The Work And Byron Katie: Reviews?

[Justmehere]

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what Katie is saying is the same as Christianity, which is that we cannot earn salvation by good works, we simply received it by grace. If a person could achieve enlightenment then surely it is their ego that has achieved it?

Actually what Katie proposes is different than Christianity. They do share the similarity that "salvation" is by definition not earned but given through grace. However, mainstream Christianity focuses on the person of Christ (thus the name of Christianity) and I don't see the same focus in the Katie Bryon teachings. It's more focused on self and general consciousness and a very different take on God than what Christ or mainstream Christians teach. If someone wants to pursue that kind of salvation, then I don't judge them at all for doing so. However, I think it's important to be clear that Katie Bryon's "The Work" it's not the same as mainstream Christian belief. In fact, in healthy Christian belief, (and in healthy CBT techniques), and the teachings of Christ himself, there is a practice of embracing of grief as one of the paths to find comfort and healing and relief. There is also a heavy emphasis on personal sacrifice. Compassion for others is at a cost but can be fit both. Katie Bryon's methods go against that. She also sees personal happiness as the way to solve most of the world's problems. Of course personal happiness is a great thing, but it's not the end all be all. Sometimes grief is a part of the process of healing. Christ taught that belief in him and taking up his yoke and one's own cross was the solution. Very different things.

What Katie teaches is a form of meta cognition: learning to think about our thinking. CBT, DBT, and many forms of trauma therapy explore this too - which is part of why it will work to some degree.

While she teaches how to think about thinking, the problem is that she takes a distrust of thoughts too far. Just like changing thoughts plays a role in broken bone healing, the bone is still broken and needs to heal, no matter how much I think otherwise.

Check out this article for a better explanation of how Katie Bryon takes CBT principals too far. http://mortentolboll.weebly.com/a-c...e-and-her-therapeutic-technique-the-work.html She has even described how the burning of babies by Nazi's was the love of God, and the mothers simply needed to change their thoughts to avoid suffering. No joke.

I could share so many other examples...

I personally would steer clear of the works of Katie Bryon. It's popular in my area and it has left a number of people worse off than when they started simply because she takes a wonderful and sound idea a bit too far.

I find myself very concerned at how the vast majority of the group and techniques and workshops have many cult like or flat out cult-ish qualities. I even went with a friend to one and had to leave because it was so unhealthy. She tries to administer good CBT techniques, but in a way that is dangerous.

That doesn't mean there are no good elements to her work, but instead, like all dangerous groups, there are good elements to it. Those elements that are good can be pursued without all the dangers.

 

[Interested]

I dunno, @Interested - I don't believe that hard work is more valid because of a...

Thanks for your reply, joeylittle. I separate Katie's awakening (she does not use the word enlightenment) from her teaching. I agree that her teaching is an on-going process, enquiring 'thought by thought'. In terms of her awakening, I like how it was 'over night' because that is the only way it can be a result of grace. I see her awakening on the floor of the half-way house as how Katie received the process called The Work. But practising The Work is an on-going process.

 

[Interested]

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Actually what Katie proposes is different than Christianity. They do share the similarity that "sa...

Thanks for your reply, Justmehere. It did not mean to make a sweeping comparison between Katie and Christianity. What you say is very interesting about the differences. The only similarity I was referring to was the way that Katie's awakening and Christian grace are gifts, not earned by good works.

 

[Kintsugi]

So... this thread is hilarious to me.

I did some light reading about Ms Katie on the Cult Education forum. There are eleven pages of discussion about her here, although there are others: http://forum.culteducation.com/read.php?12,12906

One of the posters in that thread directs to one of her--uhm--seminars in Israel, where she talks to a woman who is afraid of war:

I can hardly listen to this crackpot talk to this Israeli woman.

She seems to posit herself as a sort of Buddha (without actually running the risk of positing herself as a guru--clever).

Remember, folks, if you meet the Buddha on the road...

Kill the Buddha. ;)

ETA: Thanks for giving me a new Large Group Awareness Training program to study for coercive persuasion tactics. Those are my favorite! I've heard of The Work, but I was busy looking into similar stuff, like Landmark. Mmm... LGATs are so fascinating.

 

[crsi]

I wrote this post a year and a half ago and I am grateful for the recent responses it has received as I...

The Work sounds a little like "the best defense is a strong offense". It doesn't seem to respect wholeness in all it's frustruating, maddening, paradoxical complexity and diversity. Wholeness you don't get to take all the responsibility for, you can't own your wholeness, self-questioning or doubt is probably essential to experiencing it. Self-questioning is an excellent tool, but -- and here I can only say pay attention to duality, turning everything positive is still duality -- what is the last question? Tearing up your own floorboards, if that make you sad and beg your own forgiveness as you bleed to death in the arms of your killer, well, maybe you won and aren't a weakling who can't do The Work after all.

What question is useful for a baby with colic? They aren't screwing up they are in terrible pain. You might not be able to fix this, all you can do is the little things and be there, without resistance and just love them strongly with your heart and delicately and tenderly with your arms or whatever. Read the Bodhisattva vow in it's many little variations, let senseless things make sense because after all you don't know what you don't know literally, not scolding about oh ye small creature blablabla. Look at the next question you want to hurl at or use to carve out your suffering and while respecting that suffering (coz it SUCKS not like oh it's useful blah) ask yourself who you would be without that question. Do you need The Work? It probably works better than nothing but it screams someone got a bolt of enlightenment to the head and dropped anchor. Enlightenment is silly shit, it happens or doesn't; everything's where you left it.

You're stuck with "The Wisdom of Insecurity" because why hurl yourself down a bottomless pit in pursuit of alway getting it right? Some asshole flicked "wrong" into your inner soup. You can't heal an eye with dissection; once the eye is perfect it is blind. Perfection is for the dead, in the meantime existence is suffering so it's okay to space out sometimes, be a complete idiot, ooooo even (gasp) lie to yourself [cue brimstone & hellfire music aaaaaaa] o noes not that!?! Not the briar patch...


that stuff sets my damn teeth on edge. maybe have a drink if water and a few other things, indulge some really Wrong thoughts, be that friend who holds your hair out of your puke weekend after weekend as you stumble down the stairs forever whirling and stupid and beligerent. It's fine! Seriously! No reverse-psychology. How can it not be? If your thinking what is this crap I'm just in pain not haunted, well good, coz "darkness" is only a perjorative in the minds of fools. Trial and error, eternal suffering. Love inspired the creation of The Book of the Dead -- how do you get a heart lighter than a feather while your head is skipping against the claws of anxiety? I wish for you relief, so maybe some drop of relief you feel in the near future came from my wish. I am looking out my window. The moon is bright and clear.

 

[crsi]

Wow! I had never heard of Byron Katie before, but after stumbling on this thread, just did a wee bit of g...

~left believing that they are to blame for every negative in their lives.~

change "are to blame for" to "control" and there's the ticket. it might be a matter of life and death to retake the gunner position and fire pew pew pew pewpewpewpew, i know i like it sometimes, but it is violent. really. if that doesn't feel right, it ain't. be tender and kind.