The Work And Byron Katie: Reviews?

[Valentino]

Hi dharmaBum, I have been contemplating how to address this topic deeper but also practical, but it's really quite difficult to find the right language and communicate things generally, specific and in a concise way ....

The 2 layers of suffering wasn't the best analogy, it's not really total black and white type issue, it's more gray area. Some suffering might be easily separated between direct and indirect, but a large percentage if not most of suffering has aspects of both direct physical causes and indirect mental causes.

Let's look at the ANS (Autonomic Nervous System) - an automatic, involuntary nervous system which is classically divided into 2 subsystems which operate in opposition to each other but also complementary in nature:
- sympathetic nervous system (SNS) often called "Fight or Flight" system.
- parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) often called "Rest and Digest" or "Feed and Breed" system.

With PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), we are dealing with lingering effects after (post) a traumatic stressful experience. A Trauma is a stressful experience that overwhelms our psychological defense mechanisms. When our mental defenses fail that automatically triggers the ANS instinctual nervous system "monkey mind", which activates the sympathetic nervous system and our "Fight or Flight" response.

In normal stressful situations, the "Fight or Flight" response kicks in, danger is handled, and then there's a natural integration and processing. "Rest & Digest" kicks in, and we fall back to our mental defense mechanisms and continue life without significant residual effects.

With PTSD there's a long term lingering residual effect that lasts well after the actual threat or danger is gone.

A good portion of it is from poor integration and resolution between our psychology (mental & emotional bodies) and the ANS which often gets stuck in SNS "Fight or Flight" response.

What often happens with PTSD is our psychology gets in the way of the autonomic nervous system's own self recovery process. The intense energy charge that the 'Fight or Flight' response triggered needs to be released and also reconciled. Our psychology and mental focus could help the process by helping the physical body to "rest and digest", and also learn from the experience by accepting our anger and learning to set healthy boundaries. But often our psychology over-reacts with mal-adaptive strategies and defense mechanisms. Like numbing, avoidance, distractions, over-reacting, passive aggression, resistance to what is, resistance to what already happened, over-protectiveness, hiding in the future, obsessing over the past, avoiding our present reality as it is, etc.

These over-reactions & mal-adaptive strategies often offer a short term benefit of limited peace and safety, but in the long term they over-use the "Fight or Flight" for psychological stresses, often to the point where the ANS gets stuck in that mode, leading to physical hormonal issues like adrenal fatigue. Also with more and more use and reinforcement of these mal-adaptive defense mechanisms, our psychology gets further and further away from reality, logic, and objective thinking, which actually raises the chances of future re-traumatizing.

.... so self inquiry, contemplation, non dual teachings, Buddhist practices, meditation, psychological understanding, etc. can offer tools and techniques to help our minds to see more clearly what reality is, and better learn how to understand and respond to our emotions (our body communicating to our minds through physical feelings & sensations). With that the mind can learn to help, work with, and lead the human body to healing and recovery, instead of getting in the way and/or making things worse.

The magic isn't in any particular method though, they are simply tools, it's about learning to use the tool properly, and choosing the right tools for each particular job.

 

[dharmaBum]

I like the terms "rest and digest" and "feed and breed." I hadn't heard those before. I think your understanding has a lot more depth than I've come across from other people who use The Work (I'm keeping this conversation limited to that style of self-inquiry for clarity- based on the topic) or who have adopted parts of Byron-Katie-style philosophies like, "the universe is a reflection of myself." <<I've had friends say this and wonder where they are hurting the universe when other people hurt them.

So for you, it's highly possible that for some people The Work might not help them, which is fine, because it is one of many tools which promise to deepen one's emotional intelligence and personal awareness. I do think that Byron Katie promotes it too heavily as capable of being ultimately successful for everyone in all situations to resolve stress and achieve peace, as in the quote from the Laudenslager article where Katie clearly implies that Laudenslager hadn't worked hard enough yet to be free of her problems.

From your post above on Saturday,
"Part of what I have observed with the way people actually practice 'The Work' is that they think of it in 'magical thinking' terms, instead of recognizing the limitations to this method (or any method), they self-blame, and too easily jump to a conclusion that they aren't doing 'The Work' hard enough, or doing it enough times, or they are doing it wrong, or need to get an expert to help them do it."

^^Those were my experiences EXACTLY as I got into The Work during a phase of unrecognized ego-state dissociation. The sticky wicket for me is that I was not imposing the "magical thinking" onto the process. Byron Katie in her writings and interviews and the local facilitator I have referenced were literally promoting that view. I had, for a long time as an adult still functioned in life with a great deal of magical thinking, some of it based on concepts from non-duality I had come across in my studies of Buddhism, yogic meditation, and altered perception via Aldous Huxley and Terrance McKenna- et al (minus the hallucinogens). Apparently I was ripe for the picking when I came across Byron Katie materials, that have since been revised, that basically said I could cure my PTSD myself by accepting reality and loving what is. And if I did those things and still felt stressed, then I just wasn't getting it quite right, and a facilitator could be sure to help me.

 

[Nicolette]

I can say that I am not a supporter of PTSD sufferers, nor do I choose to suffer it.

Banned - no purpose being here.

 

[dharmaBum]

Oh- so that's what it means when the avatar says "Banned!" I thought it was just some users being ironic, because the content remains. Thanks for checking in Nicolette.

 

[Valentino]

dharmaBum,

I've spent some more time reflecting on Byron Katie, The Work, and also re-read through past posts in this thread, to try to understand the many different perspectives being shared, and possibly try to understand better where you are coming from, and what you are seeking.

I am very impressed with and admire your persistence to explore and reflect on your personal history, inner thoughts, feelings and reactions. In a sense you're already doing your own form of inquiry and contemplation.

It seems that the approach of 'The Work' and Byron Katie might be triggering you. But it's more so the energy behind the approach instead of the actual mechanics. Katie's style is very direct and aggressive, that most likely comes from her personality and history.

In 1986 Katie was a mother of three, on her second marriage and had spent a decade falling into depression, agoraphobia, overeating and addiction to codeine and alcohol. They say she rarely left her bed and grew so paranoid that she sometimes slept with a loaded gun under her bed.

"She was probably one of the saddest, angriest people I've ever known," recalls her daughter, Roxann Burroughs, who was 16 at the time. Her sons, then ages 18 and 23, had moved out of the house. "She was very closed up and volatile," says her eldest son, Bob Robinson. "Her mood swings were incredible. She came down on me with a lot more intensity than the other two siblings."
...
Pat Scales a therapist at Hope House recalls: "I remember that she was very emotional, both with anger and with tears. When she came into my group, she was so emotionally fragmented there didn't seem to be a self there, which is not the case with most people with eating disorders. They're fairly functional. She could easily have scared people."

Less than two weeks into her stay, Katie says she awoke one morning to the sensation of a cockroach crawling across her foot. She opened her eyes and, she explains in her book, "It was as if something else had woken up. It opened its eyes. It was looking through Katie's eyes ... it was intoxicated with joy." At that moment, she claims, the four questions appeared in her consciousness.

-- excerpt from Los Angeles Times Nov 2002 interview/article

Because of her sudden transformation after a decade long depression and most likely a life long struggle with obsessive out of control emotions, she most likely did not learn from her emotional torment, and that's why her method is overly mental and solely focused on thoughts. There's little focus on working with the energy of emotions. In fact, there probably is still a lot of lingering emotional residue and intensity in her body. That emotional intensity can be useful with promoting and teaching 'the work' as it can cut through her beliefs and also other's beliefs very quickly. But it's a very rough and harsh energy, that is not suited for some or many situations. Like someone who's barely holding onto reality with PTSD.

Codependence or shared-dependence is another big potential trap with followers of 'The Work' and other self-help methods. Successful self help should be you, yourself helping yourself. You actively doing your own work. Over-reliance or over-use of a facilitator, teacher, technique or method can actually create an inner weakness, because your self isn't learning and growing through self driven activity, instead it's becoming more dependent from external help. Instead of developing inner trust, guidance and self discernment. It's reinforcing self doubt, self-abandonment, and inner critic.

Some traits of codependence: magical thinking, black & white thinking, all or nothing thinking, compulsive rescuers, people pleasers, conflict averse, control freaks, lack of trust, emotionally hungry, etc.

 

[dharmaBum]

But it's a very rough and harsh energy, that is not suited for some or many situations. Like someone who's barely holding onto reality with PTSD.

Totally agree there :D

I appreciate you taking the time to consider what it might be behind Byron Katie and/or as the process is presented through The Work that is related to my discomfort and unease. In my original panic as I started reading some of the adverse reports online I uncovered a few people who seemed to think that Katie is completely aware of the whole co-dependence angle and that she maximizes that effect for money. I haven't spent a dime on The Work, so I really can't speak to that angle at all, and imagine that there are many therapists, teachers, etc. in a variety of disciplines who unduly take advantage of vulnerable and dependent people.

Thanks again for sharing your view. I hope to write a bit more later about Affect Management and other strategies I've used to manage PTSD and staying grounded that have much in common with The Work.

 

[Hashi]

@dharmaBum, when you say they have much in common with The Work, I wonder if you mean what The Work has in common with many other systems? The interpretation and delivery is Katie Byron's own, but most of the substance isn't, I think.

As far as I'm aware things like The Work, Law of Attraction etc are a rehash of ideas that have been around for a hundred, or hundreds of, years. I think this is what bothers me so much about them - they take a pure idea and mangle it.

 

[dharmaBum]

Yeah Hashi, my focus was that there are commonalities between different strategies, not that Byron Katie has developed source material via The Work.

 

[Lucycat]

Wow! I had never heard of Byron Katie before, but after stumbling on this thread, just did a wee bit of googling. She sounds like a very scary lady, and from what I just read very sick.

It is described as being like a cult and brainwashing. Her 'schools' using fasting, induced vomiting, forced begging, days of silence and then constant bombardment so that participants are left believing that they are to blame for every negative in their lives.

I certainly will not be reading her books. I understand she was investigated by the Californian Board of Psychologists as long ago as 1999 they were so concerned about her practices ( although this was not pursued).

An interesting topic on here. I think I will leave it at that.

 

[Valentino]

A few more thoughts after exploring the energy behind Katie's work and message.

I think that she's a natural aggressive personality. Her mental health history points to DSM Axis 2 personality disorders, with high inner emotional instability, impulsivity, excessivity and intensity, with poor emotional regulation. Along with lack of empathy, lack of remorse, and weak conscience.

But the DSM focuses more on the negative symptoms, there are some natural strengths to aggressive personalities. They can be experts at manipulation, motivation, persuasion, dominance. They can be fearless risk-takers and highly capable of imposing their will onto other people.

While their lack of remorse and poor empathy helps them with being fearless to the external world and others. It also creates a type of mind-blindness, where they just can't relate to people with normal levels of anxiety, and most especially they're totally blind to people with high levels of anxiety, sensitivity or empathy for others.

Many PTSD survivors have high anxiety, sensitivity, or empathy, so the covert aggressive approach underlying 'The Work' is just as likely to trigger anxiety instead of resolving any suffering.

While a person who has normal to high aggressive personality might be able to deal with the fast and aggressive style of 'The Work', and possibly benefit.

Someone suffering from PTSD is likely dealing with anxiety and a nervous system that is out of control. Aggressive judgement thoughts and a need to dominate is not their problem, it might not even be in their awareness. A PTSD survivor is likely to even have a fear of aggressive energy, external conflict and even their own emotions of anger. For them, it's more about getting comfortable with the energy of aggression, and developing a healthy relationship with their own anger.

For a PTSD survivor, doing 'The Work' is using aggressive energy to try to heal wounds created by aggressive energy, how is that even a reasonable strategy?

I could go into lots more depth about differences between aggressive and anxious personalities, but that can get quite complicated, I'm still working on getting a good grasp on it. There are some experts to talk about aspects of it, but no one I've read or seen has talked about the big picture.

btw. I don't think that the techniques of self-inquiry, contemplation, investigation, curiosity, etc. are inherently aggressive. Byron Katie's version is likely aggressive, but for her personality that's probably what she needed.

 

[Hashi]

Is anyone here really thinking that Byron Katie and The Work has added anything to their healing?

If not I'd respectfully suggest a new thread about philosophies/wisdom that have helped, rather than mixing Byron Katie up with other things that came before her.

 

[Valentino]

I have benefited from participating in this thread, it's forced me to investigate deeper into Byron Katie, and from that I have discovered a much better understanding of aggressive energy in relation to anxious energy, most likely opposite strategies for dealing with stress. Fight or Flight can be broken down into Aggression or Anxiety.

I just recently had dinner with my gf who was triggered by stress and using a mostly aggressive response, and I realized that my attempts at communication was from the perspective of anxiety, and that's why I wasn't connecting. In fact, maybe I was raising her stress levels with that approach.

So, for aggressive personalities, maybe they do need something like 'The Work' to break them out of their bowling ball like approach towards life & stress?

Btw, I have found the Drama Triangle an excellent tool to help understand dynamics between aggression and anxiety, that would fall into the roles of persecutor and rescuer.

There is a recent thread on here discussing it:
https://www.myptsd.com/threads/trauma-reenactment-triangle.37612/