Openview Wellness 

Trauma Sensitive Spaces 

  • Keri Sawyer RYT 500 Licensed Trainer and Faciliatator
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Openview Wellness with Keri Sawyer 

Keri Sawyer is a licensed Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) trainer and facilitator with the Center for Trauma and Embodiment in Boston, MA and is a registered 500 hour Yoga teacher in Alignment Yoga. Her main focus is to provide TCTSY to trauma survivors of all ages, train yoga teachers and health care workers, and to provide research based information and trauma informed treatment practices to the therapeutic world. She oversees the implementation of TCTSY into therapeutic models in clinical and residential treatment programs across the country along with agency trainings and regular consultation for therapists and yoga teachers. Keri started her work facilitating yoga to traumatized adolescents in a therapeutic wilderness program and has since expanded to facilitate TCTSY to adults, adolescents, and pre teen populations in different settings.  Her passion is to provide an opportunity for survivors of trauma to have an authentic experience with a safe and predicable felt sense of their body along with spreading awareness of trauma informed practices. 


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What is Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga?



Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga or TCYSY is an intervention based on sound research from the Trauma Center in Boston MA. TCTSY is an evidence based adjunct treatment to for complex trauma (sometimes called chronic or treatment-resistant post traumatic stress disorder) and is the only yoga based practice accepted by SAMSHA and NREPP. The modality is a modified hatha yoga practice for survivors of trauma with foundations in Trauma Theory, Attachment Theory, and Neuroscience. Based in movement and breath practices, TCTSY was developed to help facilitate the healing process of complex or developmental trauma. 


TCTSY is based on the hatha style of yoga, where participants engage in a series of physical forms, movements and breath practices. Components of standard hatha yoga are modified to maximize empowerment and to cultivate a positive relationship to one's body. For instance, TCTSY does not use physical hands-on adjustments to influence a participant's physical form. Instead, the modality presents opportunities for participants to be in charge of themselves based on a felt sense within their own bodies. 

The emphasis of TCTSY is not on the external appearance of yoga forms and instead focuses is on the internal experience or felt sense of the participant. Empowerment of the participant is a key component of TCTSY. Through focusing on the felt sense of the body to inform choice-making, TCTSY allows participants to restore their connection of mind and body and cultivate a sense of agency that is often compromised as a result of trauma.