Page 74 - Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatments in Psychiatry

74 | Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatments in Psychiatry

found Kundalini yoga significantly effective for obsessive-
compulsive disorder (Shannahoff-Khalsa 1999).

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
The Justice Resource Institute, founded and run by renowned
trauma specialist Bessel van der Kolk, conducted a study looking
at the effects of yoga on various trauma survivors: rape
survivors, war veterans, and survivors of childhood physical and
sexual abuse, among others. Initial studies have revealed that
yoga is an effective intervention. Trauma survivors have
inherently “left their bodies” as a result of the trauma, and yoga
and other meditative therapies gently bring the survivors back
into embodied whole experience (Emerson 2009).

Yoga and Depression
Pilkington et al (Pilkington 2005) conducted a meta-analysis on
yoga as a treatment for depression in the UK. The authors found
5 random controlled trials which used a variety of yoga methods
for psychiatric symptoms ranging from mild to severe
depression. Overall, they found that yoga was effective.