Arielle Schwartz – Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery Certificate

Expand your practice and empower deep healing with the only trauma-informed yoga certificate designed for mental health professionals.

Inside this yoga for clinicians certificate course, you’ll learn how to:

• Confidently introduce trauma-informed yoga therapy into sessions—with clear guidance on informed consent, boundaries, and trauma sensitivity
• Increase clients’ body awareness and emotional regulation with no-touch somatic tools
• Support nervous system balance with polyvagal-informed breathing, movement and postures
• Structure start-to-finish therapeutic yoga sessions that target each client’s unique goals
• Integrate techniques from parts work, EMDR, and more

What you’ll learn in Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery Certificate

Part 1: Foundational Skills

• Module 1 — Treating Trauma Through the Body
• Discover how somatic psychology reframes trauma as something the body can both carry and release.
• Key Takeaways
  • View trauma on a continuum so you can treat the whole story
  • Zero in on deep-rooted attachment wounds from childhood and developmental trauma
  • Expand your lens to work with legacy burdens and intergenerational trauma
  • Understand the impact of cultural, systemic, and ancestral weight in collective trauma and collective memory
  • Tailor your approach to PTSD, C-PTSD, and dissociative symptoms
• Demonstrations & Experiential Exercises
  • What awakens you, Playing with Stillness, Your Resiliency Factors, Prayer hands, Grounding blanket
• Module 2 — The Integration of Clinical Trauma Recovery Models & Yoga
• See how the 8 limbs of yoga align with phase-based trauma recovery for safe, structured healing.
• Key Takeaways
  • Get grounded in a phase-based approach to trauma recovery
  • Explore the 8 limbs of yoga through a trauma-informed lens
  • Assess clients’ self-relationship with the Watts Connectedness Scale
  • Hold ‘sacred’ space for your clients’ sense of meaning—without crossing into religious territory
  • Harness mindfulness to help clients shift from reactivity to regulation
  • Understand trauma as a value-based search for meaning and learn how to help clients rewrite their narratives with depth, dignity, and purpose
• Demonstrations & Experiential Exercises
  • Integrating Values into Daily Life
• Module 3 — Somatic Therapy, Polyvagal Theory, and Interpersonal Neurobiology for Trauma Treatment
• Learn to read the nervous system in real time and guide clients toward safety and connection.
• Key Takeaways & Skill Acquisition
  • Polyvagal theory to help clients navigate between states of activation and rest
  • Learn how to co-regulate effectively
  • Tune into subtle cues around boundaries so you can adjust your presence and pacing
  • Turn therapeutic ruptures into moments of growth and reconnection
  • Use compassion-based practices that help clients move through internal blocks
• Demonstrations & Experiential Exercises
  • Co-Regulation, 4 Embodied Self-Compassion practices, 5-point check-in for starting session, Shy Blanket, Proximity Awareness

Part 2: Clinical Application

• Module 4 — Neuroplasticity & Natural Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Trauma Recovery
• Rewire the nervous system and build resilience with breathwork, movement, and Polyvagal-informed practices.
• Key Takeaways
  • Understand how to harness neuroplasticity to create change
  • Work with heart rate variability (HRV) as a marker of regulation and resilience
  • Support clients’ in building a more flexible, responsible nervous system through vagal tone
  • Create relational safety with client-centered practices from Deb Dana’s polyvagal work
• Demonstrations & Experiential exercises:
  • Gratitude, Balanced Breathing, Humming
• Module 5 — Integrate Mindful Movement and Stillness in Trauma-Informed Yoga
• Master trauma-sensitive yoga, posture, and movement to activate safety, release tension, and rebuild nervous system resilience.
• Key Takeaways
  • Explore how gentle myofascial release can unlock stored emotions
  • Use bilateral movements to enhance brain integration
  • Introduce dual awareness practices that bridge inner and outer experience
  • Restore stability with spinal movements, seated grounding, and power poses
  • Support vestibular integration with wall presses and balance-based exercises to
  • Promote reflex integration and reset the body’s natural rhythms with rhythmic motions like cat-cow, twists, and rocking
  • Offer deeply calming restorative yoga poses allowing for nervous system repair
• Demonstrations & Experiential exercises
  • Wall Press & Boundary Awareness, Reflex Integration for nervous system health, Settling into stillness, Restorative Stillness

Part 3: Yoga Therapy in Practice

• Module 6 — Start-to-Finish Structuring of Trauma-Informed Yoga Sessions
• Design inclusive, trauma-sensitive yoga sessions that expand regulation and connection for clients of all abilities.
• Key Takeaways
  • Adapt your approach for clients with a range of abilities, backgrounds, and histories
  • Master the art of using invitational language instead of commands
  • Know how to respond to emotional overwhelm with grounding and support
  • Use somatic movement to help clients expand their ability to experience and regulate emotional states
  • Apply parts work on the yoga mat to help clients navigate inner conflict
  • Demonstrations & Experiential exercises:
  • Build Affect and Sensation Tolerance, Working with Somatic Tension, Mindful Movement, Finding your voice
• Module 7 — Practical Considerations When Doing Trauma-Informed Yoga
• Gain confidence integrating trauma-informed yoga with safe, ethical, adaptable session design ‐ in person or telehealth.
• Key Takeaways
  • Set up your virtual or in-person office that supports relaxation, openness, and body awareness
  • Feel confident with informed consent
  • Use screen tools effectively to ensure clients are safe to participate
  • Set and maintain clear boundaries, especially around physical touch
  • Create clear documentation that collaborative care teams can understand
  • Set clear goals and intentions for each therapeutic yoga session
• Module 8 — In-Session Demonstrations of Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery
  • Sit alongside Dr. Schwartz as she guides you through three yoga-therapy sessions with differing clients. You’ll see how to navigate common and uncommon challenges to doing therapeutic yoga both online and in-office.

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