Careers in Yoga Therapy
Thursday, May 21st, 2026 | 10:30am - 12:30pm PT, 6.30 - 8.30pm UK time
Careers in Yoga Therapy marks a new collaboration between The Minded Institute and Essential Yoga Therapy. As yoga therapy continues to be integrated across healthcare, rehabilitation, education, and community settings, the field is evolving in both scope and depth.
In response, Heather Mason and Robin Rothenberg have come together to curate an ongoing panel series highlighting the work of practitioners who are actively shaping the profession. The series begins with an inaugural panel exploring how yoga therapists are building meaningful, sustainable careers in the field.
Both educational leaders are curating this series for a number of reasons:
To offer insight into how practitioners are successfully integrating into existing systems, creating opportunities, and building sustainable pathways for their work
To highlight the growing integration of yoga therapy into various settings, and to critically explore what is working, what is not, and where the field is developing
To create a sense of lived community, where what can often feel like a disparate and fragmented influence is brought into a shared and ongoing conversation beyond conference spaces
To provide current yoga therapy trainees, and those interested in training, with a clearer sense of what a future career in yoga therapy can look like in practice
To hear grounded accounts of how yoga therapy is contributing to change at both individual and institutional levels
Great ideas often come from necessity. In Minded’s 2024 cohort, Claire Page, in conjunction with Vikki Passe and Lisa Chapman, proposed the idea of a panel of Minded Yoga therapists to achieve the above aims. The result was highly productive, generating meaningful discussion, reflection, and a clearer sense of where the field currently stands and where it may be heading. As a result, The Minded Institute and Essential Yoga Therapy are taking this initial initiative and expanding it outward, with the intention of growing it more broadly, and potentially globally, as it develops.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Six yoga therapists working across a range of sectors will come together to share how they entered the field, how their work has developed, and what they are building now in practice. Guided by Heather Mason and Robin Rothenberg, the discussion will explore the realities of working as a yoga therapist today, alongside where the profession may be heading.
There will also be space for direct questions and engagement from those attending live.
Heather Mason MA, MA, MSc, 500-YT, C-IAYT is an educator, innovator, policy advocate, and thought leader in yoga therapy, renowned for her work in integrative mind–body mental health. She is the founder and course director of The Minded Institute, founding trustee of the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance, played a central role in establishing of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Yoga in Society where she served as the Secretariat.
This event will be recorded, but live participation is strongly encouraged to foster community and ask direct questions to panelists.
Those who attend live are also eligible to join our Careers in Yoga Therapy Professional Network listing, a living and evolving document shared across both organisations’ platforms. Participants will be able to include their name and a short description of their work, contributing to a visible and growing picture of the field. This is designed to support connection, recognition, and a clearer sense of who is doing what across yoga therapy. We see this as one way to ensure that those entering the field, or early in their careers, are not working in isolation but are part of something ongoing and visible.
Robin Rothenberg, C-IAYT, is the Founder and Program Director of Essential Yoga Therapy and was the President of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) and continues to serve the board. Her text Restoring Prana: A Guide to Pranayama and Healing Through the Breath, presciently released in early 2020, has been hailed as one of the most thorough and well-researched books on the topic of pranayama.