Viniyoga® at the Veteran’s Hospital

with Anita Claney, Healing Yoga Arizona Tucson, Arizona, USA

Anita Claney, MS, is a Viniyoga® therapist working in private practice and, since 2009, has worked in the inpatient Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) program at the Southern Arizona Veteran's Administration Health Care System's (SAVHCS) main hospital. She works with the psychological team to provide yoga therapy as a complementary healing modality for veterans and active duty military undergoing intensive treatment for PTSD.

She was introduced to yoga as a complementary healing modality when she began practicing yoga to seek relief from chronic health issues. In 1998 she became a serious student of yoga, its philosophical origins, and associated texts. In 2005 she travelled to India where she began studying with her current teacher, Menaka Desikachar, who is a senior therapy consultant at the world famous yoga therapy clinic, the Krishnamacharya Healing and Yoga Foundation (KHYF). She completed her Viniyoga® Training with TKV Desikachar & Dr. Kausthub Desikachar in 2010 in the US.

Here she shares her experience of offering Vinyioga® at the Veteran’s Hospital.

1) What brought you to Viniyoga in the first place?

I began practicing yoga in the 90s to help with some chronic health issues and, because of those challenges, had always had a personal practice. Over time, I heard about the Desikachar family and their emphasis on personal healing practices, so I signed up for a workshop in Tucson given by Kausthub Desikachar in 2003 not really knowing what to expect from his teaching, just curious. I was so impressed by his depth of knowledge, and was shocked at how the practices he gave during the workshop made me feel- relief from pain, anxiety, improved sleep, and so quickly! Because of this experience with Kausthub, I travelled to India in January 2004 with a small group to attend a one-month workshop and met Mrs Desikachar, who became my teacher. I came home from India with a practice that within a year had improved my health and increased my vitality such that I was off most of my medications and felt better than I had in 20 years. This, along with the support from Kausthub and his mother, inspired me to enroll in the first yoga therapy training offered by Kausthub and his father, TKV Desikachar in 2007.

2) How did your work of teaching Viniyoga at the hospital manifest?

In early 2009, I was asked to work as volunteer teaching yoga to war veterans at the Southern Arizona Veterans Administration main hospital in Tucson, Arizona. The program was an in-patient program, one month in length, and kept at no more than 6 or 7 veterans and active duty military ranging from the Vietnam War to current service in Afghanistan. It was called the Evaluation and Brief Treatment of PTSD Unit (EBTPU). We were a poly trauma unit, meaning that many participants had the PTSD diagnosis and also had been physically wounded during active duty. Over an 8-year period, I went from being a volunteer, to being paid by Volunteer Services and then was awarded a 5-year contract to provide yoga therapy services 2-3 times per week during the month-long program. We ran 12 programs per year.

3) How do you find the acceptance of Viniyoga by the medical professionals at the hospital?

I was very fortunate because my original supervisor, Dr Baehr practiced yoga and meditation, understood the positive benefits, and was the driving force behind adding me to the program. His successor Dr. Heinecke was also incredibly supportive of the work and required that the vets attend my classes. They viewed the work as an effective, synergistic support to the therapy they were providing. Both doctors, clinical psychologists, headed up the EBTPU. Dr. Heinecke conducted a study that revealed that outcomes were statistically significantly more positive when yoga therapy was included in the program. This was a private hospital study and is confidential to the VA.

4) How has Viniyoga helped your patients in their healing process?

During my time at the VA hospital, the main benefit that I noted from observation and evaluation forms filled out at the end of each program was a result of pranayama. I would teach the group 10-12 times each month and the constant repetition, reinforcement and progressive teaching allowed the Veterans to experience lowered anxiety, some pain relief and improved sleep. The training I received during the yoga therapy course prepared me for modifying techniques and sequencing pranayama for highly traumatized veterans.

5) What challenges have you faced in bringing Viniyoga to the medical setting?

The EBPTU program closed in 2016, Dr. Heinecke moved to another VA hospital across the country, and the new program did not have the managerial support to provide yoga therapy services. My attempts to educate the new management and present what had been accomplished in previous years fell on “deaf ears.” Eventually the new contract award went to a sports fitness company operating out of another city. Also, I felt that the VA, a huge nationwide bureaucracy, was looking for a program that could be standardized and replicated with ease. What Dr Heinecke appreciated and understood was the ability of viniyoga to meet the individual wherever they were in their healing process and modify practices each month according to the capacity of the group. In fact, Dr. Heinecke contacted me from Florida where he was working and asked me to send some simple breathing practices to include in his work. I think the primary point of entry into a medical setting is more easily facilitated when the managers/decision makers have had personal experience or heard from reliable trusted sources about the benefits of yoga.

6) How do you see the role of Viniyoga in the future of Viniyoga Therapy in the world?

Based upon my work at the VA, and my private yoga therapy practice where I see a variety of students with many different challenges- cancer, orthopedic, auto-immune, trauma, there is tremendous potential for Viniyoga to increase the acceptance and practice of yoga as a complementary healing modality. People are looking for help with chronic issues such as sleep, anxiety, pain, and autoimmune illnesses. Viniyoga has given me the tools to help my students become self-empowered, responsible for their health and well-being. To end on a positive note, I was recently contacted by the Human Resources manager from one of our fire district offices asking for a proposal to offer yoga therapy services to their fire fighters. Step by step our excellent work has the potential to help so many people facing increasing challenges in their daily lives.

Anita Claney a can be reached at anita@healingyogaarizona.com