Yoga therapy treats mind and body

Contra Costa Times (MCT) - Four years ago, Jessica Soske of Berkeley, Calif., was diagnosed with a rare neuro-endocrine disease that affects the use of her muscles. She had a tough time coping and coming to terms with her body's changes. Soske, a former attorney, tends to get stuck in her analytical mind, so traditional psychotherapy didn't help, she says.

A devotee of meditation, Soske decided to try a form of yoga therapy called Phoenix Rising, which combines assisted restorative postures with breath work and dialogue. She got results.

"I was able to tap into a great deal of grief over losing the functionality of my body," Soske says. "I realized it felt like a stranger to me, and I had deep feelings about the changes. This helped break those loose for me."

Yoga therapy has long been used as effective rehabilitation for injury and disease. And other body-oriented therapies such as the Rosen method use touch to promote healing. But the psychology-oriented Phoenix Rising, which was developed in 1986 by Michael Lee, a Vermont holistic health educator, is gaining steam for its ability to promote physical, emotional and mental awareness and transformation.

Today, there are about 1,000 Phoenix Rising practitioners, and many come to the practice from physical therapy, massage therapy and psychotherapy. Practitioners and clients agree that while Phoenix Rising cannot replace psychotherapy, it functions in much the same way. Someone is bearing witness to your experience. They're just not drilling you for answers. Also, many people go through the training process not to teach but to increase their mind-body awareness, says Elissa Cobb, program director for Phoenix Rising and author of "The Forgotten Body" (Satya House, $21).

Dennis Crean of Redwood Valley, Calif., has been a student of yoga and meditation for 15 years. For him, Phoenix Rising marries the two. Crean first experienced Phoenix Rising 10 years ago while living in Berkeley, Calif. In one session with his San Francisco practitioner, Achalan Gene Barnett, Crean experienced anger when stretching his hip. So Barnett, a practitioner of 14 years with a yoga background, encouraged him to talk about it.

The body stores memories, and stretching to an edge that is slightly uncomfortable can cause issues to surface, says Lisa Gray, a Livermore, Calif., marriage and family therapist. According to Achalan, Crean was able to gain clarity and make decisions based on a deeper level of knowing. Crean, who has also done psychotherapy, believes it empowered him to do his own therapy.

"Phoenix Rising improves my awareness of the relationship between my body, mind and emotions," he says. "It takes you out of your head. It helps you access feelings through the body instead of through talking and analyzing."

Gray, who is near completion of her Phoenix Rising certificate, likens it to asking the body its opinion. "As a therapist, I like the idea of getting the body involved to see if it's giving you a message you could use in the person's therapy."

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Gray thinks the modality is particularly helpful to clients who suffer from diseases that are exacerbated by stress, such as fibromyalgia.

"Your body's been with you through every experience you've ever had and it stores memory in its cells," she explains. "They just weren't at the top of your conscious memory."

The most common postures Gray utilizes are those in the first, second and fifth chakras _ opening postures such as pigeon, locust and camel _ because they can help one access issues related to upbringing, relationships and expression, respectively.

Boundaries are a big issue when it comes to Phoenix Rising. While assisting someone in a posture, the practitioner also repeats what the client says to subtly encourage him or her to dig deeper. Those familiar with traditional therapy would most likely find this annoying or condescending at first, Gray says.

Marjie Chaset, an Oakland, Calif., marriage and family therapist of five years, rarely uses her Phoenix Rising training on her clients. "Touch is very taboo in psychotherapy," Chaset says. "It is quite uncomfortable for some and provocative and complex for others."

But for Soske, the former attorney, Phoenix Rising transformed her relationship with her disease _ and her body _ in every way. "It put me in an altered state," she says. "And it was blissful."

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A SAMPLE SESSION

I wasn't sure what to expect from Phoenix Rising. I've done yoga for eight years and am also familiar with therapy, so marrying the two sounded intriguing. My practitioner, Lisa Gray, was a licensed marriage and family therapist. For some reason, this put me at ease.

Lisa had me fill out a consent form and then asked me to sit in lotus and focus on the state of my mind, body and soul. While Phoenix Rising is goal-oriented, I had an idea of what I wanted to work on in the session. And, since emotions come up as you move from posture to posture, it's better to be prepared. That way, you're less likely to put up a wall and more likely to cope.

I kept my eyes closed the whole time as Lisa assisted me into dolphin, fish and camel. She selected these because they are throat- and chest-opening exercises. A lifelong history of stress-induced asthma and chronic coughing compromises my midback, so I'm one of those people who's always trying to crack my back. And, for some reason, I've always associated that back pain _ and my asthma _ with sadness.

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As Lisa probably anticipated, this sadness was triggered during our session. During each posture, she'd ask me how I felt and I would tell her. My responses were very simple _ "Happy," "Open," "Free," _ but only after I'd uttered them and Lisa repeated me did I realize their profundity.

Going into Phoenix Rising with a certain level of mind-body awareness will increase the benefits of this kind of therapy. Also, those who feel too "on the spot" in traditional talk therapy will feel less vulnerable in Phoenix Rising because not only can they close their eyes, but someone is supporting them _ literally, in some postures _ most of the time.

_ Jessica Yadegaran

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© 2008, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.).