Does Katy Perry-approved The Hoffman Process really work?

Katy Perry credits a week-long, $5,350 retreat at The Hoffman Institute in California with helping her turn her life around. The process includes unconventional methods like beating a pillow with a baseball bat and ripping up phone books. Other celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Sienna Miller have also found success with the retreat, which focuses on giving up phones, alcohol, sex, and exercise to live more consciously and break bad behavior patterns. The Hoffman Process, established in 1967 by Bob Hoffman, helps participants dig into emotional histories to foster forgiveness and compassion. Participants must undergo emotional audits before the retreat to uncover behavioral patterns causing anxiety and impostor syndrome. The retreat involves exercises like guided meditation and journaling, as well as physical activities to address negative self-worth. Celebrities and average guests alike participate in the retreat, with some, like Justin Bieber, finding it challenging and leaving prematurely. Overall, attendees have found the Hoffman Process to be a transformative experience that helps them break negative habits and achieve deeper connections with their authentic selves.

One of my commitments was to trust the process. After enough time of screaming and dealing with the emotions, it went from feeling like I’m doing the exercise for the sake of the exercise to realizing that it was a really powerful release.

Los Angeles-based Emily, 34, who works in public relations — who declined to give the Post her last name for privacy reasons — attended the Hoffman Institute in 2022 after a break up. She learned through the program she had patterns of being “overly self-critical and having low self-worth,” she said.

“There were two patterns that I had, until that week, externally blamed others for. Then identifying which parent I adopted that mindset from, and why that parent adopted it as a child, from their parents. A lot of these things are generational, it’s crazy,” she said of the revelation that helped her adopt a new mindset.

She said surrendering her phone and the ping of its news alerts and emails helped her become more grounded.

“We all joked that the world could be ending and we wouldn’t have a clue – the Queen died when I was there and I didn’t find out until days later. By the time the week concluded, no one even wanted their phone back – the internet, social media, and all of the noise that we are consuming every day from the palm of our hands felt overwhelming and trivial.

“It has wholeheartedly changed my life,” she said.

However, some East Coasters less steeped in California’s holistic healing industry can’t quite shake spending upwards of $5,000 to chop wood and scream about their feelings.

Megan P, 37, from Hoboken, New Jersey, told The Post: “Why would I waste $5,350 to release trauma to be ‘on trend’ when I can release trauma in the woods of my own backyard doing yard work at my cabin?” Megan told The Post.

“One week isn’t going to cut it — sounds like a real hippy gimmick to me.”