing a safe environment, and developing a therapeutic rapport. Results also indicated that the most common use of yoga among these practitioners was to address emotional and physical needs of youth who have experienced trauma. Implications of study findings and opportunities for future research are discussed.
Downloads
Metrics
Authors contributing to the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Rights Granted After Publication
After publication, authors may reuse portions or the full article without obtaining formal permission for inclusion within their thesis or dissertation.
Permission for these reuses is granted on the following conditions:
- that full acknowledgement is made of the original publication stating the specific material reused [pages, figure numbers, etc.], [Title] by/edited by [Author/editor], [year of publication], reproduced by permission of International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies [link to IJCYFS website];
- In the case of joint-authored works, it is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission from co-authors for the work to be reuse/republished;
- that reuse on personal websites and institutional or subject-based repositories includes a link to the work as published in the International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies; and that the material is not distributed under any kind of Open Access style licences (e.g. Creative Commons) which may affect the Licence between the author and IJCYFS.