Applying Therapeutic Yoga in Integrative Health

Discover Yoga as a Full-Spectrum Path to Well-Being

Applying Therapeutic Yoga in Integrative Health offers a grounded exploration of how therapeutic yoga can support physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, rooted in traditional wisdom and informed by modern science.

This book brings together decades of clinical, educational, and scholarly experience. It is designed for readers who want to understand yoga as more than posture: as a whole-person system that can inform integrative care, professional practice, education, and personal well-being.

Inside the Book

Five interconnected themes carry the reader from classical yoga philosophy into contemporary therapeutic and integrative health practice.

ॐ

Patañjali’s Eight-Limb Path

A living framework for regulation, discernment, relationship, attention, and healing.

⌁

Nervous System Regulation

How posture, breath, attention, and meditation influence resilience and autonomic balance.

◉

Whole-Person Health

Yoga as a system supporting body, mind, emotion, meaning, connection, and spirit.

↔

Science Meets Tradition

Traditional yogic models placed in dialogue with modern research and clinical evidence.

✦

Clinical Application

Practical guidance for individualized, trauma-sensitive, ethical, and integrative care.

Who This Book Is For

⚕

Clinicians Health professionals exploring complementary and integrative approaches.

◌

Yoga Therapists Practitioners seeking deeper theoretical, physiological, and clinical foundations.

▤

Educators Faculty and trainers teaching yoga therapy, integrative health, and whole-person care.

⌂

Healthcare Systems Programs considering thoughtful ways to integrate yoga into patient-centered care.

∞

Yoga Teachers Teachers ready to move beyond asana into the fuller therapeutic potential of yoga.

Why This Book Matters

Too often, yoga in Western settings is reduced to physical posture or general wellness. This book offers a broader view: yoga as a structured, time-tested system for working with body, breath, mind, behavior, relationship, attention, and meaning.

By grounding therapeutic application in the eight-limb path while also explaining relevant physiology and clinical principles, the book helps readers understand not only what yoga practices may be useful, but why and how they may support health and well-being.

Amy Wheeler: Experience Across Yoga Therapy, Higher Education & Professional Leadership

The book reflects decades of work at the intersection of clinical yoga therapy, university education, professional standards, curriculum development, and integrative health.

Notre Dame of Maryland University

Chair, Yoga Therapy & Ayurveda Department
School of Integrative Health

C-IAYT

Certified Yoga Therapist
International Association of Yoga Therapists

IAYT

Past President & Board Chair
International Association of Yoga Therapists

25 Years in Higher Education

Professor of Kinesiology
California State University, San Bernardino

About The Authors

Amy Wheeler, PhD, C-IAYT

Chair, Yoga Therapy & Ayurveda Department · Notre Dame of Maryland University

Amy Wheeler, PhD, C-IAYT, is Chair of the Yoga Therapy and Ayurveda Department at Notre Dame of Maryland University. She is a yoga therapist, educator, author, and researcher with more than three decades of experience in yoga, health promotion, and higher education.

Dr. Wheeler earned her PhD in Educational Psychology and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Health Promotion. She completed extensive studies in the tradition of T. Krishnamacharya and T.K.V. Desikachar and is a Certified Yoga Therapist through the International Association of Yoga Therapists. Before joining Notre Dame of Maryland University, she served for 25 years as a professor at California State University, San Bernardino.

Dr. Wheeler is a former President of the International Association of Yoga Therapists Board of Directors and continues to support the development of educational standards, accreditation, and professional recognition for the field of yoga therapy. Her work focuses on applying yoga therapy within integrative healthcare, higher education, and whole-person models of health.

She is the co-author, with Dr. Marlysa Sullivan, of Applying Therapeutic Yoga in Integrative Health, published by Routledge. She is also the founder of Optimal State and host of The Yoga Therapy Hour podcast, where she explores the clinical, philosophical, and practical foundations of yoga therapy with leading educators, researchers, and healthcare professionals.

Marlysa Sullivan, PT, C-IAYT

Physiotherapist & Yoga Therapist · Physical Therapy Coordinator, Empowered Veterans Program

Dr. Marlysa Sullivan is a physiotherapist and yoga therapist with over 15 years of experience. Marlysa balances clinical research and practice with education, speaking and writing.

She is the Physical Therapy Coordinator of the Empowered Veterans Program at the VA. This is a comprehensive pain care program that integrates whole health coaching, psychotherapy, and mindful movement with a chaplain, psychotherapist and physical therapist. She trains physical therapists as well as offers the mindful movement component integrating therapeutic pain education, mindfulness, acceptance and commitment therapeutic principles with movement practices.

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