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Yoga as an Intervention for PTSD: a Theoretical Rationale and Review of the Literature

  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (K Chard and T Geracioti, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Opinion statement

There is evidence to suggest that yoga may reduce PTSD symptoms. It is unclear at this point, however, whether or not yoga reduces PTSD symptoms any more than a non-specific intervention given inconsistent findings and methodological limitations. Nonetheless, additional research in this area is important because of the high level of interest in and acceptability of yoga. Ultimately, yoga may be most effective when taught using trauma-sensitive guidelines and within a framework that helps the practitioner to apply the experience to coping with symptoms.

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Notes

  1. The original article did not report if this was a significant difference, so we conducted a chi-square analysis and the difference in dropout between conditions was not significant, p = .35.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology and VA San Diego Healthcare System, 3350 La Jolla Village Dr, San Diego, CA, 92161, USA

    Stephanie Y. Wells BA

  2. VA Center of Excellence for Stress and Mental Health and UCSD Department of Psychiatry, 9500 Gilman Dr. (MC 0855), La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA

    Ariel J. Lang PhD, MPH

  3. UCSD Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, 9500 Gilman Dr. #0994, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA

    Laura Schmalzl PhD & Erik J. Groessl PhD

  4. Mental Health Services, Department of Veterans Affairs; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Duke University Medical Center, VISN6 MIRECC, Durham VA Medical Center, Bldg 15, 508 Fulton Street, Durham, NC, 27705, USA

    Jennifer L. Strauss PhD

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Correspondence to Stephanie Y. Wells BA.

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Stephanie Y. Wells, Ariel J. Lang, Laura Schmalzl, Erik J. Groessl, and Jennifer Strauss declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article contains one referenced article by co-author Dr. Groessl that included human subjects. All participants provided informed consent and the research was approved by the institutional review board.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Post-traumatic Stress Disorders

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Wells, S.Y., Lang, A.J., Schmalzl, L. et al. Yoga as an Intervention for PTSD: a Theoretical Rationale and Review of the Literature. Curr Treat Options Psych 3, 60–72 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40501-016-0068-7

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