Welcome to the online companion site to The Whole Mother: Developing Awareness in Service of Postpartum Healing.
Science evolves. There’s no such thing as “settled science.” For this reason, it felt appropriate to post the research that informs this text in a living space, one that can be amended and updated as new research presents. Also—at over 330 pages, the book already ran ahead of publishing expectations! This site contains all the overflow that informs that work, but wasn’t necessary for its function.
Use the dropdown menu to find relevant research for each kosha. I recommend doing a search function of the page to take you directly to the information you seek.
Additionally, you’ll find the scales and sample scripts referenced in the text in this drop down menu.
Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about the information provided—I’m always happy to talk about yoga therapy, and best practices in this most sacred work.
Texts That Have Informed This Work
Below you’ll find a list of texts that I’ve found useful in the crafting of this work, and in my education in general. The list is certainly not representative of the many, many wonderful yoga therapy, women’s and mental health texts that are out there, but will hopefully serve as a jumping off point for your own exploration. And I do hope you will explore! This field is rich with wisdom, and it will serve you as teacher to be a continual student.
This text takes for granted that you, reader, will have experience with yoga as both a series of postures, as well as a healing modality, either as a therapeutic practitioner of yoga therapy, or as a yoga teacher or individual familiar with the benefits of the practice across the physical, breath, energetic, emotional, discernment and bliss realms. Therefore, rather than offer an in-depth explanation of yoga therapy and its philosophical and practical roots, I will instead recommend that you turn to such wonderful texts as that of my colleague Marlysa Sullivan’s Understanding Yoga Therapy. Sullivan and I share the same philosophical foundation, and so her work is an excellent starting place if you’re looking for a deeper dive to facilitate your reading of this text.
Additionally, I really enjoyed Cheri Dostal Ryba’s chapter on the philosophical foundations of yoga therapy in her beautiful 2022 book Pelvic Therapy for the Whole Woman—believe it or not, we came up with our titles totally independently! I’ll refer to her text frequently throughout my own, and consider it a kind of companion book to my own, and therefore suggest that you add it to your library. I love how succinctly, yet fully, Ryba describes the process of yoga therapy as one that “brings people home to themselves by creating a lifestyle that supports consciousness, compassion, and vitality. Embodied practice helps one listen and tend to the small signs of discomfort and dis-ease, as well as savor comfort and peace. This practice shifts our relationship to inevitable hardships and adversity, providing a container for integration to occur” (Ryba, p.45). Take this perspective with you forward as you enjoy the following chapters. As I remind you regularly in the book, practice the practices offered as it is your embodiment of the work—your experience of the hardships that arise, and the transcendence that is possible—that form the basis for your capacity to help your clients become integrated, healed whole mothers.
Recommended Texts
Man’s Search for Meaning (2006), Viktor Frankl
The First Forty Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother (2016), Heng Ou
Yoga and Science in Pain Care (2019), Edited by Neil Person, Shelly Prosko & Marlysa Sullivan
The Gift of Therapy (2002), Irvin Yalom
Yoga for Emotional Balance (2011), Bo Forbes
Yin Yoga and Mental Health (2022), Tracey Myers Sondik
Yoga For Times of Change (2022), Nina Zolotow
Yoga for Depression (2003), Amy Weintrau
Yoga as Medicine (2007), Timothy McCall
The Science of Yoga (2019), Ann Swanson
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers (2004), by Robert M. Sapolsky
Yoga for Pain Relief (2009), Kelly McGonigal
Back & Pelvic Girdle Pain in Pregnancy & Postpartum (2009), Deborah B. Riczo
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (2004), La Leche League
Pelvic Yoga Therapy for the Whole Woman: A Professional Guide (2022), Cheri Dostal Ryba
The Breathing Book (1996), Donna Farhi
Yoga Mind, Body and Spirit (2000), Donna Farhi
Teaching Yoga: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship (2006), Donna Farhi
Pelvic Liberation (2017), Leslie Howard
The Female Pelvis (2003), Blandine Calais-Germain
Breath (2020) James Nestor
Eastern Body, Western Mind (2004), Anodea Judith
Mudras for Healing and Transformation (2014), Joseph Le Page & Lilian Aboim
Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation (2000), John Welwood
The Upanishads (2007), Introduced & Translated by Eknath Easwaran