Sasha Bates
Sasha Bates is a former filmmaker turned psychotherapist, author and yoga teacher. She writes about grief, loss and the healing power of yoga.
Instagram: @sashbates
Twitter: @sashbates
Facebook: @sashbates
Podcast: Shrink the Box
Biography
Sasha Bates is a psychotherapist, writer and podcaster. While maintaining a busy clinical psychotherapy practice she draws on her former career as a documentary filmmaker to write and broadcast about therapy in a way that educates, informs and entertains. Her mission is to demystify and remove the fear around psychotherapy, its concepts and application. She has a down to earth way of explaining theory that makes use of humour and popular culture and she often uses her own experience as case study. Her popular podcast, Shrink the Box, sees her put our favourite fictional tv characters on the couch, and her journalism ranges across publications from popular magazines, to broadsheets, to trade publications, to travel websites. Her therapeutic clients and her interests are wide-ranging and no topic is out of bounds, but her specialist subjects are grief and yoga and these provide the focus of her three books. LANGUAGES OF LOSS, her first book, was written after the sudden and unexpected death of her husband, Bill. Her second, A GRIEF COMPANION, provides practical guidelines and support to those grieving. Her third book, YOGA SAVED MY LIFE, details the fascinating interplay between yoga and psychotherapy.
Sasha has an MA and an advanced diploma in integrative psychotherapy from The Minster Centre and works in private practice in London and online. She also tutors and lectures therapists and trainees for a variety of organisations. She is a BWY and Yoga Alliance qualified yoga teacher and has additional training in restorative yoga and in Trauma Sensitive Yoga for those with PTSD. She has also founded a commemorative theatrical bursary she set up in honour of her late husband – The Bill Cashmore Award – in conjunction with The Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.
Her podcast Shrink the Box, made with Ben Bailey Smith ran to 28 episodes, won Podbible’s podcast of the year, made it into the top 5 of both the Amazon and the Apple charts, and was twice recommended in the The Guardian’s The Guide.
Books
Part memoir, part psycho-education, Languages of Loss is by one person, with two perspectives on grief. Plunged unexpectedly into widowhood at just 49 years old, Sasha describes in searing honesty the agonisingly raw feelings unleashed by the loss of her husband. From the depths of her confusion she gropes for ways to manage the pain, and with her therapist hat in place creates perspective, looking back at psychotherapeutic and grief theory to help her make sense of her altered reality.
Her second book, written in response to all the letters she received after the publication of Languages of Loss – offers more practical suggestions on to how to navigate those painful first few months when everything is so raw, and support feels hard to find.
In her third book for Yellow Kite/Hodder, Sasha returns to her passion for exploring what yoga and psychotherapy together can offer those of us grappling with the big issues and concerns facing most of us today – anxiety, stress, depression, anger, conflict, addiction, uncertainty, loneliness, and more. It includes a foreword by Dr Lee Watson and contributions from the Fierce Calm yoga community.
