Discontinue IAYT-Q Pathway Petition Statement

We, the undersigned, respectfully call on the leadership of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) to immediately halt and permanently discontinue the IAYT-Q pathway. We believe it threatens the integrity of the field, risks confusion in healthcare and wider settings, and unintentionally harms existing 800-hour graduates, accredited programs, and other stakeholders.

Our community is diverse, educated, experienced, and deeply invested in the future of yoga therapy. Rather than keeping members at arm’s length, we urge IAYT to more fully engage the intelligent and articulate yoga therapy community to find collaborative solutions for integrating yoga therapy into allopathic healthcare without harming 800-hour programs, stakeholders, and the integrity of the field as a whole. We request an indefinite pause on the IAYT-Q pathway and a transparent, community-inclusive process moving forward.

Supporting Arguments

1. The new IAYT-Q credential confuses patients, employers, institutions and community members in general about what level of training or scope of practice is represented compared with existing the C-IAYT credential. The letter “Q” also often stands for “queer” in modern context, so is also confusing at the end of the designation. And, the new 300-hour IAYT-Q credential creates confusion in that a 300-hour IAYT pathway looks similar to an RYT300 hour Yoga Alliance Yoga Teacher Training credential, making it nearly impossible to not equate them.

2. QHPs do not require an entire 300-hours of training to be able to understand the yoga principles well enough to choose yoga therapy as a preferred referral, as stated by IAYT as a justification for the 300-hour program. There are many other ways for QHPs to gain greater exposure making them more likely to choose yoga therapy out of other complementary options. For instance, “The Foundations of Therapeutic Yoga Principals for Healthcare Professionals” could readily be a course or workshop series rather than an earned competing credential from an organization that heretofore focused on credentialing qualified 800-hour yoga therapists.

3. The new IAYT-Q pathway will fragment the field and seriously undercut IAYT’s accredited 800-hour programs. Many of these programs have pathways for LHCPs already functioning well. The IAYT-Q pathway has already damaged enrollment in 800-hour accredited and other programs. Some have failed. The IAYT-Q pathway has the potential of putting the longer, 800-hour IAYT programs out of business as many of their applicants are QHPs. If this decision was to expand the income and reach of IAYT, it may backfire and crash the original and loyal supporters and made stake holders’ businesses: not only the 800-hour programs but that of C-IAYTs as well.

4. The new 300-hour credential lowers the bar on yoga content in a clinical setting, shortening the time spent in understanding and applying it by 500 hours from IAYT’s established 800-hour minimum. Among other implications this would signify that any nuanced understanding or yoga’s depth or its efficacy in skillful application can be acquired by someone with a license in healthcare, no matter their specialty or background. This not only demeans what yoga is and can be in its holistic therapeutic application but presumes pedagogical similarity in clinical training across various healthcare disciplines from mental health to physical therapy to radiology and the like. Clearly there is too great a difference in backgrounds across the board, so that the proposed 300-hour expedited pathway, even with a clinical orientation could not necessarily ensure sufficient clinical skill related to yoga content, even for QHPs.

5. The value of the IAYT-Q pathway may be less that its cost to the organization Specifically, in terms of actual usefulness to QHPs who already report that it is extremely difficult find ways to “squeeze” yoga principles and practices into their existing coding, billing, timeframe, and demonstrated progress structures within the restrictions of allopathic medical practice.

Related Issues

1. Since the program is exclusively only for QHPs, this brings up questions of equity and inclusion in the foundling field of yoga therapy, even though many IAYT members and supporters have decades of experience in clinical settings as yoga therapists. This pathway excludes experienced yoga therapists/teachers and creating a two-tier system, and again discounts yoga therapy as a stand-alone field with merit on its own.

2. IAYT’s accreditation of a pilot program with the director on the accreditation committee, brings up questions of conflict of interest, vendor lock-in, and favoritism.

3. Allowing programs that already went through the IAYT-Q accreditation process to continue to train students during this time of pause brings up concerns about centralizing power around those select programs instead of operating with fairness to other programs like those in the pipeline that were paused, and to the community of existing and developing programs at large.

Invitation

IAYT has an intelligent capable membership and community, many of whom would be willing to become a more vital part of the conversation and problem-solving efforts to support and expand public knowledge of yoga therapy and find innovative, inclusive pathways for yoga therapy to be a more integral part of the allopathic model. IAYT would be well-served through actions that acknowledge its stake holders’ prior investments, interest and devotion to this field, rather that moving toward what it may believe is a more sustainable path for itself as an organization, i.e. aligning itself and seeking to embed itself within the allopathic medical system. Yoga therapy may also prosper as a complement to allopathy, and as an independent wholistic approach to well healthcare. Rather than making more widely unpopular decisions in closed rooms with no accountability costing defection of long-time supports and stake holders and continuing to breed discontent and ill will in the yoga community, we implore you to further engage with the wider community who has bought into IAYTs credentialing process in the past in good faith and take these concerns to heart. Discontinue to IAYT-Q pathway and bring your community into dialogue in an open-handed way, so we may continue to support and join forces with you with respectful transparency, camaraderie and good faith. We can work through to a solution that doesn’t harm IAYTs former ardent supporters but finds a way beneficial forward for all concerned.