I certainly told my friends what I'd uncovered about Byron Katie and the work, and they were all thankful.

You mention apologizing to people, but I can tell you that I didn't do that, just shared the info about BK. Why apologize for something you did in earnest?

I agree with Anticult that you've given an excellent report. Thank you. :-)

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SusanD
Now if you got this far thank you, and I have a question. When I was first over-excited about The Work back in December, I sent close friends the link to her website and recommended them to read her book. I was very persuasive about it. Do you think I should contact these people and apologise and let them know my current feelings about The Work? It is certainly a lesson for me, but I wonder if I need to undo any bad I did with that recommendation.

Hi to exscientology person and everyone else here. I have not been in a cult or sect or anything, but I'm generally interested in the sort of pseudo-science aspects of a lot of stuff that passes as psychotherapy or trauma counseling, etc., and I ran across videos of Byron Katie on youtube for the first time just a few days ago. I find her mannerisms really annoying, and in terms of content I agree with many of the assessments I read on this thread -- while far from an expert on what she's all about, I can say that my first impression is that it strikes me as weird the way she insists that reality is the only thing that matters and that escaping to the dreamworld is bad (so far so good), while at the same time fetishizing the present moment so much that our capacity for and the necessity of anticipating likely future events (such as bombs in Israel) is considered a mistake. Anyway -- in these latter posts I thought it was a bit of a shame that someone was calling another commenter an "apologist" for cult figures when he (exscientology person) pointed out that, while there may be a danger in having unlicensed people answering hotlines, there is certainly no guarantee that LICENSED psychologists are any less dangerous. Really, look around. There are so many zillions of bad psychologists out there that the more experimentally and empirically minded (people like Richard McNally at Harvard, who wrote a book called Remembering Trauma, for instance) are constantly at war with more touchy-feely psychologists who have PhD's and tenured positions and so forth and are just as likely to be full of sh*t as Byron Katie. So I think helpme2times should be able to take a step back and let people like exscientology guy say what he wants. In any case, I agree the problem is not that the people answering the phones are unlicensed or that Byron Katie has no PhD, but just that what she says is, at best, a very mixed bag, helpful to some people, apparently, but damaging to others.

My other two cents' worth here is to say that in my experience a lot of people like Byron Katie really and truly believe in what they are saying. It's not a conspiracy to rip people off. But that they start to believe so deeply in their ability to help people that they move into areas and take on "cases" where -- because they have no modesty and don't see their limits -- they cause damage. In other words, is everyone here convinced that she has some secret mission that she is trying desperately to hide? That what drives her is greed, etc., as opposed to hubris? Is it not possible she's just overextended and overmarketed...but not evil incarnate?

In any case, I enjoy this site and think the posts are quite interesting. Thank you.

Hi screddy57,
Just to clarify a couple points.

You can't be serious that random untrained, unmonitored people on a Byron Katie Hotline are not 1000x more dangerous than a PhD in psychology?
If a person is licensed, you can look them up, and see if there are complaints against them.
Of course there are some Quacks who are psychologists, but they are in the minority.

But the Byron Katie Hotline people could be anyone. They could have a completely fake ID, and a fake name. Noone monitors who they are, or checks-out their personal information.
They could be a Byron Katie True Believer, which is extremely dangerous.
They could also even be a criminal or con-artist looking for desperate people to rip-off.

As far as Ex-Scientology, he can say whatever he wants, noone is stopping him.

But as far as Byron Katie, when one carefully studies her, and sees dozens and dozens of calculated conscious falsehoods being perpetrated, its obvious that its a deliberate con-job.
When someone lies their ass off, over and over and over, that is a con.
No question, Byron Katie does believe she is "special", but she has made a very careful study of NLP, hypnosis, Social Influence, and dozens of other things, then she just lies and says she became enlightened by magic.
Byron Katie is a shrewd ruthless operator, and those who are close to her see this once the hypnosis starts to wear off.

There is zero proof that Byron Katie helps anyone, as there have been no controlled studies. Just testimonials from a few people, and from people who are making money from her stuff.
It may sound strong what is being said about Katie, but when one looks at what she is doing to people's core beliefs without their knowledge, its truly appalling.

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screddy57
My other two cents' worth here is to say that in my experience a lot of people like Byron Katie really and truly believe in what they are saying. It's not a conspiracy to rip people off. But that they start to believe so deeply in their ability to help people that they move into areas and take on "cases" where -- because they have no modesty and don't see their limits -- they cause damage. In other words, is everyone here convinced that she has some secret mission that she is trying desperately to hide? That what drives her is greed, etc., as opposed to hubris? Is it not possible she's just overextended and overmarketed...but not evil incarnate?

How is it that you have experienced "a lot of people like Byron Katie" so that you can know what their true intentions are?

Thanks for your responses and further information, I appreciate it.

Thank you for the book recommendation TheAnticult, I have heard of CBT and will look into it via qualified practitioners. I will stay away from landmark! Once bitten (or nibbled in my case!) twice shy.

Hi helpme2times, thank you for your comments. You ask, "why apologise?" Because I feel I did not do enough "due diligence" before recommending something to my friends. I feel bad about it. I get pissed when people send me obviously hoax/urban myth emails because they have not bothered to verify them before they send them to me. I think it is a similar thing on a different scale. Anyway, I have sent a few lines and an apology to the few people I sent it to and responses have been very kind and understanding so far. It seems my friends' BS detectors were far more finely tuned than mine - but of course, to take this sort of thing seriously, one has to have a "need" in the first place, so hopefully no harm done. It sure has taught me a lesson.

Meantime I am now dealing with facing those problems I tried to evaporate using BK's methods. But that's real life, and I prefer reality. ;)

SusanD.

Ex-Sci kid was active on this other thread and was far from polite when corresponding with a person who was courteous, kind and helpful.

[forum.culteducation.com]

In the schoolyard this would be considered bullying.

And it was interesting that Ex Sci followed a rather similar strategy of seeming to be reasonable and then very quickly engaging in facile put downs of licensed psychotherapists and then making it seem there was no real difference between psychotherapists and unlicensed human potential entrepreneurs.

Again, licensed professionals are regulated by law and identifiable by license number and are required by law not only to pass exacting standards for training, testing, but the treatments they prescribe must meet the legally defined 'standard of care.'

And whether 'full of shit' or not, the licensed professional must also by law do the following: honor patient confidentiality, keep records (and the records must meet standards of completeness) and psychotherapy clients
never sign away their right to engage in litigation if they feel the process has damaged them.

If under any circumstances the client or patient might be recorded or videotaped, he or she is told in advance and given the option to refuse.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2008 09:35PM by corboy.

I have found any of the main books by Dr. David Burns on CBT to be excellent. His most recent book about Anxiety called "When Panic Attacks" has an entire section on "Exposure Therapy", which is about directly facing the things one is avoiding. There is a lot of excellent research to support the "Exposure Model".

Its perverse how some BK people try to say The Work is like CBT, when it is not at all. They have nothing to do with eachother.
The Work is a cognitive distortion, The Turnaround is also a distorted POLARIZED way of thinking, its literally a Cognitive Distortion.
CBT is about facing reality and dealing with it as best as one can.

Carol Skolnick was one of the Byron Katie people who have wrongly tried to associate BK with CBT, to try and get some credibility.
The Work is more a variant of a specific use of waking-hypnosis,social influence, and persuasion NLP.

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SusanD

Thank you for the book recommendation TheAnticult, I have heard of CBT and will look into it via qualified practitioners.
...
Meantime I am now dealing with facing those problems I tried to evaporate using BK's methods. But that's real life, and I prefer reality. ;)

SusanD.

Hi, Anticult,

You wrote: "You can't be serious that random untrained, unmonitored people on a Byron Katie Hotline are not 1000x more dangerous than a PhD in psychology?"

I was just agreeing with the Ex-Scientology guy (someone has pegged me as somehow connected to him -- or perhaps I am him: does that shoot first ask questions later approach not suggest to others that maybe the nerves need to be calmed a bit on this site? -- or is everyone who tries to join the conversation actually a plant from the other side. Paranoia has it's place, but seriously...) that, while it's problematic to have unlicensed volunteers answering calls from people desperate enough to reach out to "spiritual guides" like Byron Katie and her ilk, there is another problem on the other side -- what some call the professionalization of distress: you know what I mean: the high school quarterback dies in a car accident. Oh no! We need a "Licensed Psychological First Responder! TODAY! Arrange a triage in the school auditorium!" The high school guidance counselor -- well liked by everyone but with only an M.A. in psychology -- isn't considered "professional" enough to take calls from the kids. He's not sufficiently licensed. I was only agreeing that the problem is not that the people answering the phones are not "professionals." You say that of course it's better if people have PhD's. Sure. But I think the point Ex-sci guy made was that it's not always possible. Should you shutter the suicide hotlines if there is no budget to put PhD's on the answering end? Maybe. Everyone seems to agree that for sure BYRON KATIE'S hotlines should be shut down. But unless you agree that suicide hotlines sans PhD's should be shut down, you can't argue that her hotlines should be shut down simply because the people answering the phones are not professionals. So I agreed with the other guy who said you can't denounce non-professional hotlines because they are non-professional unless you denounce them all. Seems irrefutable, no?

However, the question remains whether Byron Katie's hotlines are 1000x more dangerous than a PhD in psychology. I can't answer that one, which is partly why I started reading this thread. If you want you can assume I don't really want to learn anything, but believe it or not I really meant what I said: that BK is new to me, I was really put off by her videos, and wanted to learn more about her. I will now add that I find it frustrating that there are no "raw" videos of her on youtube -- you only see the edited ones. I particularly hated the one where she was counseling a 27 year old woman whose father had just died. She asked if her father HAD DIED! Was that true! I mean, what planet is she from? I think that is just bullshit and it really irked me. This 27 year old was perhaps not as willing to equate memories of her father with her father's actual life. I would have loved to have seen how the woman responded. But the video was edited, and we never got to see her response.

As much as she annoys me, I wanted to know if everyone feels the way you do -- that she is using her Vulcan Mind-meld powers to hypnotize and overpower people. Maybe she is a superclever manipulator. I guess I wonder -- and this is what I asked last time -- if it is possible that back in the past before all the pomposity, annoying gestures and bloated New Age rhetoric -- she was a sincere person. Many of the best manipulators are quite convinced themselves of all that they are saying.

So I made two points: 1) there are other, not quite symmetrical, but similarly dangerous tendencies that attend to the professionalization of distress just as to the "unprofessionalization" one finds on hotlines and so on. Some could argue that if a hotline person was honest and said "I am not an expert but I'm here to listen" the situation may be, probability-wise, less dangerous than one in which the person calling feels reassured that the other person, who is a "licensed" "counselor" (or PhD) (which are multiplying as we speak) and so lowering their guard in a way they would not do knowing the person on the other end was unlicensed. If BK hotline people pretend to be experts and are not, that is, obviously, a greater danger than putting your average PhD on the line. I grant you that.

2) Is it possible BK is sincere?

screddy57:

There have been many Internet trolls, plants, etc. that have come to this message board to disrupt and subvert threads.

Being aware of that isn't "paranoia" its perceptive and based upon the facts.

Perhaps you should have spent more time reading the threads first before commenting.

Byron Katie is not a licensed professional and therefore not accountable to anyone, e.g. like a clinical psychologist.

Byron Katie does seem to employ the voice and cadence of a hypnotist. Perhaps that's just a coincidence, but there it is.

People in a hypnotic trance state are much more suggestible and malleable.

Moderator,

Did something in my posts suggest that I thought BK was licensed?

With respect, I submit that being aware that there are various plants is one thing, and that it would be fine for someone with a suspicious cast of mind to watch very closely for evidence of trickery, but it is extremely off-putting to someone coming here to read the threads and post comments to immediately be attributed the evil eye -- which one can never adequately deny. So as moderator, I guess keeping an eye on that tendency might be nice.

Screddy