*Copyright 2010
Healing Pathways is the culmination of a vision that was inspired by the practice of yoga and the pilgrimage of its founder, Dr. Paul Copeland, as a young man, to India. In the 1970s Copeland traveled to India following his interest in the philosophies of the east. Once there he sought out Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya and asked to be considered a student. Krishnamacharya was the foremost yoga master of the 20th century. His influence can be found in almost every yoga teaching and class in the world today. It was Krishnamacharya who first offered the teachings of yoga to women and his four primary students, BKS Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, Indra Devi, and Desikachar, are credited with bringing yoga to western students and revolutionizing the study and teaching of yoga. Each student has produced a unique lineage emphasizing different aspects of yoga philosophy and practice, each powerful and transformative for those who are dedicated practitioners.
Copeland studied with Krishnamacharya for 2 years, delaying his return to the United States to receive private lessons with the master. Upon his return to California, Copeland enrolled as a pre-med student at the University of California, Davis. Drawing on his yoga education and insights gained through his study with Krishnamacharya, he designed his own degree – a Masters of physiologic psychology – in order to study the nature of mind/body interaction. During this time the idea for Healing Pathways was taking shape, a vision of an institute that would combine western medicine and scientific method with eastern philosophy and mind/body technologies. After two more decades, and much more study and work by Dr. Copeland in the medical and psychiatric professions, Healing Pathways is evolving and becoming a reality.
The Vision of Dr. Copeland (A Personal Word)
When I was studying with my Yoga teacher, the renowned Sri T Krishnamacharya, father of modern yoga, I once asked him what fields of knowledge I needed to master to properly understand and teach the principles of yoga. I will always remember what he said:
“You must understand the fields of philosophy, physiology, medicine, religion, psychology, and statecraft.”
No small order.
From that day on my path was set and I knew what I would do with my life:
Obtain this knowledge, and from that foundation build a clinic that teaches yoga for self-maintenance, healing, and evolution of a harmonious personal consciousness that integrates these vast fields of knowledge.
To do this I needed to have a “sword” that would separate the sense from the nonsense in the field of vast information that is out there about yoga and healing therapies in general. That valuable sword has been forged here in the West: the scientific community’s investigative, discriminative, and research-based scientific method that can direct us toward the truth of what is beneficial for health and well-being and how things work.
What I have built is a comprehensive, evidence-based mental health clinic that uses the best western traditions of healing – medicine, psychiatry, mainstream
therapies such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychotherapy – in the same setting as the time honored and tested eastern healing traditions of yoga and mindfulness practices. Healing Pathways is a medical clinic and yoga is part of the healing community here at the clinic. You will not find stories and testimonials about how conventional medicine failed and yoga miraculously healed, or how the “West” didn’t fully “get” the comprehensive picture or the value of the personal relationship in the healing process. You won’t find false claims about the efficacy of a certain “brand” of yoga over another. As I learned from Krishnamacharya himself, yoga, at its fundamental level, teaches time tested, sound, mental and behavioral health practices, and honors the absolute value of the relationship between the teacher (therapist, doctor, minister, lawyer) and student (client, patient, consumer). What you will find at Healing Pathways is a select group of highly trained medical and mental health therapists working together with trained yoga teachers and therapists so that the best of both worlds are here and available.
During my time and conversations with Krishnamacharya, he always encouraged me to think expansively and not to limit my knowledge, but to integrate all knowledge and manifest a truly comprehensive vision of healing such as is embodied in this clinic. It is only a natural evolution of my own yoga practice at this time to have eastern wisdom be an integral part of Healing Pathways. As the CEO of Healing Pathways, whose design was inspired by my study of yoga with the father of modern yoga, Sri T Krishnamacharya, I want to welcome you to a truly comprehensive healing experience.