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Amy Weintraub (born Amy Elsa Weintraub, June 3, 1951, in Oceanside, New York) is a writer, yoga teacher, motivational speaker, and former television producer. She is founder of the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute, and is author of Yoga for Depression (Penguin Random House, 2003) and Yoga Skills for Therapists (W.W. Norton, 2012). She is author of the forthcoming novel, Temple Dancer.

Education & Early Career
Weintraub received a BA in English literature in 1973 from Boston University and an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College in 2000. She holds E-RYT and C-YACEP certifications from the Yoga Alliance and C-IAYT from the International Association of Yoga Therapists, and an Internal Family Systems (IFS) Level 1 & Level 2 certification from the Center for Self Leadership.

Yoga for Depression
After suffering for years with depression, she eventually found relief through yoga. She began a daily yoga practice inspired by her attendance at a program at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, in Stockbridge, Mass., and with psychiatric supervision, she was able to slowly titrate off antidepressant medication. She became a Kripalu yoga teacher in 1991 specializing in yoga as an approach to help treat depression. In 1999, she wrote the first article on yoga for depression, "Yoga: The Natural Prozac," for Yoga Journal. .

LifeForce Yoga
In 2004, she developed a comprehensive protocol of yoga practices for depression and anxiety, based largely on ancient techniques of breathing and posture, and founded the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute, a training program for yoga teachers and mental health professionals. As part of the LifeForce Yoga program, Weintraub wrote books and articles and produced a series of DVD and CD instructional guides (see "Publications" below). In a Yoga Journal review of her book, Yoga for Depression, Phil Catalfo wrote that the Weintraub "offers a brilliant illumination of how the ancient wisdom of the yoga tradition can penetrate the often intractable challenges of depression.” In 2016, she sold the LifeForce Yoga program to her long-time collaborator, Rose Kress.

In addition to continued participation in LifeForce Yoga training, Weintraub teaches yoga for depression as a faculty member and instructor at yoga centers around the world including the Kripalu Center, Esalen Institute, Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville, Soul of Yoga, Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat Bahamas, as well as The iRest Institute and Yoga U Online. As Tevis Gale wrote in Yoga Journal, "Amy Weintraub's work with depression is remarkable: Open the pages of leading retreat centers, and it's likely Weintraub will be on the schedule." Describing his experience in one of her sessions at Kripalu, New York Times science writer, William Broad, wrote: "We relaxed. We visualized. We did balancing poses. ... We laughed. We stretched. We made calming sounds. We did Breath of Joy. ... By the end of it, we glowed, lit from within."

In another salute, DOYOUYOGA, the online yoga resource, included Weintraub in its feature of "10 Inspiring Yoga Teachers Who Have Beat the Odds."

Personal Life
In 1974 she married the designer Daniel Droz in Pittsburgh. They have one daughter, Miriam Leah Droz Gamliel, born in 1976. Weintraub and Droz were divorced. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, and Providence, Rhode Island.