800 Hour Comprehensive Yoga Therapy Training - Enrollment Now Open!

800 Hour Comprehensive Yoga Therapy Training

2025-2026 Program Dates TBA
Get Started Today with the 100 Hour Foundations Course

Ready to Enroll Now? Ask About Late Enrollment for the 2024 Cohort!

Welcome to the Comprehensive Yoga Therapy (CYT) Training at YogaLife Institute - a uniquely powerful perspective on health and healing. Our school has been a destination for yoga lifestyle education for 25 years now. In many ways, the transformational process of yoga therapy is at the heart of everything we teach in our training programs.

The CYT program is designed differently, with roots in my training at The Yoga Institute of Mumbai, India, and integrated during my Ph.D. studies in Yoga Therapy at the California Institute of Integral Studies. All of this learning has now grown into a full-scale training professional training program.

Being a Yoga Therapist is an incredible journey - a sacred calling to develop your yoga skills and teaching gifts and take them out into the world. Is it the right program for you? We are here to help you answer that question. Please read on.

On behalf of the entire CYT teaching team, we look forward to helping you expand your knowledge and skillset on your journey from Yoga Teacher to Yoga Therapist. Please feel free to reach out for a free program consultation to see if the program is the right fit for you.

Bob Butera, Ph.D., Program Director

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Contact us today for a pressure-free consultation with Founder, Bob Butera, to learn more about the program and see if it’s right for you.

1. Contact us to set up a Free Program Telephone Consultation to discuss your Yoga Journey, aspirations and ask any questions you have.

2. If you prefer to conduct more research on your own, please download our Free Program Guide using the button below.

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Hear About the 800 Hour Program Experience From Graduates

Advanced Yoga Education

Discover the benefits of a Comprehensive Yoga Therapy Education

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The Comprehensive Yoga Therapy Program is Accredited by IAYT, one of the first 12 programs in the world to receive this honor.

Level One

Build Foundations

Learn powerful yoga lifestyle principles, assessments and interventions. Dive deep into the applications of yoga philosophy and psychology.

Apply Yoga Therapy to your self - transform your perspective and experience of yoga therapy from the inside out.

Expand your skillset – create a database of new and exciting movement experiences that will innovate your classes and private teaching sessions.

Learn how to teach to the individual instead of teaching poses – gain insight into yoga poses and creating meaningful and innovative practice experiences.

Refine your ability to adapt practices to individual goals and needs. Learn to support clients with a variety of health conditions.

Gain concurrent RYT500 Certification - This program meets and exceeds the standards.

Level Two

Meet Our Teachers

Bob Butera, PhD, ERYT500, C-IAYT

Program Founder, Yoga Training & Yoga Therapy Specialist

Bob is the founder of The YogaLife Institute and the publisher of Yoga Living magazine. He studied yoga at The Yoga Institute of Mumbai. He holds Masters in Divinity from the Earlham School of Religion and a Ph.D. in Yoga Philosophy & Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. With over 25 years of full-time teaching experience, he is known for sharing Classical Yoga Lifestyle principles in a practical way that connects students with their own divinity. He is also is the author/co-author of multiple books including The Pure Heart of Yoga, Meditation for Your Life, Yoga Therapy for Stress and Anxiety and BodyMindful Yoga (Llewellyn Worldwide)

Erin Byron, MA, ERYT500, C-IAYT

Program Founder, Yoga Training & Yoga Therapy Specialist

Erin Byron is the Director of the Canadian Welkin/YogaLife Institute in Brantford, Ontario. She holds a Masters Degree in Psychology with a specialization in Yoga for Trauma. She is an educator of yoga and meditation teachers who brings more than ten years of experience as a professional Yoga Therapist and practicing Psychotherapist to her teachings. She is the co-creator of Comprehensive Yoga Therapy Training and author/co-author of multiple books including Yoga Therapy for Stress & Anxiety, Yoga for the Creative Soul and Yoga Therapy for Arthritis.

Erika Tenenbaum, ERYT500, C-IAYT

Yoga Teacher, Yoga Therapist, Skincare & Vinyasa Yoga Specialist

Erika found her home at YogaLife and has been teaching here since 2004. She holds advanced certifications in Yoga & Yoga Therapy. She is also a skin care specialist and manual lymphatic drainage massage practitioner. Erika is a firm believer in the tenets of yogic tradition, she relishes the opportunity to share her yoga vision and experience with her students.

Jennifer Hilbert, MS, RYT500, C-IAYT

Yoga Teacher & Yoga Therapist, Neuroscientist

Jen has been dedicated yoga practitioner of over 20 years. She discovered YogaLife in 2004 and has since completed specialized training in Yoga & Yoga Therapy. She has a Masters Degree in Neuroscience, and as a mother and athlete her passions include educating families about the benefits of healthy eating and breath awareness, along with playing tennis, biking, traveling and spending quality time with family and friends.

Staffan Elgelid, PhD, RYT500, C-IAYT

Yoga Therapist, Somatic & Physical Therapy Specialist

Dr. Elgelid is Associate Professor of Physical Therapy at Nazareth College. At Nazareth College he teaches health and wellness and is the director of the college’s health and wellness programs. He has presented on a multitude of topics both nationally and internationally. He is also a Feldenkrais Practitioner and has been active in the Feldenkrais and Somatic Education community both at a national and international level. Staffan sat on the Advisory Council for the International Association of Yoga Therapists from 2011-2013, and has published several articles in IAYT publications and holds a yoga therapy certification from YogaLife Institute. Staffan is the co-author of Yoga Therapy for Stress & Anxiety and Yoga Therapy: A Personalized Approach for Your Active Lifestyle.

Rebecca Cate, LPC, C-IAYT, E-RYT

Yoga Therapy Trainer, Licensed Professional Counselor

Rebecca is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), a certified yoga therapist (C-IAYT), and an experienced yoga teacher (E-RYT 200). She has masters degrees in Counseling Psychology and Public Health. Rebecca is also a Provisional Master in Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu. Practicing yoga, living by its tenets, guides her in all her endeavors and day to day life. Rebecca enjoys sharing yoga philosophy with others and facilitating the process of learning, healing, and feeling more at ease in life.

Kristen Butera, C-IAYT, E-RYT500, PGDip

Programs Director, Yoga Teacher, Yoga Therapist

Kristen has been studying and teaching yoga full time for fifteen years, accumulating more than 5000 hours of professional and academic training in a variety of yoga traditions and somatic methods, with special focus on Yin, Restorative, deep ecology and the therapeutic applications of Yoga. Her passion is for creating dynamic learning environments that create space for deep connection, spiritual processing and restoration.

She is the author of Yoga Therapy: A Personalized Approach for Your Active Lifestyle, and as Program Director, she oversees all aspects of the YogaLife educational programs. An artist and a lifelong student of language, cosmology and consciousness, in 2021 she completed a post graduate diploma in Mythopoetics with Dartington Arts, and she is currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Somatic Ecology with Schumacher College.

The Training Style: 6 Reasons Why It’s So Effective

Comprehensive Yoga Therapy empowers people to explore the deeper lifestyle issues that lie at the root of many modern disease conditions. The program shifts the current cultural healthcare perspective from a passive disease-driven model to a more proactive model where the Yoga Therapist and their clients are continually engaged in the process of restoring or maintaining health. 

In this program, you will learn to guide clients using a holistic perspective that encompasses all of the transformative theories and practices of Yoga. Each aspect of the human experience is viewed as having the potential to be a source of healing and inspiration and is explored and mastered during the duration of the program.

Comprehensive Yoga emphasizes that addressing individual needs and goals is key. Two people with the same disease condition might walk on completely different pathways to healing. CYT trained yoga therapists draw from a large database of mind/body/spirit experiences to create personalized practice and self care protocols for their clients.

Comprehensive Yoga Therapy works with the modern medical system, helping clients to augment their current care model with a holistic focus that embraces the many different and interrelated levels on which healing occurs.

While a human being may not always be able to control pain or the outcome of the healing process, Yoga therapy teaches that each individual may overcome the resistance to pain or suffering and be more skillful at self-regulation and care regardless of health or disease conditions

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