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When i had been afraid to start he had told me that once i started i couldn't go back

This is an example of the shocking arrogance of badly trained people in Human Potential work.

In this case, this dude fulfilled his potential to be a flaming asshole

He also forgot that in therapeutic situations where someone has a clearcut condition and wants relief, that client or patient is vulnerable and deserves to be respected, especially when a person with a stated history of OCD clearly states fear and a desire to stop a process that feels uncomfortable.

This guy was arrogant. He failed to respect your rights as not only a human being but as a US citizen (I assume you are such)

If you an adult, and you are not

*Under oath in a deposition or tesifying in court

*Under arrest

*Convicted of a crime

*On probation

*sentenced to jail or prison, or probation

You are FREE to stop any line of questioning that you find offensive.

He looks bad, and he makes Byron Katie look bad, too.

Your respect for his authority was not reciprocated by any basic respect for you--and you were the one paying him.

Technically this guy was your employee.

If he had been in a mainstream form of therapeutics in which licences are issued by the state and legal guidelines are in place, you could report his behind to the licensing agency.

You might consider writing a complaint that he is practicing medicine without a license and aggravated a prexisting condition of yours. You would need back up from your primary care provider.

Hello Samhocd,

A very sad and upsetting tale. Many thanks for sharing it.

I say - well done to you for spotting a crap therapist. You have a good inner guidance/wisdom. So be proud of yourself for not being taken by a charlatan, however painful the experience you suffered. I know you will find a way forward that works for you. Good luck.

I have spent the last few days reading the other thread on BK & ET. I recently checked her first THIRD book "Loving What Is" out of the library and found it great & helpful all the way up to the part where she conducts "The Work" with the incest survivor. At that point my mind totally rejected her message. I finished reading the book anyway- with hopes that it would right itself again. It didn't.

Almost 2 years ago I had a series of "moments of awareness" where I began to see things in my own life in a drastic new light. Unattachment, radical honesty, reframing, Freedom vs. Safety, stories we tell ourselves. This new awareness I had developed shares some striking resemblance to some of her message. Of course- it shares a lot with MANY other messages. I digress.

What stands out for me now is how she really recommends (for our own good, of course) that her readers NOT do her process on judgements of themselves until they are far more experienced.

When I look at this from my current viewpoint I realize that to do the turnaround on our self judgements would leave the do-er in a stronger position with possibly LESS guilt & shame.

For instance "I'm lazy & judgemental" becomes "I'm not lazy and judgemental".

That result does not really create dependancy. Hrm. Interesting.

So I am wondering about what could be done FIRST to make this potentially valuable experience safe for people with trauma in their background?

I say potentially valuable because I found it (for me) to be an interesting and easy way to find the stories I tell myself. This desire to stop the 'story telling' (or at least identify when I was telling stories to myself) was a part of my own questioning prior to coming across her book.

I am sure that this post is not as coherent as I hoped. And to be clear- I am not in ANY way in support of BKI or the totally irresponsible/fraudulent behavior reported here.

I am saddened but not surprised to find so many truly disturbing facts about BK & Co. Thank you to everyone who has put the effort into these threads to document and point out the techniques being used (in particular AntiCult & corboy).


" There is no meaning to life other than what we create." - V. Frankel

Here is an older post by The Anticult analysing the differences between legitimate cognitive behavioral therapy (which was tested by many different researchers in double blind studies and carefully assessed to determine whether CBT has a statistically significant pattern of actually being more beneficial than harmful.

[forum.culteducation.com]



All legitimate treatment modalities are tested in this manner, rather than being pushed by groups run by charismatic business people who refuse to use their own talent and energy to get trained in accredited clinical programs.

[forum.culteducation.com]

and

[forum.culteducation.com]

Here as the anticult put it,

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Its not appropriate to attempt to make any comparison between registered psychologists and licensed MD's and psychiatrists, and New Wage "spiritual" con-artist salesmen like Byron Katie / James Ray/ Werner Erhard EST.
That is all those guys are advanced SALESMEN at best, and very manipulative cultish leaders, that have destroyed many lives to turn themselves into multimillionaires. They have no training, education, or licensing, its just about making millions.


For example, actual CBT has had hundreds of scientific studies done, and papers published in peer-reviewed journals, that show it can really work for people.

Of course there are bad apples in any field and quacks and crooks, and people have to be skeptical and cautious.

To find the old sales manual, just add the term PDF to it.

PDF Robbins - The Power To Influence (Sales Mastery)- Backtrack Notes

Thank you, corboy!

I am so enjoying how you all have done so much research into the common threads of these coercive groups. My interest in NLP actually stems from Tony Robbins (and some brief exposure to an est offshoot). I feel like I've dodged a bullet more than once with these groups. I went through the sales pitch process for the TR "life coach" training and was very impressed with the results his participants achieve in creating lasting change in their lives. The follow up videos of the participants after 5 or 10 years were impressive. But I think maybe this belongs on a different thread, so I'll search and see if anyone has had experience with that group.

Back to the topic BK. I am becoming more and more aware of the sneaky nature of the stories she tells and how they are engineered to supplant the reader's values with her message.

For instance- there is talk of people "giving" their jewelry at her events. She tells a story in her book about how her husband advises her during their wedding ring exchange to try and hold onto the ring for a while. She goes on to talk about how in the past she's given away an expensive gift he gave her and how nothing ever really belongs to her, etc. So she claims surprise that she still has the ring, although she'd given it to a man they both knew- he gave it back.

If I have more time later I will try & find the exact page# etc.

It seems her favorite manipulation is to relate claims others have made about her. This is seen both in her personal image and in her marketing of what results one can expect. This allows her to avoid responsibility altogether. Gotta love the "savant" shtick. Others say I'm enlightened. Others say they've been healed, etc. This is so frequent that it becomes almost background noise. Of course, Christ used this in the bible. So we can see this has some serious forerunners. Heh.

A clear point for any Christians who are considering her practices would be the bible's strict instruction to "Call no man master". This is a clear divider as the 1,000 names for Joy is written with that exact wording. Of course it's another cross over sales venture to market hubby's translation of the Tao and (of course) it contains the now familiar "I'm not calling MYSELF the master, others are calling me that".

Red Flag.

This is another very meandering post, and I do think I'll devote more time to making my thoughts better ordered before I post again. There is just so much to learn here! I was also thinking about the line between questioning reality as opposed to investigating one's response to reality (Frankel). Key element there.

I really appreciate the links. I'm looking forward to reading them. Also I've checked out a book "Learned Optimism" at the library and am finding it an interesting tie-in to the 'cultivating resistance' aspect of all of this.



" There is no meaning to life other than what we create." - V. Frankel

A note on the Tony Robbins anecdotes and endorsements.
Many people who do those endorsements, are not telling the truth, often to themselves. There have been many "Tony Robbins success stories" from people, who turn out to be bankrupt up to their eyeballs, and just telling BS. Lying.

James Arthur Ray was like this.
One could list dozens of others.
So they just fabricate it.

Also, its self-selection. Tony Robbins doesn't have James Arthur Ray on, telling how 4 people died during his seminars, with techniques learned at Robbins seminars.

Its a numbers game. If 1% of people who attend your seminar get "successful" even just by luck, then that is a lot of people.
They don't talk about the 98% of people who don' t change at all.

So its hype.

and yes.
Byron Katie is IMPLANTING a STORY VIRUS in people's minds about giving away their wedding rings.
She is implanting a very early Open Loop, as detailed on this website in this Byron Katie thread. [forum.culteducation.com]


And its not just about getting people's wedding rings and then pawning them off for cash.
Its a powerful psychological control, of extreme cultic levels.
You see stories, where people have handed their wedding rings over to Byron Katie a seminar, then what is this woman going to tell her husband when she gets home?
Where is your wedding ring?
I gave it to Byron Katie.

That is some outrageous psychological abuse and manipulation, that anyone in the NLP field JAW WOULD HIT THE FLOOR when they heard what is going on.
They would say...BYRON KATIE TAKES THEIR WEDDING RINGS???

Its crude, brutal, ruthless psychological control, being pulled by Byron Katie on soft-targets. Byron Katie targets only easy targets, as she would be laughed off the stage at any advanced influence seminar.
That is why Katie targets people who don't know what she is doing to them.

How many marriages have been destroyed by Byron Katie's techniques?
How many Brides of Katie are now out there, working as BK Facilitators and trying to get the approval of Byron Katie.
Its all very revolting what she does to people without their awareness.



[forum.culteducation.com]
Re: Byron Katie (the Work) wedding ring Transference, Brides of Katie

Im not sure how she thinks "The Work" can help people. I mean ok, she suffered, had some experience, but it doesn't mean you can save people with some half-baked ideas and some strict parent approach. Particularly this idea that you created the whole business of your incest or abuse or whatever. To me this is repugnant how she is saying this. It's just horseshit. It's like the idea in the LGATs that you somehow create the universe. I think these people don't understand how the ego works and how your spirit can suffer aswell. They just have some inkling that you have some identity that creates your life that somehow they don't control and so then they set about trying to insist to themselves and others that somehow you can convince yourself that you control everything. I know it sucks but let's just be honest at least instead of trying to tell rape victims that they created the pain. People like her could drive you over the deep end. I don't care if she suffered.

Check out this video of Byron Katie in which she tries to convince this woman that racism is pretty much all in her head, and then tries to convince the same woman that her father was a good father, and the woman made up her feelings about him being a bad father - Just terrible stuff that has NO basis in reality whatsoever. I can't imagine what kind of psychological mess the woman who was subject to this must have come out in, because this is nothing except reality reversal. The 'turn around' is literally reality reversal.

[www.youtube.com]

Surely the idea should be to change how we feel about something but without necessarily changing what we think. Have a negative judgement about something but feel powerful and not sick in the stomach.

What Katie is trying to do is peculiar. I see that she is trying to help people "suffer" less, but in this way? Particularly this business with this woman and her father. Katie thinks that the woman should not have some negative judgement about her father because it makes the woman feel bad. Maybe the woman would be better if she didn't feel as bad as she did about it but to try it with the Katie method is just wrong. Bad things exist. Bad fathers exist. Hitler existed and was bad. With her method, what do we do with Hitler... look for the good?

Hello, I'm new. I browsed though the posts here, but can't find the ones I wanted to reply to in this long string of posts, so will just address the issues one by one.

I came across "The Work" of Byron Katie through a young relative of mine, who seems to have been helped. So I dismissed her as just another "New Age Flaky."

But when I read one of the posts above about how she made an abuse victim become "responsible" for the abuse they had been through, I realised how dangerous she is.

It's a known phenomenon that the victims of childhood sexual abuse often feel that they were the "cause" of what happened, and even defend their abusers.

Healing can come only when the victim comes to the understanding that they were innocent, and that their perpetrator was the guilty one.

If someone is just beginning to "remember" or have "flashbacks", they are very vulnerable, and to tell them at that point that they were responsible for what happened is extremely dangerous and could even lead to them committing suicide.

So I agree with everyone who says that Byron Katie is a very dangerous person. The fact that she attempts to take people back into childhood traumas in front of a TV audience, also makes what she is doing totally unethical.