On Demand Seminar: Foundational and Philosophical Roots in Yoga and Psychoanalysis

Description

About This Seminar

Yoga and psychoanalysis are two methods—one ancient, one modern—for understanding how a human being develops, stays the same and changes. Although both have changed enormously in how they are practised, specialists in each field continue to draw on the core principles established in their foundational texts.

Reaching these principles usually requires a guide: the language, sources and historical context are not something most people are ever handed access to. Across two sessions, Dr Lisa Kaley-Isley makes this knowledge accessible and explores how it continues to underpin methods used today in yoga therapy and psychotherapy.

Yoga and psychotherapy both have theory and practice. Practice puts into action what theory seeks to explain, and understanding both, along with the relationship between them, deepens our ability to apply either with purpose. While Western teaching often emphasises practice over theory, these sessions emphasise theory in order to strengthen practice.

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Seminar Details

Teacher: Lisa Kaley-Isley, PhD, E-RYT-500, C-IAYT, MSc

Session One: Wednesday, 23 September 2026, 18:30–20:00 UK time

Session Two: Wednesday, 7 October 2026, 18:30–20:00 UK time

The sessions are sold as a pair and cannot be purchased separately.

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Session One: Yoga Philosophy and Psychology

The first session builds the yogic foundation. Drawing on the Vedas, Upaniṣads, Yoga Sūtras and Bhagavad Gītā, Lisa introduces core concepts, including karma, saṃskāra, vāsanā, dharma, and Puruṣa and Prakṛti, as ways of thinking about perception, conditioning, suffering, agency and change.

The session explores:

• Key concepts for understanding our relationship to the world, suffering and its relief
• How patterns form, persist and change
• How yogic understandings can build agency and reduce obstacles, both for ourselves and in therapeutic work with clients
• Life stages and the existential questions that accompany them
• Foundational material from the Rig Veda, Upaniṣads, Yoga Sūtras and Bhagavad Gītā

Session Two: Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

The second session turns to Freud’s foundational psychoanalytic theory, including drives, defences, repetition compulsion, the pleasure and reality principles, transference, and the topographical and structural models of mind.

Rather than teaching this as a separate system, Lisa continually refers back to the yogic concepts introduced in session one. The comparison reveals where yoga and psychoanalysis describe similar ground in different language and where they genuinely diverge.

The session explores:

• Drives, defences and the topographical and structural models of the mind
• Transference, repetition compulsion, and the reality and pleasure principles
• Body-based stages of development
• Making the unconscious conscious, self-revelation and working with defences
• Intrapsychic and interpersonal development across the life stages
• Freud’s ideas alongside the yogic framework established in session one

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What You’ll Gain

• A starting point if these ideas are new to you, or a deeper and more applied understanding if you already have some grounding in them
• A clearer sense of the concepts underlying both yoga practice and the psychotherapies that came after it
• An understanding of where yoga and psychoanalysis share observations about the human condition and where their frameworks differ

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Who Is This Seminar For?

Anyone curious about these questions is welcome.

These lectures were originally developed for students on The Minded Institute’s Integrated Yoga Psychotherapy Diploma. This seminar opens up material that is normally restricted to that programme.

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About Dr Lisa Kaley-Isley

Dr Lisa Kaley-Isley is a clinical psychologist, senior yoga teacher, certified yoga therapist, yoga therapy educator, and creative writing for therapeutic purposes facilitator. She draws on her study and experience to integrate yoga philosophy, psychology and practice in her teaching and provision of yoga therapy.

Lisa has a long history of combining scholarly study, teaching and research with professional development in psychology and yoga. She has trained psychologists, provided yoga therapy, conducted research, taught on yoga therapy diploma programmes, and presented on yoga therapy and mental health internationally.