The MTY focus on body awareness, breath awareness and spinal neutral through the yoga couch provides a powerful platform to address each individual through a biopsychosocial lens, while also creating a communal experience through the class offering. It allows me to bring what could be offered on a table to the mat, allowing it to be more affordable and more accessible. Individuals will be able to take parts of the practice home with them and continue independently through the postures, which creates autonomy outside of the class.

MTY supports my practice as an MFR therapist. It provides me with additional tools to create independence for my patients and gives them tools to promote balance & wellness in their real life.

What I’m able to offer to my fellow women and mothers is an offering that addresses their whole body and provides real health care in an affordable and accessible way.

Dr. Lindsay Hammersmith PT, DPT

In the outpatient orthopedic physical therapy setting, I have been able to witness the successes of MTY in two different models.

The first is through 1-on-1 hour-long appointments. In these sessions, the patient is encouraged to take control of their health & well-being through supportive & collaborative communication & planning. Evidence-based practice from physical therapy & MTY are combined to give the patient the most beneficial care. Together we tailor a plan to their specific needs that provides instruction & education on best movement patterns based on their medical history while honoring the five dimensions of the biopsychosocial wheel. 

The second is group classes, taught by a PYTI® (now Living Well Institute) trained PT who takes into account the participant’s specific condition(s) and can adjust and adapt the program on the fly.

Witnessing how the biopsychosocial MTY model can have such an impact on people re-energizes me as a practitioner and I am excited to see what lies ahead.

Using this model will improve our role as medical managers, helping patients navigate their way through the healthcare system.

When we work from a central space of empathy, knowledge, and compassion, we influence the wellbeing of the whole self, which is the only way we can make lasting changes.

DR. RACHEL GORMAN PT, DPT

With my training in Medical Therapeutic Yoga (MTY), I have found my professional missing link. Ginger Garner has taken the art and philosophy of yoga and looked at it through the eyes of of medical research to discern what is safe and beneficial or what is likely to cause injury. She teaches Professional Yoga Therapists to focus on stabilization of the body and protection of the spine and joints, and she uses yoga poses to create the most functional strengthening framework that I’ve seen as a PT.

MTY incorporates the ancient Ayurvedic principles around treating the whole person- building strength, teaching breathing as a tool for regulating the emotions and the nervous system, emphasizing the importance of non-violence towards others and looking at what constitutes violence in thought, word, or deed towards yourself, and knowing that food has a profound affect on health.

In Medical Therapeutic Yoga, I have a framework for helping patients learn what it feels like to have control and stability in their body- there is so much that is empowering in that feeling.

Hallie Sikes, PT

The use of Medical Therapeutic Yoga (MTY) has transformed my physical therapy practice by emphasizing the use of education, self-awareness, and self-empowerment with my patients, thereby enabling them to become partners in their own healing.

I am energized by the positive changes in my patients since integrating MTY into my practice. Patient visits now include handouts on anti-inflammatory diet and the neuro-biology of pain as a standard part of preliminary evaluation. Respiratory assessment and the Functional Movement Assessment (FMA) algorithm are the foundation of initial examination. Patients report improved pain control, relaxation, and often curiosity about expanding their own meditative practices after instruction in deep abdomino-diaphragmatic breath work.

The FMA has streamlined my evaluations and documentation, and allowed me more time to listen to patients and to explore any and all aspects of their lives that may be hindering their recovery. By enlisting patients as partners in their total care, I feel less responsible to “fix” them.

This realization has freed me to use and teach the holistic MTY principles and empower my clients to apply safe, evidence-based and individually-prescribed yoga practices as they continue to heal themselves and pursue their own life missions.

Dr. Betty Conroy, PT

Let’s take a patient to use as an example of how I utilize MTY as a PT. This patient is a mother of two, who has been experiencing severe low back pain (LBP) & radicular symptoms for eight months. She took the traditional medical route of seeing her physician, who prescribed PT. Subsequently she completed six months of traditional physical therapy at another clinic.  Her treatment was not providing her with relief. She also sought out massage therapy, dry needling, acupuncture, had an MRI, and desperately resorted to an epidural steroid injection.  The patient reported no change in her symptoms, and maybe even some worsening of her symptoms following the epidural. 

In just two visits, her pain has been reduced in half and she is seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Her mood & her overall energy has been elevated. She loves the home program which she is diligently completing. I have no doubt that she is on her way to a full recovery. She may shine her light once again and be the mother, wife, friend, and daughter she strives to be.

Dr. Rachel Witmer pT, DPT

MTY synergizes with the current, mainstream practice of PT. It builds on a solid framework to evaluate & treat movement issues using standardized assessments & evidence based treatment approaches. But MTY doesn’t stop there. MTY empowers therapists to look beyond the body part, using more holistic approaches by delving into all 5 areas of the human being using the BPS model of care.  MTY doesn’t just say, “Use more holistic treatment approaches.” PYTI® provides the specialized training & evidence based education to empower the students to be aware of things like the diet-inflammation connection, PTSD considerations in therapy, social and cultural limitations, etc.   

MTY sets a reproducible model for a BPS based practice and sets the stage for us to leave behind the dominant model of disease, the biomedical model, which “leaves no room within its framework for the social, psychological, and behavioral dimensions of illness.” (Engel)

Wendy Driscoll, PT