Maureen Deering Davis

Maureen Davis is a highly trained and skilled practitioner, working in a wide variety of healing modalities. She is a yoga teacher with an RYT 300 certification from Yoga Alliance, and has been a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists since 2005. In addition, Maureen is a certified YTRX-C 800 graduate of Loyola Marymount University. She has been a pioneer of Yoga Therapy since it’s inception, participating in LMU’s first Yoga Therapy Certification Program. Maureen worked 3 years in an Integrated Wellness Clinic as a Yoga Therapist, collaborating with other healthcare practitioners in the treatment of individual patients, and contributing to the development of treatment plan protocols within the clinic. In 2007, Maureen developed her own Yoga DVD through her company Makara Yoga. She has also recorded a Yoga Nidra DVD, which has been a powerful tool in the treatment and healing of patients suffering from PTSD, Migraines, Hypertension and Stress.

In 2009 Maureen opened her own studio and taught classes primarily in Hatha Yoga. She has created and developed specific Yoga Therapeutics classes and programs for a wide variety of injuries and taught at studios all over the South Bay area of Los Angeles.

Maureen is also a practitioner of Aware-apy, a technique created by Dr. Bernard Gunther, PhD. Dr. Gunther was a widely published author of many books including “Sense Relaxation”, “Neo-Tantra”, “How the West Was One” and “Energy Ecstasy”. He was a pioneer and a seminal influence in the formation of the ‘new age movement’, working in the early days at Esalen, and created the renowned “Esalen Massage”. Working alongside colleagues such as Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Fritz Perls, Ida Rolf, Joseph Campbell as well as Jack Canfield. Dr. Gunther was responsible for expanding the awareness of Yoga here in the west.

Realizing the limitations of psychiatry in which he was formally trained, Dr. Gunther developed a process which he called “Aware-apy”. This practice takes Gestalt Therapy a step further, integrating a spiritual dimension, and giving clients an experience of the soul. Maureen studied with Dr. Gunther for 21 years, becoming his protege. Since his death in 2013, she now consults with many of his clients, continuing this valuable and ground breaking work.

In 2012, at the request of Dr. Anne Peters, Director of the USC Clinical Diabetes Program, Maureen created a ‘Chair Yoga’ DVD. This practice brought Yoga to patients suffering from diabetes, and consequently unable to perform standard yoga asanas due to their physical limitations. The program is hugely successful, and the DVD was used in the “LookAHEAD” research for the National Association of Diabetes, and was subsequently distributed world wide.

Following in the footsteps of her mentor, Dr. Gunther, Maureen is also a published author. Her article “How to Make the Business of Yoga Therapy Work” appeared in the IAYT Journal, and she co-authored “Prescription Yoga” along with Nancy O’Brien for Yoga Journal Magazine.