Barbara Pane

I have been practicing yoga for over 20 years, way before there was a yoga studio on every corner. At that time there was a yoga class at the local library, one in someone’s apartment, and that’s about it. As a dancer, I was drawn to the physical beauty of the practice, as a runner I appreciated how good it made my body feel.  It wasn’t until many years later that I began to learn about the value of yoga as a philosophy and a life style. The physical practice I’ve done has always been more classical eclectic. About 8 years ago, I was encourage (and funded) to take a yoga teacher training weekend by the director of programming at a local health club where I took classes and was offered a job there. What struck me as I began to more closely “study” yoga was how many similarities there were to the mindfulness based cognitive behavioral therapy I practiced in my psychotherapy practice (I am a licensed social worker). I began integrating yoga into the social skills groups I ran as a way of teaching skills for mindfulness, emotion regulation and distress tolerance. From there my fascination in the mental health benefits of yoga has continued to grow.

Today I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to work as a yoga therapist at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in their inpatient psychiatric hospital. I teach 8 groups per week to a variety of populations including patients with schizophrenia, eating disorders, drug and alcohol addiction, depression, anxiety and trauma. I work with adolescents, adults and geriatric patients. I also teach a weekly yoga class for the staff and students there.

 In addition to my work at Western Psych, I have a small private practice where I run a weekly social skills group incorporating yoga.

 I teach 2 groups per week at the Oxford Athletic club: a mixed level yoga class and a beginner class.

 In the fall I am the “yoga coach” for the North Allegheny HS Cross Country team; a team of over 100 high school runners for whom I teach a weekly class.

For the last 3 years I’ve been working for a non-profit called Yoga in Schools. We are grant funded to work with school districts to teach PE and academic teachers to integrate yoga skills in the classroom. We are just finishing a 2 year project at Woodland Hills HS and before that we worked with the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

I recently competed my 200 yoga teacher training with Joanne Vandenhengel at 3^rd Street yoga. She is a gifted teacher of teachers. The training she offered was in the classical eclectic tradition.  I also have a certificate from a 40 hour YogaEd training I completed as wells a variety of YogaFit trainings and trainings related to yoga for mental health.

In terms of influencing the community, I feel I have a unique opportunity in the work that I do to serve such a variety of people and introduce them to ways yoga can help them no only feel better in their bodies but also in their minds. If I did not have these opportunities as paid employment, I would find a way to do this work as a volunteer, and in the past that is what I did. In the past I’ve taught yoga as a volunteer in the Jubilee Soup Kitchen, as well as at an elementary school running club that I started.

 In the next five years I would like to go deeper into the work I am doing now. I feel like I’ve learned a little about a lot and would now like to become more specialized. There are not a lot of people in this area that I know of who are combining clinical skills with yoga skills to work with people in connecting more deeply with who they really are. I try to bring that piece in some way to all my classes whether I’m in front of psychiatric patients, school students, or suburban moms. I’d like to go more deeply into yoga as a means of healing trauma as I’ve seem some amazing things in the little that I do with patients in the hospital. Five years ago I would have never dreamed that I would be where I am today with the opportunities that I have. So while I have an idea of where I would like to go from here, who really knows what will actually happen.

I love to teach and create the space that allows people to feel more comfortable in their bodies and more peaceful in their minds and hearts.