Proceedings of the Yoga & Psyche Conference (2014)

Book excerpt: This volume represents a selection of papers that were presented at the Yoga & Psyche Conference: The Future of Psychology, held in San Francisco, USA, in April 2014. This was the first academic conference in the Western world focused on the integration of Western psychology and yoga, and attracted an international presence from over 15 countries. With the increasingly widespread permeation of Eastern philosophy into Western society and the spread of Western values around the world, the time was ripe for a deeper investigation into the intersection of these subjects. This collection of articles serves as a foundational text for an emerging field. This inquiry begins to integrate the vast context of yoga – which includes ethics, the study of canonical texts, self-inquiry, breath management, physical postures and meditation – with Western psychological theory and clinical practice, including the breakthroughs in somatic psychology and trauma research, and insights from neuroscience. This book will appeal to psychologists, yoga teachers and practitioners, neuroscientists and researchers, sociologists, scholars of comparative religion and Indic studies, physicians and health practitioners interested in complementary medicine, and those interested in joining the conversation of a new field of investigation that integrates the perennial wisdom of yoga with the practice of modern Western psychology.