Yoga as a mental health intervention

: how has it been integrated into healthcare contexts within the UK?

Abstract

Section A
Background: Yoga has been identified as a potentially effective complementary intervention for a variety of mental health conditions. There has been a lack of research on yoga interventions conducted in the UK, which may have impacted whether it is being offered or accepted by the National Health Service (NHS) as a healthcare intervention. This scoping review aimed to explore whether the NHS is offering yoga as a healthcare intervention, in what ways and for whom.
Method: A systematic search of published (ASSIA, BEI, MEDLINE, PSYCINFO, PTSD PUBS, Web of Science) and grey literature (Google) was conducted. Quality appraisal tools were applied and directed content analysis was utilised to synthesise the literature.
Results: Evidence in this review included articles/essays (n=4), blogs (n=4), news articles (n=5), policies and procedures (n=2), professional/trade magazines (n=4), reports (n=4), research studies (n=5), research summaries (n=3), service evaluations (n=2), and websites (n=15). The findings established that there is an appetite for yoga to be offered as a healthcare intervention in the NHS, promoted by healthcare professionals and wider influences. The NHS is offering yoga through social prescription, healthcare professional-led integrated interventions, and evidence-based interventions. UK-published studies provided mixed evidence for yoga as an intervention within social prescription, cancer and primary mental health care, and older people.
Implications: The UK needs to contribute to the evidence-base that can inform policy and guidelines and focus on robust methodologies such as controlled experimental designs.

Section B
Background: Yoga has gained interest as a complementary treatment to talking therapy for a variety of mental health difficulties. Within the UK, there are integrative training programs for talking therapists, however, little is known about how talking therapists integrate talking therapy and yoga in their clinical practice. This study aimed to produce an abbreviated grounded theory of how UK talking therapists who had received yoga training integrated these two approaches within their clinical practice.
Method: Thirteen clinicians were interviewed.
Results: The analysis resulted in the identification of macro and micro contexts (wider culture, organisation, therapist and client) that provided conditions (society’s assumptions about yoga, national healthcare guidance, professional training, flexibility within the system, lived experience of yoga, relationship to integrative practice and the mind body-connection and client receptiveness) that facilitated the opportunity for the process of integration to occur. The process of integration within the therapy room consisted of a flow between attunement, formulation, decision making and invitation. The consequences of this process fed back into the conditional contexts and developed integrative practice as a result.
Implications: This abbreviated grounded theory can provide insight into and understanding of how to integrate for clinicians who wish to integrate yoga into their talking therapy to enhance psychological treatments. It also highlights the existence of contextual conditions and tensions that influence how yoga is integrated into UK healthcare provisions that aim to treat psychological difficulties.

Date of Award	2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Canterbury Christ Church University