Yoga therapy is often categorized as Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). For many people, that label raises questions:
Is it less scientific? Less effective? Less real?
In truth, yoga therapy is considered CAM not because it lacks depth or rigor, but because of how modern healthcare systems classify healing approaches, not how ancient systems understood health and disease.
Here’s why the World Health Organization places yoga therapy in this category.
1. It Developed Outside the Biomedical Model
Modern medicine is rooted in the biomedical model—focused on diagnosis, pathology, and treatment through pharmaceuticals or surgery.
Yoga therapy arose from a very different worldview. Traditional yoga understands health as balance and integration across the body, breath, nervous system, mind, behavior, and sense of meaning (Feuerstein, 2001).
Because yoga therapy did not originate in hospitals or medical schools, it sits outside the dominant medical framework and was therefore labeled “alternative”—a classification based on origin, not effectiveness (WHO, 2013).
2. It Supports Self-Regulation Rather Than External Intervention
Yoga therapy works through self-regulatory processes such as:
- Nervous system regulation
- Conscious breathing
- Mind–body awareness
- Lifestyle and behavioral change
These practices engage the body’s innate capacity to restore balance rather than relying solely on external intervention. Research in neuroscience and stress physiology now confirms that practices affecting breath, awareness, and vagal tone play a significant role in healing and resilience (Porges, 2011).
Because yoga therapy emphasizes participation rather than passive treatment, it doesn’t align neatly with conventional medical delivery models (NCCIH, n.d.).
3. It Addresses Root Causes, Not Only Symptoms
Yoga therapy looks upstream. Instead of treating isolated symptoms, it explores underlying patterns such as:
- Chronic stress and nervous system overload
- Inefficient breathing habits
- Emotional holding and unresolved tension
- Habitual posture, movement, and lifestyle patterns
This holistic and preventive approach has been central to yoga for centuries and is increasingly supported by modern integrative health research (Khalsa et al., 2016).
Because it works across systems rather than compartmentalizing conditions, yoga therapy resists the symptom-by-symptom structure of conventional protocols.
4. It Is Individualized by Nature
Yoga therapy is inherently personalized. Practices are adapted to the individual’s condition, capacity, constitution, and moment-to-moment response.
Modern healthcare systems depend on standardization—for scalability, clinical trials, and insurance coding. Individualized care, especially when it evolves session by session, challenges those structures (NCCIH, n.d.).
This personalization is a strength of yoga therapy, but it is also one of the reasons it has been placed within CAM.
5. “Complementary” Is the More Accurate Term Today
In contemporary healthcare, yoga therapy is rarely used instead of medicine. It is increasingly integrated alongside conventional care in areas such as:
- Oncology and survivorship support
- Mental health care
- Chronic pain management
- Cardiovascular and stress-related conditions
Major health organizations now recognize yoga as a complementary approach that enhances regulation, recovery, and quality of life rather than replacing medical treatment (WHO, 2013; NCCIH, n.d.).
A Quiet Reframe
Yoga therapy is not alternative to health.
It is alternative to a reductionist view of health.
As healthcare slowly shifts toward integrative and preventive models, yoga therapy is moving closer to what it has always been:
a complete, person-centered system that supports the whole human being—not just the diagnosis.
Core References
- World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014–2023.
World Health Organization Press. - National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).
Yoga: What You Need To Know.
U.S. National Institutes of Health. - Khalsa, S. B. S., Cohen, L., McCall, T., & Telles, S. (Eds.).
The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care.
Handspring Publishing, 2016. - Feuerstein, G.
The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice.
Hohm Press, 2001. - Porges, S. W.
The Polyvagal Theory.
W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.