The Six Goals of Yoga Therapy

Finding the approach - or combination of approaches - that matches where you are and what you need.

When people come to somatic or yoga therapy, they're often not sure exactly what they need—they just know something needs to shift. One of the gifts of this ancient, comprehensive system is that it recognizes we're not all working toward the same goal at the same time.

The yogic tradition offers us different kramas—orientations or approaches—depending on what we're trying to accomplish. Understanding these can help clarify what kind of work might serve you best right now.

1. Rakṣaṇa Krama: Preservation & Maintenance

The goal: To preserve and maintain what we already have

This is the work of keeping the body from slowly freezing up and breaking down as we

age. It's breathing practices to maintain mental clarity and emotional balance. It's movement to keep our bones strong and our muscles supple.

Rakṣaṇa krama is also deeply tied to the developmental tasks of each life stage—what Jung called individuation. The practices we need at 30 look different than what serves us at 50 or 70. This orientation asks: What does this stage of life require of me, and how can I support that unfolding?

This is for you if: You're not in crisis, but you want to age well, stay vital, and meet the challenges of your life stage with resilience.

2. Cikitsā Krama: Rehabilitation & Healing

The goal: To rehabilitate or restore something that has been lost

This is yoga therapy and somatic therapy in its therapeutic, healing mode. This is where

I do extensive work with chronic pain and other conditions, breathing work for anxiety and depression, and trauma healing.

Cikitsā krama recognizes that something has been diminished, injured, or lost—and we're working to restore function, capacity, or wholeness. This might be physical (range of motion, strength, pain-free movement) or psychological (the ability to feel safe, to regulate emotions, to be present in your body).

This is for you if: Something is wrong, hurting, or lost—and you're seeking active healing and restoration.

3. Ādhyātmika Krama: Spiritual Transcendence

The goal: To move toward transcendence and spiritual realization

This orientation is explicitly spiritual. Here, we incorporate your individual spiritual practice more directly or introduce sacred practices like mantra or affirmation,

meditation or prayer, and exploration of yogic or other wisdom texts.

Ādhyātmika krama asks: What is my relationship to the sacred? To the divine? To something larger than my individual self? It's the work of touching what mystics across traditions have pointed toward—unity, transcendence, awakening.

This is for you if: You're drawn to explicit spiritual practice and seeking experiences of transcendence, unity, or the sacred through embodied work.

4. Śakti Krama: Cultivating Power & Discipline

The goal: To foster power, strength, discipline, and capacity

This is the orientation toward building—building heat, building strength, building capacity, building discipline. There's often a lot of breathwork here (particularly

practices like kapalabhati or bhastrika that generate heat and energy), as well as more vigorous or sustained practices.

Śakti krama is about empowerment in its most literal sense—cultivating your inner power, your ability to show up consistently, your capacity to hold more intensity without collapsing or fragmenting.

This is for you if: You're ready to step into your power, build discipline, or increase your capacity to handle life's intensity.

5. Laya Krama: Dissolution & Pattern Recognition

The goal: To unearth and examine our patterns using the chakra model

Laya krama uses the chakra model as a map to explore our saṃskāras (deep conditioning patterns) and vāsanās (the subtle tendencies and desires that drive our behavior). This is archeological work—digging into the layers of patterning and perception that shape how we move through the world.

This is for you if: You're interested in deep pattern work and comfortable with the chakra model as a framework for self-understanding.

6. Antya Krama: Resolution & Completion

The goal: To resolve karma and end limiting patterns

Once we've unearthed our patterns in laya krama, antya krama is the work of actually resolving them—ending the saṃskāras and vāsanās that keep us stuck in repetitive cycles.

This tradition uses the practice of pratipakṣa bhāvanam—literally "cultivation of the

opposite"—to transform entrenched patterns. Think of this method as an ancient version of what today is known as cognitive reframing - and even elements of DBT. When we notice a habitual pattern arising, we intentionally cultivate its opposite quality. This isn't spiritual bypassing or suppression; it's the conscious rewiring of neural pathways through repeated, intentional practice.

This is for you if: You've identified your patterns and you're ready to actively transform them through sustained, disciplined practice.

How These Work Together

These orientations aren't strictly linear—you don't necessarily move from one to the next in order. Instead, they're different lenses, different entry points depending on what you need.

You might work in cikitsā krama (healing trauma) while also establishing rakṣaṇa krama practices (daily maintenance). You might explore laya krama (pattern recognition) and discover you need to build more śakti (capacity) before you can resolve what you've uncovered in antya krama.

The beauty of this framework is its flexibility and comprehensiveness. There's room for wherever you are—whether you're in crisis and need healing, maintaining what you have, building power, exploring patterns, seeking transcendence, or working to resolve old karma.

Yoga Therapy and Somatic Therapy: Related but Distinct

It's worth noting that while I describe these orientations through the lens of yoga therapy, my work integrates both yoga therapy and broader somatic approaches.

Yoga therapy practices are born of a specific tradition—the lineage of Krishnamacharya and his students—with its own systematic framework, philosophy, and techniques. The six kramas I've described here are particular to that yogic lineage.

Somatic therapy, on the other hand, is a broader umbrella term that encompasses

many body-centered healing modalities. This includes mindfulness-based somatic awareness, Feldenkrais Method, Somatic Experiencing (SE), Internal Family Systems with a somatic focus, Compassionate Inquiry, Polyvagal-informed practices, and many others. These approaches share a common understanding that the body holds experience and that healing happens through embodied awareness—but they come from different origins and use different languages and techniques.

In my practice, I weave these together.

The yoga therapy framework gives us a time-tested structure for understanding what we're working toward, while contemporary somatic approaches offer powerful tools for trauma healing, nervous system regulation, and psychological integration. You don't need to be interested in yoga philosophy to benefit from somatic work, and you don't need to be healing trauma to benefit from yoga therapy's wisdom about the stages and orientations of practice.

What matters most is finding what works for your body, your nervous system, and your life.

Finding Your Orientation

In our initial work together, part of what I listen for is which orientation might serve you best right now. Sometimes you know exactly what you need. Often, it becomes clear as we begin.

The tradition offers us this gift: recognition that healing isn't one-size-fits-all, that different seasons of life and different challenges call for different approaches, and that all of these pathways are valuable and interconnected.

What Calls to You?

As you read these descriptions, did one resonate more strongly than the others? Did you feel resistance to any? Both responses are useful information.

If you're curious about which orientation might serve you—or how we might weave several together in our work—I offer complimentary consultations to explore what you need and how somatic and yoga therapy might support you.

Your body already knows what it needs. Sometimes it just needs the right framework and the right guide to help you listen.

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Samantha is a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, a Noom Certified Health Coach, and the founder of Davidson Yoga Therapy and Health Coaching.

She has held complimentary healthcare positions at The Blanchard Institute, Atrium

Hospital, Levine Cancer Institute, Sanger Heart Clinic, and Davidson College. She has presented for Fortune 500 companies and major Universities, both public and professional audiences, on this thing called yoga therapy and what it can do when it is unpeeled, revealed, and adapted to meet the needs and the abilities of the person doing it. 

She leverages her three decades of yoga therapy, and health coaching experience with the following therapeutic models:

• Breathing Technology

• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

• Jungian Psychology

• Jungian Dream Interpretation

• Somatic Cognition

• Internal Family Systems

• Interfaith Perspectives

• Spiritual Technologies

• Trauma Healing

• Polyvagal Somatics

• Ayurvedic Lifestyle Coaching

• Compassionate Inquiry

• Pain Reprocessing Therapy

• The Neurosequential Model

All this is to say, there are many doorways to use on the path to healing and self-discovery, and Samantha’s breadth of experience allows for vast creativity on which approach is right for you!