"The Work" by Byron Katie

Folks, I started reading about the work and this comes to mind in relation to the statement "The Work method is useful and not continuing suffering":

  • Is it true?

  • Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

  • How do you react when you believe that thought?

  • Who would you be without the thought?

Just my 2c. Who, if anyone, has pondered on that, and what are the results?

a way of getting "a part" to understand the other parts to reduce fight/flight response

Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
How do you react when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?

Turnaround: generating options such as "what if the opposite is true" or "what if I did X" (to contribute to the problem), them coming up with examples

TODO: interesting re: turnaround can become part of Mutual Learning Model.

turnaround can be used as the first two options in Generate Options:

  1. The opposite is true

  2. I'm doing what I'm thinking others are doing

  3. Some combination of the above is true

  4. Something else

Dangers:

  1. Believing that only the opposite is true

  2. It's possible that what you say is true - this exercise is to help move on past flight/fight response and into integrated understanding (IFS-like)

Lots of commonalities with CBT:

Investigative and transforming questions Questions to investigation and analysis of the problem-situation

  • What happened in the situation? (who said/did what, when?)

  • What did you feel then? How were you? (how angry/sad etc. were you on a scale 0-10?

Questions to transforming and restructuring the central thought

  • How convinced are you, that this thought is true?

Argumentation

  • What do you base the thought on? What substance do you have for it? What is the evidence for it?

  • Is there anything in the situation, which can point in another direction?

Alternatives

  • Could you think different in this situation? (More self-supporting and constructive?)

  • What would a more realistic/self-supporting way to think be in this situation?

Worst and best

  • What would the worst be, if your thought is true?

  • Would it be so bad?

Problem-solution

  • If your interpretation/thought is true, what could you then do in order to manage the situation better?

  • Could you lay a plan, so the situation is getting better now/onwards?

Distancing

  • What would you tell your best friend, if he, in the same situation, was thinking in that way?

  • How would you perceive the situation in three months/six months?

LogoA Critique of Byron Katie and her Therapeutic Technique The WorkMorten Tolboll
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