Here is a description by a psychiatrist of what happened to him when he went into caffiene withdrawal.

[thelastpsychiatrist.com]

Here is a discussion from earlier in a discussion thread about the issues of telling people to abstain from their customary foods drinks during 'events'.

Start at the top of the page and then read down.

[forum.culteducation.com]

This citation lists in appropriate or counter clinical self discloure on the part of a therapist.

[books.google.com]

The authors warn this leads the client into a destructive role reversal in which he or she takes care of the therapist, which is a re-enactment of the way the client incurred harm in childhood and from which the therapist is suppost to protect that person.

The book from which this is quoted, does not however, mention how inappropriate it is for a therapist to talk about his or her guru.

Note how protective people become of BK's public persona..its because she tells people far too much about herself. And...she is not licensed to practice therapy.

Other areas where this matter has been discussed

Therapists as Fiduciaries

[forum.culteducation.com]

Considerations for Professionals Involved in Non Traditional Healing Modalities

[forum.culteducation.com]

Additional discussion

[forum.culteducation.com]

Here is a URL for an article (long but very, very good) describing the legal and moral pitfalls when a licensed therapist encourages clients to become involved with an unlicenced guru whom the therapist is personally involved with.

[www.culteducation.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2009 11:17PM by corboy.

Any so-called "therapist" who hooks people into Byron Katie and refers them to her dangerous LGAT seminar needs to be reported to their licensing committee. (if they have one).
Many so-called therapists are totally unregulated, and can be completely incompetent, or also running their own Byron Katie style "Life-Coaching" business, or be Mind-washed by Byron Katie themselves.

Byron Katie tries to say that what she does is not therapy, as she wants to avoid getting into trouble. But of course, behind closed doors they say it is therapy. They are very dishonest.

You are 100% correct that Byron Katie has DESIGNED her system to create self-blame. That has been documented in the other thread in great detail. That is precisely what Byron Katie does.

Meanwhile, Byron Katie does the opposite and NEVER accepts blame for anything, she always blames others. Its a tactic for BK to exercise her control.

BK's claims about her anger are outright lies. Bald-faced lies.
And her husband Stephen Mitchell tells the same bullshit with a straight-face.
Its simply another in a long line of tactics to make her people think she is Enlightened.
She is not.

Your analysis of Byron Katie is 100% correct. She is a disturbed person, who is highly intelligent, who deeply craves power, money, control, and worship from her followers. She must deeply crave that power-game she plays with people.

So no need to blame yourself! Actually, you have done terrifically, being able to see through what Byron Katie is doing. It takes years of training in these techniques to understand all of them, and Byron Katie is a world-class expert in group manpulation and covert influence.
For someone with training, you can see it instantly. But for the average person without training, its hard to see.

The self-blaming in the Byron Katie system is one of the most damaging aspects. Excessive self-blame creates depression and guilt, that is a fact of psychology.
There is appropriate self-responsibility, and unhealthy self-blame.

Notice how Byron Katie has designed it, so her followers take 100% of unhealthy self-blame and guilt for everything, while Byron Katie takes 0% of blame for anything?
That hooks people into a spiral of self-blame, depression and guilt, and then they get locked into the Byron Katie system for years, and even for L-I-F-E. That is what Byron Katie wants, lifers.

Make sure to read Janaki's blog abut Byron Katie, if its still available.

Byron Katie & Janaki [janakisstory.wordpress.com]

PDF
[www.theworkingcompany.nl]

Quote
chicky monkey
Yes, Quackdave, my therapist taught me to do the Work.

I’m just now starting to realize how angry I feel with my therapist for the dangerous work we did with BK’s Work. Not only did he introduce me to the Work, we spent most of our weekly sessions addressing my issues and concerns by answering the 4 questions and doing the turnaround. The study group I joined was a 2 hour group ran by him that met once a week in the evenings that would normally be considered group therapy, but we applied the Work to our issues.

He was very supportive and gleeful when I went to the School, saying it was just what I needed. He had seen Katie speak locally just a few months before and was enamored of her. He recommended her other books to me. He flat out told me he thought she was “enlightened”. That was the exact word he used.
....

They taught you to do that really well at the School. I’m sure the idea is not new in mind control to get people to blame themselves, but I don’t know enough about them to speak of it. I know that what I experienced was a system perfectly designed to always turn everything back to yourself to keep the system intact. Meaning, you have a problem with BK or the School? It’s a projection of you and you need to do the Work. The system is designed in a way to allow no feedback or criticism of itself and always turn it back to the blamer, and then make the blamer take responsibility. The SYSTEM then is responsible for nothing, always perfect.

BK claims over and over that she’s never been angry, never had a negative emotion since 1986 or whenever. Yet I watched her get angry more than once. So there was a disconnect between her claims and the reality. The SYSTEM tells you that you are projecting YOUR anger onto her and it’s YOUR problem. See the perfection of keeping the system intact?
... Too many things wrong, and MY opinion was she was a twisted person who desired power, control, love and money.

Fiduciary Capacity and Due Diligence

This quote is from Comment #21 following an article entitled 'Charitable Front' about NATLFED, a different organization than the one discussed here.

All training programs for licensed professionals need to wake up, smell the coffee, and update their curriculum by telling medical students, students in law schools, clinical therapy programs, social work, and accountancy that persons in all these professions are high value recruits for New Wage entrepreneurs and gurus. Such pros make an organization look good.

Two, guruing is unregulated by law. But...if you are a therapist or MD and route people via your practice into the arms of an unlicensed person who runs self help workshops and your client incurs injury, you, the one with the license are left holding the bag...your profession is regulated by law, your guru is in a nice hazy occupation that is not.

It should be noted that psychotherapists also function in a fiduciary capacity in relation to clients and counselees.

[www.sfweekly.com] that recruited physicians and attorneys and law students to sponsor or donate labor. One attorney who chose to distance himself
wrote this:

Quote

Physicians and attorneys work in a fiduciary capacity and must perform a certain amount of due diligence about the people they work with in a professional capacity. When I did mine, I found the NATLFED front groups with whom I had associated to be disreputable. Try asking them detailed questions about how they operate, how they are funded, or who is really in charge. You will discover a murky and suspiciously non-transparent situation that should make you a bit anxious. When things seem to work out beneficially for you as a professional because of your association with them, understand that, behind the scenes, they are exploiting the poor to further their political objectives and that you are simply one more means to their own end, which they will never voluntarily disclose to you.

[www.sfweekly.com]
[/quote]

[forum.culteducation.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2009 08:45AM by corboy.

It's time to bump this again. Please, anyone with info, come forward and add to this thread. This message board is a safe place; Rick has been dragged through courts around the country to protect everyone's right to free speech. Katie talks big, but you have an absolute right to give your opinion and write about your own life experiences from your own viewpoint.

Plus, those contracts you signed would get laughed right out of court. Some rights cannot be signed away. Consult a lawyer if you're concerned.

The more data we can get, the better. Please consider coming forward.

I went to a "therapist" for 2 years that started using Katie Byrons work on me and I didn't realize it. She finally recommended Katie's book to me and I realized that was her entire schtick.

I went off to a Buddhist school and wound up having an existential crisis and was TOTALLY messed up. So I sought therapy, but didn't find the traditional therapist I was seeing had any idea how to talk to me about the things I was processing. So I found someone who was NOT licensed although I did think she had had more schooling that I now think she had. She had supposedly gotten a degree is psychology and worked with autistic kids and people experiencing all sort of intense mental health stuff and she was willing to support the no meds way I wanted to go, so she was really my last shot at the time.

When this woman was speaking as herself, she was actually one of the best "therapists" I've seen. But it was so bizarre, she would suddenly switch gears and suddenly say, "You create all of this, YOU made all of this happen!"

It came to a point where she was trying to get me to take responsibility for abuse that I don't think it would have been healthy for me to take responsibility for. It was supposed to be all me me me. I caused all of it. I actually accepted that idea fairly readily because I already felt very responsible and very sympathetic to the person who was being abusive. Really I have no hard feelings toward him, although there is a LOT to process there (and perhaps there are a few hard feelings but they are mixed with a very deep genuine forgiveness)

I started arguing with her about this philosophy. I was telling her I disagreed with a lot of this new age philosphy. It comes out after a while that she was actually "friends" with byron Katie.

She started telling me stories about the AMAZINGNESS of her eyes and how her charisma was so amazing. She talked about how she went to Byron Katies workshops and how she spoke up against Katie when Katie asked a women to "take responsibility for her role in incest". And then Katie turned to her with her AMAZING eyes and asked the "therapist" to come up and did a session with her.

She said she cried for three days, but that somehow it was healing to realize that SHE had caused all the incest. So I suppose now she's sharing that gift with other people.

I wound up literally telling this woman "f*&k you" at some point in all this when she wanted me to realize that all things were my fault.

I left her practice and I haven't really found anyone better but the second I saw Byron Katies book and how this woman asks people to take responsibility for abuse, suffering, pain, I just knew none of this was right for me. I tried arguing with the "therapist" about it to see if maybe she could switch gears and she sort of tried but ultimately "the work" was simply there and it was awful.

The "therapist" went on to get really ill. I think honestly she was really devastated what one of her star struck devotees had completely turned on her. And stopped working for a long while.

I believe that there is suffering in life. The greatest healing comes from acknowledging and supporting each other and ourselves with the pain that is a part of life. Wasn't it said best in Princess Bride? "Life is pain. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something."

I have been so appreciative of this forum. I pulled out instinctualy, but even though I knew I got it out of my life, the idea was like a weed in me. I still feel so responsible for everything bad that's ever happened. And then I don't. I will need a bunch more therapy to figure out all this messed up-ness as a result of the previous "therapy"

At this point I do not trust ANY therapists, especially any sort of therapist I would get for free, but even the pricey ones, I'm now skeptical of everything.

I still run into people all the time who talk about how great Byron Katie is (yeah I know too many of THAT SORT of people!) and I second guess myself every time.

"Oh well I should do the work maybe. It's all me. All skepticism is me, all suffering, all questioning. Maybe I should just submit and accept"

Sadly people who have gone through psychological abuse in the past are most likely to submit, as that's what they were doing in their abusive relationship as well, ans simply let Katie have all the power.

It's actually the same dynamic. Your human instincts tell ANY of us that what she says is BULLS%&T but yet she makes you second guess the very foundation of reality. Does reality exist? Can you prove anything at all?

So therefore, Katie must be right. Because you can't provide answers to her questions, therefore you should generate the answer that she is leading you to.

Ugh.


this site is truly a breath of fresh air. I am so glad that others are speaking out.

If it had just been a book, then that's one thing, but that she is encouraging therapists to use this technique it's scary and sad. She goes to prisons and talks to vulnerable people. she has talked to veterans and poor people in africa.

All people who are facing really hard stuff and I think are being manipulated by Katie to submit to her way in order to get much needed support that is hard to come by in prison, or among veterans, or among war torn poverty stricken people. She is finding an audience that will feel special just because she looks at them, and who would likely like ANYTHING she said, because they are populations of people that jsut want to be seen and heard. It scares me that people keep hiring her for things like that and I do want to see everyone that can speak out with their experience do so.

As a direct result of "the work" I was doing in therapy I wound up in a long line of really horrible relationships. The first being someone that the "therapist" introduced me to. Who apparently was a sadist, and the therapist told me she knew that afterward, as he was another of her clients.

Thanks.

I knew that asking for or needing love was bad, and therefore that left me feeling like all the guys I was meeting who wanted certain something, but didn't want to love me were in the "right" and I was in the wrong for feeling like I wanted love. So therefore I was bad and they should have whatever they wanted and not love me, because wanting or needing love is bad. And my feelings of wanting love are bad bad bad, I should realize that I don't need anyone and that I should just let people have what they want from me and not want any love. And eventually I'll teach myself not to want love anymore. Or care how many people come and go.

God the whole thing was a mess. I have had 12 relationships with men in my entire nearly 30 years of life and 10 of those relationships took place during the two years of "therapy". (actually not sure they could be called relationships... )

This was a little more than I meant to write, but thanks to everyone at this forum. Very very much.

Did my post disappear or is there comment moderation?

Hi "waterbottle",

It looks like your post made it through. I'm SO sorry you went through what you did with that therapist.

Thank you so much for coming here to share your story. It's very healing to know that we're not alone in feeling disgustingly manipulated by "the work". Hopefully more and more people will figure out that something is very wrong, and then take steps to recover.

Regards,
H2

P.S. I just found out that someone in the field of psychology with whom I used to work, and is now working with a friend, has gotten into "The Secret". My friend who sees her now has just told me.

My friend was so relieved when I told her just what I thought of "The Secret". She kept saying, "I'm so glad I talked to you about this." Now she feels armed with some things to say if the therapist starts touting "Secret" nonsense.

Thank you so much for your response H2! It's hard to believe that anyone would take the secret seriously after this James Ray stuff. It kind of makes me sad that there are still huge supporters of the law of attraction trying to justify this. I really truly disagree with the law of attraction.

I mean the power of intention is huge, but it's not all powerful. We are not responsible for all the forces at work in this universe. James Ray's justification for the holocaust is pathetic and disgusting. As is Byron Katies absolution of "all things being as they should."

Part of compassion is feeling for other humans, 'I wish to alleviate your suffering. I wish to witness your suffering and be there for you in it.'

It's a beautiful thing to love and see your fellow human beings, to be there for them, to try to change the state of the present because there IS suffering. And we can listen pain and let it guide us away from whatever was causing that if possible.

Anyway, thanks H2! I'm glad your friend got a heads up about the secret BS.

That crap is such a mind f*&k. And just plain false and cruel to human beings who suffer on top of that.

Quote
waterbottle
SNIP

She goes to prisons and talks to vulnerable people. she has talked to veterans and poor people in africa.

All people who are facing really hard stuff and I think are being manipulated by Katie to submit to her way in order to get much needed support that is hard to come by in prison, or among veterans, or among war torn poverty stricken people. She is finding an audience that will feel special just because she looks at them, and who would likely like ANYTHING she said, because they are populations of people that jsut want to be seen and heard.
SNIP

Prisons, Africa, veterans homes, warzones, and impoverished areas are warehouses of vulnerable people. They are prey.

Katie is a predator.

So it's a relationship that works. For Katie. And who else really matters? Certainly not the already injured people who she further damages.

I've made up my mind. Katie is worse than Tolle. All Tolle wants is your money and your adulation. Katie's a sadist. She wants it all, and she wants to hurt you.

Thank you very much for your post. It's exactly what this thread is for. It sounds like you've had a horrible experience, but you seem to have excellent instincts and I think the resources on this site will really help you.

You've probably already found this, but be sure to look over the Big Byron Katie thread. This is a thread that's been going on for 5 years, and it constitutes a graduation level course in mind-control, hypnosis, manipulation, and all-around sleazebaggery.

There are many posts discussing Katie's eyes. That might be a good place to start. Don't be overwhelmed by the size of the thread; you can search it or just dip in somewhere.

Big Byron Katie thread:
[forum.culteducation.com]

Please tell us more. It's extremely valuable for us and the public, and many people find it quite healing for themselves.