Ellen McNally, RYT-500, TCTSY-F

Ellen McNally (RYT-500) took her first hatha yoga class in 1975, but it wasn’t until 2002 that she started studying seriously. She began attending workshops at the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, PA in 2007 and continues to study with HI’s spiritual head Pandit Rajmani Tigunait. After completing her 200- and 300-hour Hatha Tantra yoga teacher trainings (the latter included certification as an Ayurvedic Yoga Specialist by the Himalayan Institute), Ellen began to focus specifically on teaching Yoga for 50+ and Restorative Yoga.

A workshop in “Mindful Yoga for Veterans Coping with Trauma” through the Veterans Yoga Project stimulated her interest in working with students coping with the effects of PSTD and trauma, and she began teaching veterans at the Errera Center, part of the West Haven VA. In 2016 she was certified as a Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Facilitator (TCTSY-F) after completing an intensive seven-month training in Teaching Trauma-Sensitive Yoga with David Emerson and Jennifer Turner of the Trauma Center in Brookline, MA. Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga is an empirically validated, adjunctive method for working with people with complex trauma or chronic, resistant PTSD. Developed at the Trauma Center in Brookline, MA, TSY has foundations in Trauma Theory, Attachment Theory, and Neuroscience as well as Hatha Yoga practice with an emphasis on body-based yoga forms and breathing practices. Ellen is currently one of two TCTSY facilitator in Connecticut and on the staff of the Department of Integrative Medicine, at Yale’s New Haven Health’s Smilow Cancer Hospital as an Integrative Medicine Specialist, offering yoga and Reiki to patients and their families.