The CYTR Vision
The Center for Yoga and Trauma Recovery seeks to contribute to a world where both learning and healing are embodied and all yoga is trauma-informed, through our Yoga for Trauma Online Training Program.
Through the Yoga for Trauma (Y4T™) training program, students become more confident in teaching yoga to survivors of trauma (in mental health clinics, schools, jails, refugee camps, rehab centers, etc.) or bringing movement and somatic yoga-based skills into private mental health practice. Before the training program, they sense that yoga works well for their people, and the yoga for trauma training helps them understand or explain the science and mechanisms behind why yoga works well for those recovering from trauma.
Throughout the 8 week Y4T™ program, students become more confident in understanding how to bring yoga to trauma survivors. In the training, our founder Lisa teaches how trauma theory and yoga philosophy connect and gives specific skills to practice with those recovering from trauma.
The CYTR Mission
Our mission is to train and support yoga teachers and mental health professionals providing trauma-informed care.
About the Founder
Lisa Danylchuk, LMFT, E-RYT is an author, licensed psychotherapist, and founder of the Center for Yoga and Trauma Recovery and creator of the Yoga for Trauma program.
A graduate of UCLA and Harvard University, her work has pioneered the field of trauma-informed yoga and transformed our understanding of embodiment practices in therapeutic work. More than 300 providers from 25+ countries have completed Lisa’s Yoga for Trauma (Y4T) Online Training Program, the first virtual program to train providers offering yoga for trauma recovery. She serves on the Board and as UN Committee Co-Chair for the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, was elected to the role of Secretary in 2018 and was nominated President-Elect in 2020.
She’s written for publications like Good Therapy and the American Psychological Association and was named one of the top 20 Inspirational Yoga Teachers To Follow in 2016. Honored as Luluemon’s first California ambassador, her website www.howwecanheal.com has also been recognized as a Top 25 Yoga Blog.
Lisa's books include Embodied Healing: Using Yoga to Recover from Trauma and Extreme Stress (2015), How You Can Heal: A Strength Based Guide to Trauma Recovery (2017), and Yoga for Trauma Recovery: Theory, Philosophy, and Practice (2019). She is a also contributing editor for the Best Practices for Yoga for Veterans, published by the Yoga Service Council.
Fun facts:
Lisa is a huge nature lover and is out climbing mountains most weekends in the San Francisco Bay Area.
If she had to live on one food it would be burritos from Pancho Villa.
She's obsessed with her dog Iris, who is part of the training program!
When she’s not writing or traveling, you’ll likely find her running trails in nearby parks or frequenting the local taqueria.