The Work is a self-inquiry method created by Byron Katie, who dates it to a 1986 breakthrough. You write down a stressful judgement, test it with four questions, then "turn it around" into its opposites. It is free to learn, and the research is promising but small and mostly uncontrolled. Start with our complete guide.
1 guide
The Work is a self-inquiry method created by Byron Katie, who dates it to a 1986 breakthrough. You write down a stressful judgement, test it with four questions, then "turn it around" into its opposites. It is free to learn, and the research is promising but small and mostly uncontrolled.
This hub is the home on Self Help Supermarket for The Work. Our complete guide explains the method, the evidence and its limits. As we check them, videos, podcasts, courses, books and practitioner directories for The Work are added to this page.
This hub is for general information and self-education. It is not a replacement for medical or psychological care.
New to The Work? Our complete guide covers the four questions and the turnaround, the Judge-Your-Neighbour worksheet, a safe exercise, how it relates to CBT, the honest evidence, criticisms and risks, and costs.
The Work is a self-inquiry method created by Byron Katie, who dates it to a 1986 breakthrough. You write down a stressful judgement, test it with four questions,…
Promising for everyday stress, not proven. Most studies are small and many are uncontrolled. A few randomised trials report benefits over no treatment (Landau et al., 2021; Feldman et al., 2021), but most of the research comes from one research group, funded in part by Katie's foundation.
You will find the full evidence, with sources, in the complete guide.
Read our complete guide first. It explains The Work step by step and says plainly what the evidence does and does not show.
Byron Katie is an American author and teacher who began teaching in 1992. Friends and family corroborate her years of depression and addiction before 1986. Her account of waking up free of stressful thoughts rests on her own word, and a 2002 Los Angeles Times reporter could not confirm its more remarkable details.
Learning it is free: the worksheet, instructions, Little Book and a volunteer helpline cost nothing. Paid options include a $0.99 iOS app, two-day events at $600 tuition, and a five-day School that last listed at $2,850. Independent facilitators set their own fees, often $100 to $225 a session.
There is promising but limited evidence. A few small randomised trials report benefits over no treatment, and many other studies are uncontrolled. Much of the research comes from one network partly funded by Katie's foundation. One independent trial found no advantage over simple distraction. It is promising, not proven.
No, though they overlap. Both question stressful thoughts, but CBT is delivered by trained therapists, weighs evidence, builds balanced alternatives and adds behavioural experiments, with thousands of studies behind it. The Work uses intuitive yes-or-no answers and turnarounds. No study has compared them directly, so CBT remains the better-evidenced choice for clinical conditions.
Not necessarily. It is a thought-questioning practice, not therapy, and no study has systematically recorded harms. Take extra care with abuse, trauma, complex grief, severe depression, psychosis or an eating disorder, and work with a licensed clinician. Stop if you feel worse, and use a crisis line if you are unsafe.
Katie says she does not condone abuse and has written that leaving an abusive partner may be "the only sane choice". Critics argue that her stress on personal responsibility, and some live sessions, shift blame onto people who were harmed. Read both sides, and prioritise safety and support over inquiry if you are being hurt.
Do you teach or practise The Work? We are building a directory of trusted practitioners, courses and apps for every technique. Get in touch to be listed.
Apply to be listedThis hub is for general information and self-help education. It is not medical or psychological advice. External resources are selected by our editors and checked when listed; we are not responsible for third-party content.
