Co-counselling
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Co-counselling (also called Re-evaluation Counselling or RC and spelled co-counseling in US English) is a controversial grass-roots, low-cost form of psychotherapy which uses non-professional training to teach its participants peer counseling. The core organization structure consists of classes and local communities set up by experienced co-counselors, which are in turn organized by regions and country.
Co-counseling training involves basic guidelines for the peer counseling relationship and regular peer supervision in classes and workshops. Participants meet regularly in pairs to give each other peer-to-peer counselling, in turn playing the role of counselor and client, with equal amounts of time allocated to each. It is largely centred around the concepts of adultism and distress patterns, with therapeutic activity occurring during "emotional discharge" of past hurt experiences. Such cathartic discharge includes crying, screaming, sweating, trembling, yawning, laughing and relaxed, non-repetitive talking. As counselors, participants are expected to provide non-judgmental active listening and to "contradict" the misinformation or other conditions thought to be associated with distress patterns. The term "re-evaluation" apparently refers to the client's potential to rethink their past distress experiences and thereby regain ("re-emerge" with) their natural intellectual and emotional capacities.
During the 1970's, the RC approach shifted emphasis to deal more with "oppression" issues for a wide variety of "liberation" groups (e.g., women, working class). As a result, many of its publications, workshops and leadership structure(s) are organized by these liberation groups. The RC organization and affiliates formulated an active response to the 9/11 tragedy and played an active role at the 2001 Durban World Conference against Racism.
Co-counseling was originally formulated in 1957 by the American Harvey Jackins, based on his own experiences as a personal counselor. Jackins travelled extensively and authored many books. His son, Tim Jackins, is currently the international leader of Re-evaluation Counseling and its main affiliates. The movement is split into Re-evaluation Counseling, headquartered in Seattle, Wash., and Co-Counselling International.
The periodic controversies and schisms within Co-counseling may be attributed, in part, to allegations concerning the conduct of key leaders, the hierarchical organization structure, and specific controversial policies (e.g., homosexuality) and management decisions. The external links below provide information on such allegations, which the Re-evaluation Counseling movement tends not to attempt to refute in the public arena on a point-by-point basis. These links also provide access to in-house publications from the RC and CCI movements.
External links
- Reevaluation Counseling (U.S.) home page (http://www.rc.org)
- Co-Counselling International (CCI) (http://www.shef.ac.uk/cci/)
- Independent co-counsellors and co-counselling organizations (http://www.cocowebs.com/)
- Desciption on the UK Association of Humanistic Psychology WWW Pages (http://ahpweb.org/rowan_bibliography/chapter9.html)
- Criticism and concerns about co-counselling (http://www.cocowebs.com/liberaterc/)
- Re-Evaluation Counseling and Counseling on Early Sexual Memories (http://freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/r/reevaluation/sexandrc.htm)