{"id":99642,"date":"2025-07-28T15:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/99642\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T15:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:04:12","slug":"dance-teacher-sues-yoga-firm-for-mental-breakdown-on-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/99642\/","title":{"rendered":"Dance teacher sues yoga firm for \u2018mental breakdown\u2019 on retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"

A dance teacher is suing a yoga firm, claiming she was \u201cretraumatised\u201d by triggered memories of her adoption during a retreat in Goa.<\/p>\n

Melissa Revell has told a judge that intensive self-exploration exercises on a \u00a32,250 yoga training course in 2019 caused her to have a mental breakdown and gain excessive weight.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old claimed she was in good physical and mental health prior to going on the course, which she said involved undisclosed psychological exercises.<\/p>\n

Revell has now brought a High Court claim for more than \u00a3200,000 against The Yoga People International, a company based in Luton run by Jamie Clarke, 59, and Dulce Aguilar, a 43-year-old Mexican instructor.<\/p>\n

\"Yoga<\/p>\n

Lawyers for The Yoga People International insist neither Jamie Clarke nor Dulce Aguilar, who ran the retreat, were at fault<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

The dance teacher and personal trainer, from Richmond in southwest London, said that she has gone from a fit and active existence to being \u201cnot able to care for herself\u201d and leading \u201can extremely reclusive, impoverished and dysfunctional life\u201d, with \u201cacute anxiety\u201d whenever she leaves her home.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the company insist that neither Clarke, Aguilar nor any other staff were at fault. The firm also denied there was any \u201cpsychological\u201d element to the training in India and that any emotional collapse Revell suffered was not a foreseeable risk of a yoga course.<\/p>\n

In a written submission to the court, Revell\u2019s barrister, Marcus Grant, said that she attended the course on the west coast of India with the aim of becoming a qualified teacher of Ashtanga yoga but came home before the course had finished, claiming to have had a mental breakdown prompted by an exercise in exploring childhood memories.<\/p>\n

The barrister told the court that Aguilar instructed students to participate in a somatic touch session, a form of massage therapists can use to raise traumatic memories. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of the exercise, the students were instructed to pair up and sit in a circle with one person sitting in front of the other. They were told to take turns in their pairs to hold the other person,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile holding the other person, they were instructed to imagine that the other person was their parent and massage their shoulders, hold their hands and stroke their hair. Ms Aguilar said words such as \u2018I love you, you are my teacher, my carer, my nurturer and I forgive you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Yoga<\/p>\n

Aguilar, 43, was said to have led a somatic touch session, a form of therapy to raise traumatic memories, on the retreat<\/p>\n

The barrister added that after the session in Goa, Revell \u201cstarted shaking and feeling ill\u201d and was gripped with \u201coverwhelming anxiety\u201d.<\/p>\n

Revell was said to have explained to Clarke that the exercise had unearthed previously suppressed memories. The organiser was said to have responded that he could not spend all his time with one student, but offered Revell personal therapy sessions on return to the UK.<\/p>\n

The barrister branded Clarke\u2019s response as \u201cdismissive\u201d, with Revell having been left \u201cwith no resolution or support\u201d, adding that Revell felt a \u201ccoercive pressure to participate\u201d in further \u201cpsychology-focused exercises\u201d. <\/p>\n

That combination of factors caused Revell to \u201cbecome very ill\u201d and fly home. She was subsequently diagnosed with \u201csignificant and severe complex PTSD and comorbid depersonalisation\/derealisation disorder\u201d and \u201cfunctional neurological disorder\u201d, said her lawyer. <\/p>\n

Her barrister told the court she was \u201cnot able to care for herself. She cannot cook, or clean, or do grocery shopping. Her home is untidy and dirty as a result. She struggles with self-care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the company have argued in its defence that there was \u201cno requirement to engage in psychology [or] psychotherapy, and the claimant knew that yoga involved spiritual healing\u201d.<\/p>\n

They also denied that Aguilar had conducted a somatic touch psychotherapy session. The dispute is scheduled to return to court for a full hearing at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dance teacher is suing a yoga firm, claiming she was \u201cretraumatised\u201d by triggered memories of her adoption…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":99643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[1198,210,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-99642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114931477237824934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}