Cognitive De-Structuring, De-framing, Deconstructing

(An update on some previous entries)

The Work of Byron Katie is unlike anything else. However, it seems that the mind's job is to compare and contrast. The mind has a hard time with something if it can't place it in a category. And, any categorization of The Work is placing limits on it. At the same time, discussing The Work in these ways helps me to communicate better with my colleagues and clients. Of course better than describing The Work is doing The Work. The Work speaks for itself and describes itself in the doing of it.

That being said, here goes:

The approach to psychotherapy known as "Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy" is said to be a method of "cognitive restructuring." You identify your irrational thoughts and see how they lead to painful emotions like fear, depression, anger, etc. You then notice how those irrational thoughts and their resulting emotions lead to actions that cause even more pain for yourself and others. Thought = Emotion = Behavior.

Therefore, if we want to change our emotions and behavior we need to work on changing our thoughts. This is where cognitive restructuring comes in. We replace our irrational, unhealthy thoughts with rational, healthy ones. We "challenge" our unhealthy thinking. Healthy thinking will lead to healthy emotions that results in healthy behavior.

So, how does The Work of Byron Katie differ from this approach? Some people might think that The Work is just a re-packaged form of REBT. I use to tell people over and over again that this is not so. However, I had a hard time explaining how it differs. I have done much thinking about this and have come upon a way of explaining the differences that seems to make sense to me.

I know that I am not the first one to put it this way. One of my favorite books is The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy. There is a chapter in this book called "Deconstructing the Self: The Uses of Inquiry in Psychotherapy and Spiritual Practice" by Stephan Bodian that specifically refers to The Work along with other methods of inquiry. He essentially says the same thing that I have realized. He calls it "deconstructing" to distinguish it form "reconstructing." In Emptiness Dancing Adyashanti says it in his own way. He refers to the difference between "re-framing" and "de-framing." Along with those terms I would like to add a third - "cognitive de-structuring."

The little prefix "de" means "undoing." That other prefix "re" means "repetition of a previous action; back to an earlier state or condition; again; contrary." De-construction, de-framing and de-structuring, therefore, have to do with undoing our mental constructs, frames of reference, and thought structures. We are not repeating the same old process of creating mental constructs - no matter how "healthy" they might be. We are not going back to an earlier state. We are not doing again what has failed us in the past - i.e., constructing thoughts to explain reality. We are not creating thought forms that are contrary to the way things are.

The process, using The Work, is something like this: We identify our unhealthy thinking. We inquire into the truth of these thoughts and see that they are not true for us. We see the suffering that results from believing thoughts that are not true. We get a glimpse of what life would be like without these thoughts and we turn them around. All of this results in our thoughts loosening their grip on us. We do not change them. We do not stop them. We question them, and they let go of us. The thought structures are seen as just that - thought structures. They are not reality. And, as Eckhart Tolle says in A New Earth, "all structures are unstable."

Another way of putting this is that one approach has to do with moving from one way of thinking (unhealthy, irrational) to a different way of thinking (healthy, rational). The problem is that we are still operating in the realm of thinking. It is like taking a pig and putting lipstick and a dress on it -- you still have a pig.

The other approach is about moving from a way of thinking (stressful) to a way of being (peace itself). The fourth question of The Work is "Who would you be without that thought?" It is a question about being. The Work takes us out of the realm of thinking all-together and opens us up to our true nature.

We see that a pig is a pig no matter how we might dress it up. A thought is just a thought. It does not define reality no matter how "rational" or "healthy" it is. Who we are is that which is there before the thought, that which is background (often obscured) during the thought, and that which remains after the thought is questioned.